The Computer That Calls The Hits "Platinum Blue Music Intelligence is a complex computer program that turns music into mathematics. It breaks songs down into 30 or so component parts including rhythm, melody, harmony, beat, cadence, timbre, pitch, and gives each a number. What they have found is just about all hit songs, no matter what genre, fit the same pattern." BBC 06/15/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:05 am
Are We Too Clean For Our Own Good? "Studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen." Wired (AP) 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:15 pm
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Beautiful Fences Make Good Neighbors? So some Americans are determined to build a fence between Mexico and the US. But what should that fence look like? "Maybe some form of backyard diplomacy is in order — Mexico is no enemy — and there are obvious suspects for the job: professional designers, whose duty it is to come up with welcome solutions that defy ugly problems; to create appeal where there might be none." The New York Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:27 am
In New York - Artists Are Playing The Gallery Field "Defections seem to be contagious in Chelsea these days. Long-settled artists are suddenly playing the field, ditching their dealers in favor of galleries with bigger spaces, better locations, stronger connections to museums and collectors and — perhaps most important — a star-studded roster of artists. The difference today, many dealers say, is that it's the successful artists — whose work commands dizzying sums— who are defecting." The New York Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:25 am
A Klimt Becomes The Most Expensive Painting Ever Sold "A dazzling gold-flecked 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan by the cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the highest sum ever paid for a painting." The New York Times 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:07 am
- Klimt Looted By Nazis Brings Record Price "There has been intense speculation about the destination of the five Klimts since they were returned to Maria Altmann earlier this year. Some believed their exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, until 30 June) was preliminary to an offer from the museum for the works." The Art Newspaper 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:04 am
A Building Ramshackle As The Commonwealth There's an attempt to tear down London's Commonwealth Institute. "The fate of the Commonwealth Institute is one of those turning points in the history of taste... When it was new, this was as modern as official London got: a slightly shocking intrusion to the skyline against the backdrop of a Royal Park, with an interior that had something of the flavour of an expo. Of course, that fragile-looking roof leaked almost from the beginning and, as coup followed coup, the dioramas couldn't keep up with changing political and economic realities. The building's present ramshackle state, betraying brave hopes gone sour, is a pretty accurate reflection of the Commonwealth itself." The Observer (UK) 06/18/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:01 am
Revelation: 350 Getty Artifacts In Question Three hundred and fifty artifacts worth $100 million in the Getty Museum have been identified as having questionable provenance. "The newly identified objects include many of the most prestigious and striking exhibits at the trust's recently reopened Getty Villa, the only museum in the US dedicated to ancient art. Thirty-five of the museum's catalogue of 104 "masterpieces" feature on the new list of disputed artefacts. They include a sculpture of two griffins, a marble and limestone sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite and a bronze known as Victorious Youth, which is displayed in its own temperature-controlled room." The Guardian (UK) 06/19/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:25 pm
Zaha Hadid - Architect From A Different Time "Today, armed with a clutch of actual buildings, a Pritzker Prize and a pile of big commissions (as well as the Guggenheim show), 56-year-old Hadid has joined the select society of designers charged with keeping the future up-to-date. Her architecture is so impeccably modern - so virtuously free of reference to Greek temples or Gothic cathedrals - that it appears to belong to a time the rest of us haven't experienced yet." Newsday 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:41 pm
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Kushner's Operatic "Angels" More Literally As An Opera "The rush of time drives 'Angels in America' — first as Tony Kushner's gargantuan Broadway play about AIDS, politics and morality, and now in an operatic setting by Peter Eotvos. Written for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and produced for an American audience by Opera Unlimited at the Calderwood Pavilion here on Friday night, "Angels" as opera thrives on characters who — in their varying pettiness, nobility, cowardice, heart and sheer size of personality — were operatic before there was music to make them so." The New York Times 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:19 am
Daniel Barenboim Takes Leave Of Chicago "For all that Mr. Barenboim has changed the orchestra's character, it is not always apparent to one who has not heard a lot of the Chicago Symphony in recent years what, precisely, the new character is. While the sound retains weight and solidity, it tends more to invite listeners in rather than overwhelm them. Perhaps it is a matter not so much of a new personality as of a new versatility." The New York Times 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:16 am
Classical Music Groups Being Pushed Out Of Lauderdale? Fort Lauderdale music groups say they're feeling a scheduling squeeze from the Broward County Performing Arts Center because of touring Broadway shows. "Officials have privately complained for years that the Broward Center's emphasis on reserving large blocks for touring Broadway shows has made scheduling their performances increasingly difficult." With the imminent opening of the Miami Performing Arts Center, the groups may be looking at other options. South Florida Sun-Sentinel 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 7:56 am
Was Horowitz's Piano The Equivalent Of Bonds' Steroids? "Although it's true that tweaking a piano is not illegal, hardly like ingesting a banned substance, one effect resembles that of steroids. According to 'Game of Shadows,' the recent bestseller that blew the whistle on Bonds, one of the properties of steroids is that they can reduce the effects of fatigue, permitting ballplayers to ignore pain and concentrate on hitting or throwing. A looser action on a keyboard does something similar: You can play runs and scales faster and for a longer period of time with less muscle fatigue. In that sense, you could say that Horowitz's instrument was like a piano on steroids." Los Angeles Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:54 pm
Cleveland-In-Florida - Some Mixed Feelings In Miami there are mixed feelings about a deal that will make the Cleveland Orchestra the resident orchestra of the region's major new performing arts center. Cleveland is one of the world's great orchestras. And yet, some worry that having the orchestra in residence will mean the area won't be able to build its own orchestra. "It's a shame that the hall was built for the local musicians and they're not getting a chance to use it. Obviously, the musicians who were in the Florida Philharmonic would like to be playing in the hall that was built for them." South Florida Sun-Sentinel 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:49 pm
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The Blurbing-The-Critics Game "The art of selective quoting is one of the oldest games in the hype business, and readers are generally wise to it. Ellipses are not a good sign, and if an advertisement features quotes from critics pruned to just one word ("Brilliant!" — Joe Schmo; "Powerful!" — Betty Burns), chances are good the foliage surrounding them is less fragrant with affection." The New York Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:56 pm
Teaching In A Plagiaristic Culture Student plagiarism has become a huge problem for teachers. "Teachers who still assign long papers — 10 pages or more with footnotes and bibliographies — often require students to attach companion essays that describe every step of their research and writing. Even then, teachers scour the Internet for suspicious turns of phrase. And some schools are paying thousands of dollars a year for software that scans work for plagiarism. Those programs reveal that about 30% of papers are plagiarized, either totally or in part." Los Angeles Times 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:44 pm
Hecht On Trial: A Victim of Changing Interpretations? For a man accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of Italian antiquities, 88-year-old Robert Hecht doesn't cut a very imposing figure. In fact, many in the art world say that the collector is being unfairly made an example of. "Hecht is a man who has seen the world pass him by. In the 1950s, shortly after his arrival in Italy, he bought antiquities on the streets of Rome. No one had a problem with it. The shops, Hecht said, would happily ship the ancient cups, coins and statues out of the country if you couldn't take them home yourself. Now, Hecht finds himself on trial for allegedly doing the very things that were accepted practice half a century ago." Baltimore Sun 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:30 am
Of Art And Nation When a major cultural site is looted, as happened with Iraq's National Museum in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003, a curious mix of artistic concern and nationalist passion dictates what happens next. And whether the backdrop is the wartorn Middle East, tribal Africa, or the supposedly "civilized" West, "the elegant lingo of art curators [falls] by the wayside in a high-stakes tit-for-tat." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:15 am
When Diversity Becomes Divisive Issues of diversity and assimilation are nothing new in France, but religious and ethnic tensions have been running particularly high of late, and a new museum celebrating "tribal arts and culture" is sparking new battles in an old debate. "Some critics say the decision to show indigenous art in isolation could create or reinforce a 'them and us' mentality." Los Angeles Times (Reuters) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:56 am
Grave Robber Uncovers Archaeological Stunner "Hoping for leniency in a coming trial, an accused tomb robber led Italian officials two weeks ago to a startling discovery on a sun-scorched hilltop here: the oldest Etruscan burial chamber ever found. The tomb, dating from at least the seventh century B.C., was shown on Friday to reporters who were taken by bus to the site, less than 13 miles north of Rome. For now, archaeologists have named it the Tomb of the Roaring Lions." The New York Times 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:26 am
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Ligeti's Unique Modernist Voice Composer Gyorgi Ligeti, who died last week at 83, "could be mistaken for one of many atonal modernists, whose presence in traumatized post-World War II culture is explained by a global need to put emotions on hold. Ligeti no doubt used modernist musical systems popular among the cerebral musical inventors of the 1960s and '70s. But his Holocaust experience shows his modernist stance to be anything but a means of emotional insulation. Quite the opposite... While other composers wrote music of disillusionment, Ligeti's seemed to arrive from a time when illusions weren't reasonable expectations." Philadelphia Inquirer 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:04 am
The Great Garrison Gulf More than three decades after A Prairie Home Companion first hit the air, host/writer/self-appointed Midwestern everyman Garrison Keillor has become one of the most beloved and reviled figures in American culture. "Keillor is the shock jock of wholesomeness... The mere sound of [his] voice—a breathy baritone that seems precision-engineered to narrate a documentary about glaciers—is enough to set off warfare between the generations." Slate 06/16/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:37 am
A Poet's Poet America's new poet laureate is not exactly what you might expect of a writer in such a prominent position. "At age 77, living what has been a well-filled but private literary life, Donald Hall is a bit shocked at the intense national media attention to his appointment." Hall has been publishing poems for over forty years, and in the often-snarky world of American literature, he stands out as a writer about whom no one seems to have a negative word to say. Boston Globe 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:28 am
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The Theatre That Ate (Or Energized?) Minnesota... Minnesota's Guthrie Theatre has always been a giant on the local theatre scene. But what impact will the theatre's huge new building have on the Twin Cities? "Will the new Guthrie, with an invigorated regional and national profile, create a rising tide that will help lift all theaters in the area? Or, with its increased need for audience and financial support, will it become the Theater That Ate the Twin Cities?" St. Paul Pioneer-Press 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:22 am
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What Linguists Do... How do you "spread the word that linguists are not polyglots, language cops, or anarchists, but fact-seeking, fun-loving, rule-embracing folks?" Boston Globe 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:57 pm
Ellen Seligman On Editing Fiction: Seligman is Canada's "top fiction editor": "You read a book, and maybe one can say what maybe needs work or what could use revision here and there. So, a reader might be able to do that. But if you're really going to be useful, I think an editor has to understand what is possible to do. So you learn to develop the idea that 'Okay, this is this book' and you learn to make a distinction between what changes would make it another book as opposed to what can be done with the rough parameters of what the author wants to do with this book." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 7:59 pm
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Trade Association: Chinese Pirates Cost Movie Industry Big Bucks A movie association group says pirates in Chine cost the movie industry $2.3 billion in revenue last year. "China's film industry lost about $1.5 billion in revenue to piracy last year, while the major U.S. studios lost $565 million, according to data released on Monday by the Motion Picture Association." Yahoo (Reuters) 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:29 am
Amateur Video Maker Scores TV Deal An amateur 20-year-old who posted homemade videos to YouTube was signed to a network production deal last week. "Major TV studios have also started trolling YouTube and similar destinations for the next generation of acting and directing talent. In the process, the Web is offering the kind of instant connection to Hollywood that countless denizens of public-access talk shows have craved and seldom received." Los Angeles Times 06/19/06
Posted: 06/19/2006 8:11 am
A Purge Of Film Critics They're dropping off the pages of American newspapers. "All around the country, experienced critics are being kicked out in favor of glorified interns...who seem excited merely to have been invited to an early screening of `M:I:3' and who can be counted on to file frothingly appreciative, advertiser-friendly copy." Boston Globe 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:44 pm
Phone Company To Carry PBS "Under the agreement with the Public Broadcasting Service and the Association of Public Television Stations, Verizon will carry up to three digital public television stations in a market, as well their multicast stations." Backstage 06/16/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:35 pm
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Is American Dance As Good As Dead? An increasing number of young American dancers are heading to Europe to seek work. Some hope to build a career that will someday lead to professional prospects back home; others don't expect ever to return. "While many American dance companies scramble to stay afloat, Europe is stocked with stable and respected companies buoyed by state funds. And a generation of Americans has successfully come of age there... There is a sense, at Juilliard and elsewhere, that the era of great American dance has passed. Europe, in contrast, seems a fertile ground for new work, especially in contemporary ballet." The New York Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:15 am
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