Looking To Shakespeare For Leadership "Some 2,000 books are published each year on 'leadership', but perhaps we don't need to look much further than the lessons we can learn from our greatest writer and dramatist: William Shakespeare." New Statesman 07/03/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 10:55 pm
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Fighting For Women Artists - Have The Guerrilla Girls Helped? Since the 80s, the Guerrilla Girls have been protesting the lack of representation of women artists. "They say it's amazing how little has changed: in 2005, they conducted some fresh research into European collections, and found that, even where museums owned significant amounts of work by female artists, it was all in the basement. To coincide with last September's Venice Biennale, they released the following statistics: of 1,238 artworks exhibited by the major Venice spaces, fewer than 40 are by women." The Guardian (UK) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 11:18 pm
Klimts For Another $140 Million? "Four Gustav Klimt paintings, including three landscapes and a portrait, 'Adele Bloch-Bauer II,' may be sold this year for $140 million or more, said art dealers - and auctioneers who have been competing for the job." Bloomberg.com 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:44 pm
Missed Culture - Liverpool Pushes Ahead With Late Museum "Liverpool is pushing ahead with its proposed waterfront museum, despite losing Lottery money and missing the opportunity to complete it by 2008, when the city becomes European Capital of Culture." The Art Newspaper 06/28/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:22 pm
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Turning Porgy Into A Musical Director Trevor Nunn is turning Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" (the opera) into "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" (a musical). So why does such a great opera need to be reimagined (or at least repackaged)? "It's the most sensational, wonderful, wonderful score, and so many of the people in the world know it but they don't know they know it," Mr. Nunn said in a telephone interview yesterday from London, where he was attending auditions. The problem, he said, was that the operagoing audience is small. The New York Times 06/30/06
Posted: 06/30/2006 9:09 am
20 Percent Own Digital Music Players A new study reports that "one in five Americans over the age of 12 now own a portable digital music device, and one in 20 of those quizzed said they possessed more than one." BBC 06/30/06
Posted: 06/30/2006 8:49 am
A South Bank Master Plan Falls Short? London's South Bank Center is reopening next year after a 110 million pound makeover. What will go inside? A plan has been announced "intended as a radical blueprint for a new era of cultural activity in Britain's most prestigious and heavily funded arts centre. The heavily-trailed 'vision' incorporates closer collaboration between four resident orchestras at the Royal Festival Hall - the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment." La Scena Musicale 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 10:24 pm
The Zen Of Air Guitar (It's Really Big) "In recent years, the air guitar has become a cult phenomenon, sparking air-eoke tournaments in cities across the nation. Undoubtedly, the most impressive offshoot of the air-guitar craze is the invention of the Virtual Air Guitar, a computerized pair of gloves developed by students at the Helsinki University of Technology that monitors a player's hand movements and pumps accompanying electric guitar riffs through an amp." Christian Science Monitor 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:38 pm
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Philly's Kimmel Surprises With Surplus After struggling with its finances, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center has managed not only to balance its budget but post a surplus of $1.2 million. "While a surplus would be good news by any standard, Kimmel leaders acknowledge that this year's numbers benefited from two unusual circumstances: a long summer run of The Lion King, the industry's coveted cash cow; and income from an out-of-court settlement after the Kimmel sued its own architect, Rafael Vinoly Architects." Philadelphia Inquirer 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:30 pm
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Andrew Carnegie, America's Prototypical Philanthropist "Fond of saying that 'the man who dies rich dies disgraced', Carnegie was the first great rags-to-riches American philanthropist - bluff, optimistic, intuitive and, as he got older and richer, increasingly sanctimonious. Born in 1835, he was the son of a jobbing weaver from Dunfermline who was reduced to poverty when hand-looms were supplanted by steam-powered ones. His mother, a proud and cultured woman, resorted to selling groceries and mending shoes to keep the family clothed and fed." The Telegraph (UK) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 10:42 pm
The Critic As Rock Star Sasha Frere-Jones is pop music critic for The New Yorker. And he "occupies the somewhat unprecedented position of being both one of the most influential critics in the game — his colorful, incisive critiques are accessible enough for the layman, yet are revered by the cliquish music-crit community — while simultaneously moonlighting as would-be rock star." LAWeekly 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 7:36 pm
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If All Of America Could See Just 365 Plays... "From Nov. 13, 2002, to Nov. 12, 2003, Suzan-Lori Parks wrote a short play each day. Now comes '365 days/365 plays,' conceived and produced by Parks and Bonnie Metzgar. Billed as the largest theatrical collaboration in U.S. history, hundreds of theater companies around the nation will team to make sure that each play is staged on its fourth birthday — or at least during its birthday week — starting Nov. 13, 2006." Los Angeles Times 06/30/06
Posted: 06/30/2006 8:54 am
How The Web Is Helping Actors "As it has for professionals in all fields, the Internet has become an invaluable resource for performers to land jobs and make connections seemingly overnight. The proliferation and popularity of inexpensive Web-only series and "mobisodes" (content created for mobile devices) has been a boon to nonunion actors. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have also recognized the importance of online media, making negotiations for residuals from content rebroadcast on the Web and mobile phones a priority." Backstage 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 8:45 pm
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Your Virtual Library For The Home Collection Tim Spalding created a website where "members can create library-quality catalogs of the books they own and display their collection to fellow online bookshelf browsers. He launched LibraryThing.com in August as a way to bring the organizational joys of the librarian to a wider array of book nerds. Ten months later, his concept has blossomed into a vibrant community with 47,670 registered members - some paying - and a user-created catalog that includes more than 3.6 million volumes. In theory, that makes LibraryThing the 58th largest library in the U.S." Wall Street Journal 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 10:48 pm
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DVD Sales, Rentals Slump In the first half of this year "video purchases are down 3.6 percent, to $7 billion, while rentals fell 3.9 percent to $3.9 billion. Studio executives aren't surprised, saying that the now-mature DVD business has become increasingly product-driven." Yahoo! (AP) 06/30/06
Posted: 06/30/2006 9:45 am
Is The CBC Tone Deaf? The CBC is planning to pre-empt its flagship national network news show one day a week in the fall to make room for an American "reality" show. "What’s so revealing about this whole affair is that it shows just how out of touch the CBC is with, er, reality. It’s like the people who run the CBC live in some sort of alternate universe, where the normal rules that govern television programming don’t apply." London Free Press 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 11:29 pm
Tsunami Mini-series Draws Ire A BBC mini-series about the Asian tsunami has angered victims for the disaster. "Thai survivors and relief workers say they were most angered that the crew chose to re-enact the disaster - complete with dead bodies and overturned cars - on the main road through Khao Lak that was devastated by the giant waves. Others were upset the crew chose to put up flyers throughout the tsunami-hit region, saying victims were needed as extras." Yahoo! (AP) 06/29/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:55 pm
Study: Public Radio Audience Declining America's public radio stations are losing audience. "Listening to locally produced music slid first, but other categories also lost momentum—even network news, which has fueled pubradio’s audience growth. Listening is measured in billions of listener-hours per year." Current 06/12/06
Posted: 06/29/2006 9:16 pm
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