Wednesday, June 7
The Problem With Books "Efforts to update the book are hampered because, culturally, we give extreme reverence to the form for the form's sake. We hold books holy: children are taught there is no better use of time than reading a book. Academics perish if they do not publish. We tolerate censors regulating and snipping television but would never allow them to black out books. We even ignore the undeniable truth that too many books, and far too many bestsellers, are pap or crap. All this might seem to be the medium's greatest advantage: respect. But that is what is holding books back from the progress that could save and spread the gospel of the written word." The Guardian (UK) 06/05/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 5:59 pm
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Report: Scenario Where Art Market Could Decline "Contemporary art prices have quadrupled since 1995, according to index-maker Art Market Research. In recent years, they've been propelled by growth in the U.S. and emerging markets, where wealthy businessmen have started to buy their national art at international auctions." But a new report says art prices could collapse if there's a global economic slowdown. Bloomberg.com 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 5:57 pm
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Warner Rolls Up Classical Label Warner Classics is no more. "Warner Classics is being rolled into Rhino, Warner's reissue division, though it is unclear at the moment of the parent company's ambitions in the classical music world. This move by Warner reduces the so-called majors in the classical record arena to just EMI, Universal and Sony-BMG." Gramophone 06/02/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 8:18 am
Tony Hall's Covent Garden Turn-around "When he took over five years ago, leaving his post as director of BBC News to do so, Hall was described in the press as having taken on the 'dirtiest job in the arts'. The opera house was emerging from a particularly dark period; indeed, the television fly-on-the-wall documentary series The House had shown it as chaotically organised and financially in tatters." Now "the ROH has now balanced its books for the seventh consecutive year and Hall, once the arts world outsider, has just renewed his five-year contract." The Telegraph (UK) 06/07/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:54 pm
UK Fans Can Copy CDs They've Bought "UK music fans no longer face the threat of prosecution for copying their own CDs on to PCs or MP3 players, as long as the songs are only for personal use." Thus says the British recording industry. BBC 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 5:49 pm
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Ottawa Arts Center Posts First Deficit... Ottawa's National Arts center posts its first deficit in six years. "The year's planned deficit of $891,720 was funded by surpluses accumulated during the past six consecutive years," the statement says, adding that the NAC still retains an accumulated surplus of almost $355,000." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/06/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 8:15 am
Outlook For Culture... We hear all the time about the arts being endangered. But maybe that's not the reality... "Pop culture remains mass culture, of course, and people who consume entertainment with the help of electronics continue to outnumber those who prefer the real thing. But the doomsayers who expected the arts to be swept away in the "digital tsunami" of the past decade, as it's been called, turn out to have been gratifyingly off the mark." Chicago Sun-Times 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 8:01 am
A Scary Summer For Canadian Arts Groups? Will American tourists refrain from going to Canada because of terrorism fears? Will Canadian arts ventures that depend on American tourists suffer this summer? "And thanks to the shrinking U.S. dollar, Canada is no longer the bargain it used to be. The result could be a summer of discontent for arts groups that flourish only when they draw large numbers of Americans, such as the Stratford and Shaw festivals." Toronto Star 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:33 am
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A Critic On Board? Tyler Green reports that New York Times art critic Grace Glueck is on the board of the Berkshires' Clark Museum. "Would the Times allow its labor reporter to serve on the board of a labor union? Or could a Times science reporter sit on the board of the American Lung Association? What about its religion columnist: Would it allow him to serve on the board of a church, even if, say, he didn't write about that church? (Glueck last wrote about the Clark in 1991.)" Modern Art Notes (AJBlogs) 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:08 am
Photographer Arnold Newman, 88 Arnold Newman, the portrait photographer whose pictures of some of the world's most eminent people set a standard for artistic interpretation and stylistic integrity in the postwar age of picture magazines, died yesterday in Manhattan. The New York Times 06/07/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:50 pm
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Getting Ahead With The Circus "The idea of using circus arts to help troubled youth was the brainchild of the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil. The Montreal-based entertainment empire began its first two "social circus" pilot projects in Chile and Brazil, in 1995. Today, Cirque du Soleil has 50 projects running in 19 countries, many of them in developing nations. Cirque du Soleil says the programs help get kids off the streets, off drugs, and improve their performance and behavior in school." Christian Science Monitor 06/06/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:03 am
Altered Reality - The Play's The Thing A reality show tries to pick a play that can be produced in London's West End. "Is a West End play different? You'd think the answer would be a straightforward no - a play is a play is a play - but if anything emerges from the first episode, it's that the concept is indeed nebulous. Sonia Friedman and her fellow judges, agent Mel Kenyon and actor Neil Pearson, row spectacularly as they sift through the 30 shortlisted entrants (cherry-picked from over 2,000 submissions: more than double the number of people who applied for Pop Idol, according to Younghusband)." The Guardian (UK) 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 6:54 am
Jerry Lewis To Direct Nutty Professor Jerry Lewis is going to direct a Broadway musical version of "The Nutty Professor." "I've had an awful lot of inquiries about it for years, and I never really bothered to pay much attention to it. I saw this kid perform, and he wanted very much to do that, and he had money. I said, 'With those pockets, we'll give it a shot.'"
Yahoo! (AP) 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:38 pm
Vegas The New Broadway? Naaw! (Didn't Work) Hairspray becomes the second high-profile musical to close prematurely in Vegas. "We make this decision with regret and disappointment, but with the reality that the show did not find the audience it needed for us to continue." Backstage 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 5:52 pm
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The Digi-Book, 2.0 Techies are taking another shot at making a digital book that someone might want to read a book on. Alex Beam is skeptical... Boston Globe 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 8:07 am
Canadian Book Buyers Angry About US Markup Canadian book buyers are grumbling because though the Canadian dollar has risen dramtically against the US dollar, they're still being charged a premiukm. "It's very conspicuous to people, so they have been murmuring their discontent. The breaking point came when the Canadian dollar hit 90 cents. The murmur turned into a crescendo. There is no beneficial exposure (to the strong dollar) on the part of booksellers; that windfall is going to someone else. But we are in the line of fire." Toronto Star 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:30 am
Revisting The Da Vinci Code Plagiarism Case Did Dan Brown plagiarize large sections of The Da Vinci Code? "One of the things that was interesting about it was that you can have a strong case in the this-doesn't-smell-right sense and that has no bearing on the legal definition of copyright infringement." The new York Times 06/07/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:48 pm
Zadie Smith Wins Orange Zadie Smith has won this year's Orange Price for fiction for her book "On Beauty." "Her previous two novels, White Teeth and The Autograph Man, were shortlisted in 2001 and 2003 respectively but failed to win. Ali Smith's The Accidental - nominated for last year's Man Booker - and Nicole Krauss's The History of Love were among the six books vying for the title." BBC 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 5:48 pm
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US Congress About To Pass Supercharged "Indecency" Fines The US House of Representatives is debating a bill that "would boost the top fines that the Federal Communications Commission could impose on broadcasters from the current $32,500 to $325,000 for each violation. A vote was scheduled for this afternoon. The legislation, expected to be signed by President Bush, is another outgrowth of Janet Jackson's breast-revealing incident at the Super Bowl that has made the FCC more aggressive in cracking down on indecent and obscene material on TV and radio airwaves and in turn has prompted broadcasters to be more cautious in the material they air." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) (AP) 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:43 am
The Dawn Of Live Internet TV? "Two well-known talk-show names are going head-to-head starting next week with original, high quality, Web-only TV-type shows. Talk shows, specifically." USAToday 06/07/06
Posted: 06/07/2006 7:27 am
Wisconsin Wants To Be In the Movies The state is offering generous tax incentives. The state will have one of the more aggressive tax schemes in the country, with a refundable credit of 25% of direct production expenditures for feature films, television movies, episodic and miniseries television, video games and broadcast advertising production. Also being offered is an investment tax credit of 25% that can be claimed for investing in Wisconsin-based productions and a 15% state income tax credit for film, television and electronic game production businesses that make a capital investment by starting a business in Wisconsin." Yahoo! (AP) 06/06/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:40 pm
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Believe In Flamenco "If you assume that flamenco is all phony histrionics, you've probably never seen Soledad Barrio in action. Her performances start with a quiet, silky grace, but by the end she is more creature than human." The New York Times 06/07/06
Posted: 06/06/2006 11:45 pm
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