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Weekend, June 24-25




Ideas

Mass Distraction The Information Age was supposed to provide humanity with access to endless streams of information, carefully organized and readily available to anyone with a computer and a bit of know-how. But how are you supposed to take advantage of such bountiful excess when you're forced to deal with a constant stream of pop-up ads you can't get rid of, "informational" e-mails you didn't ask for, and other newfangled distractions? It's a serious matter, according to researchers who have been studying worker productivity, and the unceasing interruptions are having a profound impact on our ability to concentrate on the tasks at hand. The Guardian (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:01 am

The Morals Clause What do we do when the greatness of an artist's work clashes with a serious flaw in his/her character? For years, the debate has raged around the music of Richard Wagner, a notorious anti-Semite whose music became, for a time, synonymous with the Third Reich. But what about the British composer Benjamin Britten, who has been known for decades to have been something close to a pedophile? Should this fact affect the way we listen to his music? Should we listen to it at all? The answers aren't easy... CultureVulture (Guardian Blogs) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:54 am

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Visual Arts

Is The Russian-Fuelled Art Boom Due For A Fall? There's no longer any doubt that Russian collectors have been fuelling a major art boom on both sides of the Atlantic. But how long can this particular bubble last? "The last time the market hit such heights was at the end of the 1980s, followed by a crash that saw New York's SoHo, then the city's main gallery district, end up a ghost town... According to current wisdom, this boom is safer because the new globalised market means more stability. The last boom was all about one economy, Japan's, so it was snuffed out when that economy collapsed. But the new markets could be as yet too new and shallow to rely on." The Guardian (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:51 am

Art You Can See, Taste, Hear, And Smell Wassily Kandinsky may have had more than just paint in mind when he crafted his masterpieces. "Music - and the idea of music - appears everywhere in Kandinsky's work... To support his colour theories, Kandinsky appealed in his manifesto to the evidence of synaesthesia, the scientific name for the condition in which the senses are confused with one another (as when someone hears the ring of a doorbell as tasting of chicken or whatever)." The Guardian (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:48 am

All's Well At AGO (Or Is It?) "This week, even as an information picket went up around the Art Gallery of Ontario (its 266 staff represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees could strike after June 29) management told the annual meeting that all was well. Although the AGO is undergoing a major reconstruction, its annual attendance topped 475,000 visitors, and it is on budget and acquiring new works. The upbeat report communicated management's positive attitude to the picketers, but it bears scrutiny." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/23/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:45 am

Cleveland Museum Facing Construction Delay "The Cleveland Museum of Art has delayed an addition to its parking garage -- an important part of a larger, $258 million expansion and renovation -- because of a holdup with a $7.5 million federal grant. The delay could increase the cost of the garage expansion because the museum had to reject construction bids this month and will have to seek new ones... The delay also means the museum will have fewer parking spaces than it needs in February when it holds a blockbuster exhibition on the paintings of French Impressionist Claude Monet." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:52 am

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Music

Why Jazz Doesn't Always Sound Good In Great Concert Halls Carnegie Hall is, of course, one of the world's great concert halls, just so long as you're talking about symphonic music. But throw the best jazz band in the world on the Carnegie main stage, and you've got a major acoustical problem on your hands. The problem has to do with electronics - halls built to showcase the raw sound of an orchestra just aren't built to deal with the high-octane amplification systems used by jazz and pop musicians. The problem can be overcome without too much trouble if the guy running the sound board knows how to do it, but a large percentage of board operators just aren't used to working in such an environment. The New York Times 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:46 am

Norwegian Strike Ends In Mediated Settlement Norway's musicians' union has called off a month-old strike that could have crippled the nation's many state-supported symphony orchestras, after musicians accepted a draft settlement proposed by a mediator. "The strike began in Bergen in late May, disrupting the opening of the west coast city's annual music festival. It later spread to the national Opera and the Oslo Philharmonic, which was forced to cancel its Asian tour. The musicians were protesting annual salaries that average NOK 350,000 ($58,300) and the fact that they have to pay for their own instruments and their own gala clothing that's worn during performances." Aftenposten (Oslo) 06/23/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:14 am

Gelb's Met Can't Come Soon Enough There's no longer any doubt that the Metropolitan Opera will undergo a dramatic shift when Peter Gelb takes over this fall, and with all due respect to Joseph Volpe, Rupert Christian says it's time for a change. "Artistically, [Volpe] has presided over a regime that has been cautious and conservative, excessively in thrall to the tastes of its elderly subscribers and sponsors. Despite its superb orchestra and roster of stars, the Met hasn't had much luck with its half-hearted attempts to employ the more radical generation of directors, and its need to churn out seven shows a week often makes it seem more like a factory delivering the goods than a hub of creativity." The Telegraph (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:36 am

Honolulu Finally Finds New Leadership The perenially strapped Honolulu Symphony has named a new executive director to replace Stephen Bloom, who resigned a year ago. Tom Gulick, a marketing expert who most recently served as director of Ballet Pacifica in suburban Los Angeles, "will have to immediately address lingering symphony concerns that include negotiating musician, management and staff pay raises — their first since taking a 20 percent pay cut and reduction in benefits in 2003 — and helping the orchestra's search for a replacement for long-departed music director/ maestro Samuel Wong." Honolulu Advertiser 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:20 am

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Arts Issues

Trouble In Paradise? Great Britain's arts scene should truly be the envy of the world, and increasingly, the UK's successes are making their way to other nations as well. "We export £6 billion of cultural products each year, mostly thanks to music and theatre. That’s more than the United States manages, for all of Hollywood’s huffing and puffing. Why, then, is there disquiet in the arts world? Is global success masking an intractable problem at home? Or is there a perception of black clouds massing on the horizon? The answer is both." The Times (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:46 am

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People

Japan's Lone Wolf of Literature "Haruki Murakami would seem the very picture of the Japanese writer-prophet... it's hard to recognise the writer often derided by the Tokyo literati as an apathetic pop artist - a threat to the political engagement of Japanese fiction... As dreamy and introverted as his disaffected protagonists, Murakami has no literary friends and never attends parties. He has spent large stretches of his adult life in Europe and America," and his writing often seems more at home in the pop culture-soaked West than in his native land. The Age (Melbourne) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:28 am

Aaron Spelling, 83 Legendary TV producer Aaron Spelling, the creative force behind Charlie's Angels, Beverly Hills 90210, and other prime-time soap hits, has died a week after suffering a major stroke. "According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Spelling was 'the most prolific TV producer of all time,' producing more than 5,000 hours of television programming, including more than 300 hours of made-for-television movies and at least a dozen films." BBC 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:20 am

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Theatre

Guthrie's Gamble As Minneapolis's huge new Guthrie Theater opens for business this weekend, there's no question that the company has succeeded in building serious national buzz about its new home. But some observers wonder whether local audiences used to the old Guthrie's intimate surroundings will be put off by the grand scale of the new complex. And it's not as if theatregoers don't have other choices. "Guthrie's challenge in 1963 was to educate a market with only one Equity house, a few short-lived professional companies and a dozen community theaters. [Today, the company] is facing a mature -- some would argue saturated -- market in which he hopes to sell 140,000 more tickets each year." Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:32 am

Shakespeare In The Sky With... Umm... Music & Such-Like "The residents of Stratford-upon-Avon awoke yesterday to find a flotilla of hot air balloons drifting over their roofs serenading them with ambient music and readings from Shakespeare. The abstract sound-dream music, the composer called it - was pumped out of speakers attached to seven balloons which, for 45 minutes, brought sleeping residents slowly and serenely to their waking senses as they floated overhead. That was the idea, anyway. The reality was, hovering sometimes as little as 150ft up, they provoked a rush of pyjama and dressing gown-clad men, women and children into their gardens to get a better look." The Telegraph (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:41 am

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Publishing

Oh, Georgia, You Just Make It Too Easy Sometimes... A suburban Atlanta library system has a new policy that is angering Georgia's large immigrant community: the library will not buy any new books in Spanish, starting now. The county library board had previously set aside $3000 per year for the purchase of Spanish-language material, but the subsidy was eliminated "after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants." Los Angeles Times (AP) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:25 am

We're Banning Reference Books Now? A North Carolina school district has banned the much-lauded Cassell Dictionary of Slang, claiming that the book, which includes some 87,000 entries, is somehow inappropriate for children. Not surprisingly, the impetus for the ban came from a Christian fundamentalist group, which is also seeking to ban many other books, including Maurice Sendak's "Mickey In The Night Kitchen" and Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War." The Guardian (UK) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:15 am

Wait 'Til The Harry Potter Kids Get Involved "A London hospital that holds the copyright to Peter Pan has questioned the appropriateness of a series of books that portrays the character Wendy exploring her sexuality. The Lost Girls books, by graphic novelist Alan Moore, are about three world-famous characters: Wendy, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The characters meet one another and have sexual adventures. Wendy not only engages in erotic trysts but also encounters pedophiles." Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:33 am

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Media

Emmy Looks To Broaden Its Horizons "The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the overseer of the annual Emmy Awards for prime-time television, has revamped its procedures in an attempt to spread the wealth of Emmy nominations — if not the actual awards — to a broader array of actors, actresses and shows. That could result in some overlooked and new titles making the list of nominees in the top Emmy categories for the first time when this year's nominations are announced on July 6." The New York Times 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 9:39 am

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Dance

PBT Extends Director, Promotes Six Dancers "Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre announced Thursday a three-year contract extension for artistic director Terrence S. Orr, as well as its 30-dancer roster, starting with the 2006-07 season. Ten new dancers have been hired and six promoted... The resignation of four principal dancers was announced earlier this season. Seven members of the corps are not returning." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 8:10 am

Still Waiting For The Downbeat It's been a year and a half since New York City Ballet began its search for a new music director to replace Andrea Quinn, who steps down from the post this weekend. For some, the search process, which is expected to be concluded sometime this summer, has been exhilirating, but some of the ballet's musicians have taken to referring to the process as the "New York City Ballet School of Conducting," a reference to the greenness of many of the candidates. New York Sun 06/22/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:56 am

Fallout Continues In Colorado Since longtime Colorado Ballet artistic director Martin Fredmann was forced out last fall, the company has seen a number of changes on both sides of the curtain. But even if the changes eventually lead to a stronger dance troupe, there's no question that a number of talented people have lost their jobs, and the wounds are still fresh. And some observers are wondering if the new regime in charge of Colorado Ballet is really as that interested in dance as they are in a balanced budget. Rocky Mountain News 06/24/06
Posted: 06/25/2006 7:28 am

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