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Thursday, June 29




Ideas

Making Geekdom Safe For All The Little Hipsters "To those who dwell in the design universe, Apple Computer has accomplished the near-impossible: making nerdy computing products seem hip and friendly. Sleek, ergonomic, and accessible, first their computers and now their iPods have gained raves and a cult following, and they have brought terms like ``nano" out of geekdom and into everyday use... Now, with the opening of an architecturally audacious retail store in Manhattan, Apple has crossed another design threshold. The Apple Store Fifth Avenue has made the ultimate statement of design and product packaging by morphing the design of Apple products with the design of the building that houses them." Boston Globe 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 5:40 am

McDonald's - An International Refuge? "Despite its vaunted reputation as a juggernaut of American culture, McDonald's has come to function as an ecumenical refuge for travelers of all stripes. This is not because McDonald's creates an American sense of place and culture, but because it creates a smoothly standardized absence of place and culture — a neutral environment that allows travelers to take a psychic time-out from the din of their real surroundings. This phenomenon is roundly international." Yahoo! 06/05/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 6:49 pm

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Visual Arts

There's A Fine Line Between Art And Theft "In the postmodern world it seems, one man's art can be another man's property.So it was that a member of the Vancouver Police Department strode into the ultra-cool Contemporary Art Gallery on a lovely, sunlit afternoon one day last week to inform the gallery that [a local businessman] wanted his signs back. The gallery was caught red-handed. The signs were right there, bold as brass, in the gallery's big front windows... The gallery quickly agreed to return Mr. Grandy's signs, but not without considerable bemusement and wonder at it all." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 6:17 am

AGO Narrowly Averts Work Stoppage "A last-minute tentative agreement has averted a strike at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, representing 260 employees, reached a deal with AGO management at 9 p.m. Wednesday. A strike was scheduled to start at 12:01 a.m. Thursday." The Globe & Mail (CP) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 6:11 am

Sometimes, You've Gotta Leave Home To Truly Appreciate It Poland has had a complicated history, and the country's artists have sometimes struggled to craft a true national identity. A new show in Chicago traces the 20th century history of Polish art, especially as it involves the migration of Polish artists to Paris. "Factors contributing to identity also changed, so that at the start of the exhibition looking to Western Europe was progressive whereas at the end it was thought to interfere with national allegiance. But this makes the show more interesting rather than less." Chicago Tribune 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 5:52 am

And Soon, No Eating And No Talking! Chicago's lakefront Millennium Park has drawn plenty of raves from art critics and other journalists since opening a few years back. But some in Chicago have begun to notice some strangely un-parklike (and downright unfriendly) rules in place amid the statuary. For instance, who's ever heard of a park where playing catch is banned? More to the point, what's the purpose of having a huge public park that thinks it's a museum? Chicago Tribune 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 5:48 am

Finding The Balance Between Art And Entertainment "Where museums were originally established with the responsibilities of, simply, housing and looking after the objects from which the public was encouraged to learn, today's museums (and their funders) want to provide an experience - and not just of the art. They want the museum to have more broad appeal. As museums become more businesslike in their efforts to appeal to the public, there is a fear that they will distance themselves from those characteristics that make them desirably different from commercial businesses: That entertainment (glitzy blockbusters) will replace study (scholarly small-scale discoveries), liveliness replace quiet contemplation, and communication replace communion." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 06/25/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 6:31 pm

What State Restoration? Conservation of art work is a big business. But how do you conserve artworks from the 20th Century whose materials are fragile and prone to disintegration? Well, you can ask the artist... The New York Times 06/29/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 6:06 pm

Toronto's AGO To Shut For Construction The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto will shut for 6-8 months while construction of its building is completed. "The gallery's ambitious, Frank Gehry-designed transformation and expansion, expected to cost $254-million, has already cost it almost a 30-per-cent decline in visitors. About 665,425 people strolled among the paintings and sculptures in 2004-05, but last year only 475,000 visitors found their way past the hoardings to the temporary side entrance to view art amid the occasional rattle of jackhammers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:18 pm

Why Get Excited About The High Price Of Klimts? "The truth is that applying words such as 'worth' and 'value' to art is an abuse of language. They are terms not of art but of a science, that of economics. They describe price in a market in which supply is fixed but demand exorbitant. Nobody does Klimts any more. The picture was expensive because, unless Christie's was pulling a fast one in a "negotiated" secret deal, there must have been another buyer prepared to pay nearly as much. Getting journalists to hype a work of art to legitimise its market price is playing with words." The Guardian (UK) 06/23/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 4:37 pm

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Music

UK Orchestras Saved From Crippling Insurance Bill Orchestras in Great Britain won't have to pay a potentially disastrous health insurance bill that could have pushed several of them into bankruptcy. "Many orchestras are formed of self-employed musicians and have not paid national insurance on the income paid to them, as they would have had to for permanent staff... Revenue and Customs has advised the chancellor that the orchestras do not have to pay the contributions, thus averting not only the back tax bill of £33m but an annual future bill of £6m." The Guardian (UK) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 5:20 am

Now That's Audience Building Dressed up in tuxedos and hard hats, the Nashville Symphony gathered this week to pay tribute to those without whom their glittering new concert hall would never have been built. No, not the high-rolling donors, or the architect, or even the politicians who approved the funding plan. The audience for this private concert was made up entirely of the construction workers whose part in the success of such venues is frequently overlooked. Nashville City Paper 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 5:10 am

Expense-ive Tastes Valencia's impressive new opera house, known as Palau de les Arts, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, was hailed as an unqualified success at its opening last year. But controversy has sprung up over the high salary and expenses run up by the hall's superintendent. Helga Schmidt earns over €180,000 a year, far more than her counterparts at other Spanish opera houses; and in the last two years, she has reportedly racked up nearly €300,000 in travel, hotel, and car service costs. Whether such costs are actually out of line is up for debate. PlaybillArts 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 4:57 am

Music Dinosaurs Try To Eat One Another Music giants EMI and Warner have rejected offers from each other to be bought out. Clearly there's synergy here, but... "A merger between EMI and Warner Music has long been mooted and the companies have had merger negotiations before. Although the companies rank third and fourth on the list of the largest music groups, they have the biggest music publishing assets, together accounting for around 32pc of the market." The Telegraph (UK) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:50 pm

Canadian Pianists Shut Out Of Canadian Piano Competition No Canadian pianists have made the cut for this year's Honens International Competition in Calgary. "More than half of the 150 pianists who entered were eliminated without playing a note, on the basis of their applications and reference letters. Seven Russians and six Americans made the cut. The other successful contestants, whose average age is 25, are from Korea, Israel, Brazil, China, Germany, Ukraine and Georgia." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:14 pm

Orchestra Selling Itself On eBay "On June 23, just before a rehearsal, the Belgian chamber orchestra Beethoven Academie was informed that its government grant was to be eliminated entirely as of 2007 — in effect, that it has six more months to live. In desperation, and figuring that you can buy and sell anything on eBay, it put itself up for auction on the web site." PlaybillArts 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:11 pm

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Arts Issues

Apparently, God Hates The Guitar Pope Benedict has denounced the modernization of church music, particularly that including (shudder) guitars, and has ordered Catholic churches worldwide to reacquaint themselves with Gregorian chant. "What this cultural authoritarianism completely overlooks is how radically the congregations for liturgical worship are changing. The single, central kind of music heard in church in the past has, as in so many areas of our life, been completely overtaken by a huge variety of styles and tastes: who is to say that different generations cannot worship to the music of Palestrina or pop, Josquin or flamenco?" The Telegraph (UK) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 4:46 am

Ordway Chief Steps Down "David Galligan has resigned as president and CEO of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. Galligan, former chief operating officer at the Walker Art Center, had held the Ordway position since 2002." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 6:46 pm

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People

James Levine Loses 35 Pounds After a shoulder injury forced him off the podium, Levine worked on his health. "It allowed me to restart. Everything in the training, everything in the diet could be done without my having to save energy for rehearsals and performances. What's very important to my work is the continuity and repetition, to be able to go deeper and to have the response of the orchestra, etc., deeper. This thing forced me — I never would have stopped — this forced me to use the time to get to a different state."
Los Angeles Times 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:09 pm

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Theatre

Director: Critics Caused LOTR's Early Closing It's official: Lord of the Rings is dead in Toronto, where the multi-million dollar show was launched less than a year ago. The show's director lays the blame for the untimely demise squarely at the feet of the Toronto press, which did not exactly embrace the show. "Calling London the 'spiritual home' of The Lord of the Rings, Mr. Wallace argued that the production, which will open in the West End next June, has a distinctively British sensibility that North American critics did not appreciate." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 6:03 am

  • So What Really Went Wrong? Emotional ranting aside, it's unlikely that snarky critics were actually responsible for Lord of the Rings falure to connect with Toronto theatre audiences. "Despite some innovative stagecraft, The Lord of the Rings, in the version critics saw at least, was a hollow, lifeless affair with no real emotional pull to the storytelling, the music or the acting. The story itself proved confusing to anybody not familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy of books. Not even the lengthy synopsis in the program was of much help." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/29/06
    Posted: 06/29/2006 5:55 am

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Publishing

Georgia Library Reinstates Spanish Books A Georgia public library system that was going to stop buying Spanish-language books has decided (after public outcry) to continue buying. "We heard from people on both sides of the issue and we heard from a lot of the press. We are choosing to restore that line item. ... We were not trying to send any signal, but everyone seemed to think we were." Yahoo! (AP) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:00 pm

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Media

Ontario's TVO Handed Cash, Told To Refocus Ontario's public broadcaster TVOntario will be getting a major makeover in the next two years, courtesy of the provincial government. An additional CDN$25 million has been allocated to TVO for the express purpose of refocusing its mission on education. The channel (not affiliated with CBC, Canada's nationwide public broadcaster,) will also be permitted to "use a portion of the much-needed government funds to replace its antiquated television cameras with digital equipment." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 6:00 am

Now On YouTube: NBC NBC has made a deal with YouTube.com to "create a channel on the site for rebroadcasts of the network's shows as well as original programming, another sign that websites for user-generated content have entered the world of mainstream media." Bckstage 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 4:46 pm

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