Thursday, May 4
A New Idea In Collaborative Writing (Or Book By Committee)
A Scottish technician is auctioning off the writing of pages of a book on eBay. "So far, eight pages of the unique book, Novel Twists, have been written by eight different people from Scotland, Canada, Ireland, the US, and England. Nobody knows who is going to write the ninth page, never mind the following 241. Each author has to contribute between 250 and 450 words, making for a book of 62,000 to 112,000 words. As for the plot, it's anybody's guess."
Glasgow Herald
05/01/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 5:12 pm
Where Does Life Evolve The Fastest?
In the tropics. "A census of all the plants and animals around the world would reveal that species richness is uneven: it is highest in the tropics, the regions of Earth near the equator, and lower the closer one goes toward the planet's poles."
LiveScience.com
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:12 pm
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Spurned In Paris, Pinault Opens In Venice
It's been only a year since Paris declined to build a new museum to house billionaire collector François Pinault's art collection. Now the collection's first show is in Venice. "In this astonishingly short span of time, the interior of the palace has been sensitively remodeled, again to a design by Tadao Ando. Alison Gingeras, a brilliant young curator on the staff of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, has put together a breathtaking array of works from Pinault's collection, a selection that ranges chronologically from Mark Rothko to Jeff Koons. The result is likely to upstage the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a museum that has long dominated the field of modern art in Venice."
New York Times Magazine
04/30/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 7:58 am
Does deYoung Museum Have A Papua New Guinea Problem?
"There's recent news that a handful of sculptures at [San Francisco's] M.H. de Young Memorial Museum may be the 'national cultural property' of Papua New Guinea, and if so, probably were exported illegally. Whether or not that turns out to be true -- an official from the Port Morseby museum who was here last month thinks three of the pieces are on the list -- San Francisco museum officials say this issue shouldn't be compared to the controversial Met and Getty situations."
San Francisco Chronicle
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 7:46 am
Picasso Sells For $95 Million
A Picasso was sold for $95 million Wednesday night, the second-highest price ever paid for a painting. "The image of Maar, one of Picasso's mistresses, was sold on the second night of the important spring auctions. "Boy With a Pipe" (1905) holds the record price for a Picasso. That painting sold for $104.2 million in May 2004."
The New York Times
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 5:10 am
Broad Foundation Buys 570 Beuys Works
"The Broad Art Foundation has purchased 570 works by the late German artist Joseph Beuys, an influential thinker and socially conscious force in avant-garde 20th century art. The acquisition comprises a nearly complete collection of the artist's 'multiples' — groups of mostly three-dimensional works produced in more than one edition to make them widely available. These works are regarded as the essence of his production."
Los Angeles Times
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:39 pm
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Gaddafi, The Opera
English national Opera will presnt an opera about Libyan disctator Muammar Gaddafi. "The opera tackles some of Libya's most controversial moments on the world stage, including U.S. attacks on the country in 1986, the Lockerbie disaster of 1988 and the shooting of police officer Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya's London embassy in 1984. Little wonder its creators see the project as high risk for one of Britain's two main opera houses."
Yahoo! (Reuters)
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 9:32 am
The Morgan Library Gives NY A Fine New Concert Hall
"New York has few intimate and acoustically appealing halls in the 250-seat range. The Morgan is hoping that its handsome space — designed, like the pavilion, by the architect Renzo Piano — will become a valuable resource. It usually takes concertgoers (this one, at least) time to assess the acoustics and qualities of a new hall. But it's clear from the get-go that this one will be welcomed by the music lovers in the city."
The New York Times
05/04/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 9:26 pm
Vaughan Williams' "Lark" Wins Poll
Listeners to the UK's Classic FM radio station have voted Vaughan Williams's work Lark Ascending the most popular piece of British classical music. "Edward Elgar came second and third with Cello Concerto in E minor and then Variations on an Original Theme. Welshman Karl Jenkins - the only living composer in the top 10 - was fourth with The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace."
BBC
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 5:07 pm
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Art Against The Fuhrer
"A Leipzig performance artist has found an original way of disrupting neo-Nazi marches and demonstrations. When the skinheads come to town, the German Apple Front is there to meet them -- complete with its very own Führer of fruit. The group was founded after the right-wing NPD party was voted into the Saxony state parliament."
Der Spiegel
05/03/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 7:39 am
Reading Canada's Arts Budget
So what does the Canadian government's newly announced arts budget mean for the arts? "Good news in that the 302-page document actually contains measures, albeit modest ones, with some application to the arts. Bad news in that these measures aren't commensurate with what arts organizations say they need and, for some, indicate a worrying direction on the part of the government."
The Globe & mail (Canada)
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 7:14 am
Non-Profits At A Crossroads
"Nonprofit America is serious business: There are currently over 1.3 million nonprofit corporations in America, employing 11 million people with 5.7 million more working as volunteers. One in 10 working Americans works for a nonprofit. Nonprofits account for roughly 10 percent of the GNP, with over 100 universities and colleges offering nonprofit-management degrees and certificates However, the size of the nonprofit sector is no indication of its health. In fact, nonprofits are in trouble..."
The Stranger
04/27/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:54 pm
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Music Critic Leighton Kerner, 79
"Leighton studied at Tufts University and Boston College, receiving degrees in chemical engineering and journalism, before beginning his writing career at Women's Wear Daily, in 1951. In 1955, he moved to The Voice, which carried his byline until 2004. His honors during his Voicetenure included two ASCAP/Deems Taylor Awards and a letter of distinction from the American Music Center. He also wrote for Musical America and Travel + Leisure."
Opera News
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 7:14 am
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Lord of the Rings - Packing For London?
The mega-expensive musical Lord of the Rings has not exactly been a hit with critics. But Andrew Lloyd Webber — "the undisputed king of mega-musicals as well as one of the wealthiest men in the world — made a 24-hour flying visit to Toronto last weekend just to catch the show. The upshot: Insiders say LOTR's next gig is likely to be at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane, owned by Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group."
Toronto Star
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 7:28 am
Chichester Festival Theatre - Chance For A Turnaround?
"After years of surviving, and surviving handsomely, as a strictly commercial operation, the theatre is now one of the most generously subsidised regional theatres in the country, with an Arts Council grant of some £1.5 million this year. What's more, over the past three few years, the theatre, built by the public subscription of local citizens in the early 1960s, and so often derided by some of my colleagues as being irredeemably safe and middle-class, has been winning golden critical opinions." But the box office went wrong, the theatre's leadership resigned, and now there's someone new to try to fix things...
The Telegraph (UK)
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:48 pm
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The Art Of Book Blurbing
"The blurb is a longstanding practice in publishing — nowadays, it’s jarring to find a book that isn’t garnished with adoring verbiage. While there’s no empirical proof that blurbs help sell books, no publisher would dare print a book without one."
CBC
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:42 pm
Behind The Book "Packager"
What exactly is this "Alloy Entertainment", the book packager responsible for the now infamous Kaavya Viswanathan book now withdrawn for plagiarism? "They have writers who don’t exist, and they have writers who don’t really write the stuff, and they have one series supposedly by one author that are by many. There’s no one-to-one alignment between anything that gets produced and the producer. There’s no literary accountability."
New York Observer
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:06 pm
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Movie Star Salaries Falling?
"After years of ever-rising star salaries, the prices for top talent are now coming down because the cost of making movies is going up, among other issues." Yahoo! (Reuters)
05/04/06
Posted: 05/04/2006 9:28 am
Frist Pushes Tough New Broadcast Indecency Regs In US Senate
US Senator Bill Frist is trying to push through a tough new version of indecency standards for US broadcasters through Congress. The new regulations would impose a tenfold increase on fines for indecent broadcasts... Backstage
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:36 pm
Movie Industry Counts Cost Of Piracy
For the first time, the movie industry has counted up what it says the costs of piracy are. "The MPAA released its first comprehensive study of movie piracy late Tuesday, estimating that the major studios lost $6.1 billion last year to bootlegging, illegal copying and Internet piracy." Backstage
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:21 pm
Church To Show Trailer Refuting Da Vinci Code
Sydney's Anglican Church is showing a trailer in 250 movie theatres giving its side of the story on "The Da Vinci Code." "The 20-second trailer depicts Jesus's reaction to the book's claim that the church lied about a secret bloodline. The Dan Brown novel explores the theme that Jesus has living descendants. The trailer tells cinema-goers about a special website which challenges the truth about the theories in The Da Vinci Code." BBC
05/03/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 4:00 pm
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NY City Ballet - Not The Vatican Anymore?
"Of the four other major Balanchine-driven companies in the United States — along with the Miami City Ballet, serious contenders include the Boston Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet — dancers now have viable alternatives. When Balanchine was alive, City Ballet was the Vatican; now, with directors like Mr. Villella, a City Ballet star of the 1960's and 70's who cherishes the kind of coaching in depth that is not part of City Ballet's system, the choice of whether or not to stay in New York isn't so clear-cut."
The New York Times
05/04/06
Posted: 05/03/2006 9:21 pm
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