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Monday, July 17




Ideas

Needed: A Map Of The Academic World "It is now relatively easy to produce and distribute content. But it also proves a challenge to find one’s way around in a zone that is somehow expanding, crowded, and borderless, all at once. With such difficulties in mind, then, I want to propose a kind of public-works project. The time has come to create a map. In fact, it is hard to imagine things can continue much longer without one. At very least, we need a Web site giving users some idea what landmarks already exist in the digital space of academe." InsideHigherEd 07/12/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 7:27 am

Where The Population Is Declining World population growth is a big problem. But "forty-three of the 193 nations around the world will register a decline in population by 2050. Russia's population is expected to decline by a staggering 31 million, from 143 million people to 112 million people. Alcohol is one of the main factors contributing to this decline, primarily among men. It is accountable for the world's largest life expectancy gap between men and women in any country. On average, Russian men can expect to live only to the age of 55." Boston Globe 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:39 am

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Visual Arts

Is Venice Dying In A Sea Of Tourists? "If left unmanaged, the sea of tourists may be a lot more threatening than the Adriatic Sea. Currently, around 15m people visit Venice each year, while the city has a resident population of about 60,000. Around the world literacy and cultural awareness are increasing. Incomes in India, China and Eastern Europe are now increasing very rapidly; there are 2.5 billion people in India and China alone who within 50 years might have incomes comparable to ours. That means that the number of people who want to see Venice and will be able to afford to see Venice might very plausibly expand by a factor of three or more over the next few decades." The Art Newspaper 07/13/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 8:25 am

UK Museums Closing For Lack Of Local Funding Support Britain's museums are in crisis, according to one of the country's leading arts charities, which has released research showing that historic institutions are being neglected by cash-strapped local authorities. The Observer (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 10:24 pm

The British Museum's Pragmatic Reconfigure Neil McGregor has transformed the fortunes of the British Museum in his four years at the top. Now he's planning a major show, and, to get enough room to show it, is taking over the historic Reading Room. "Few, however, expect the plan to pass uncontested. Curators at the BM are resistant to disturbance and backwoods traditionalists and backbench MPs will doubtless rally in support of the dodo. Stand by for a tabloid outcry, the anti-literate in defence of the unread, before the Reading Room is finally submersed." La Scena Musicale 07/12/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:24 pm

Chihuly Lawsuit Poses Ownership Questions A lawsuit brought by glass artist Dale Chihuly against a former employee raises "intriguing questions about what makes any artist's work unique, what qualifies as inspiration and what defines a mere knock-off." The ex-employee's dealer "expects the suit to cost him $1.6 million. He says the suit already has cost him a lot of business, including a cancelled deal with Costco stores to produce a special line of sea shapes for $550 a pop." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:12 pm

Group: Canadian Museums Are Endangered "Canada is in danger of losing several of its museums because of a funding freeze that has lasted 34 years, says the Canadian Museums Association." The situation has been brought about, the association says, by a funding freeze that has lasted 34 years... CBC 07/15/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:31 am

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Music

London Symphony Goes Young In search of building audiences for the future, the London Symphony Orchestra targets babies... The Guardian (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 7:36 am

Opera's Power List Who are the most powerful people in American opera? Opera News made a list. "You have the expected, of course: the chiefs of the four biggest opera companies (and eight of largest 10), high-powered agents from IMG and CAMI, the two maestros named James (Levine and Conlon), "The Diva" (Renée), and, naturally, The New York Times (collectively). But there are a few surprises, too." PlaybillArts.com 07/14/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 10:10 pm

  • A State Of Opera Power Why make a list now? "There's new management in many other houses, including major companies in Houston and San Francisco as well as dynamic smaller companies such as Atlanta Opera and Madison Opera. And everyone's talking about the same thing and asking the same questions: What's the future of the art-form? Where are new audiences going to come from? How are we going to maintain the cultural relevance of opera in the United States? In response to this compelling scenario we made a list of 25 names that represent power in the industry now as the industry looks forward." PlaybillArts.com 07/14/06
    Posted: 07/16/2006 10:02 pm

The Small Town With The Big Music Little out-of-the-way Salida, Colorado doesn't have much music. But every summer, the toen hosts a major league chamber muic series. "The historic Arkansas River town of 5,000, best known for kayaking and art galleries, is hardly a classical-music mecca, yet folks there have managed to keep a summer chamber series going for 30 years." Denver Post 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:48 pm

Atlanta Opera Quits City, Moves To Suburbs "Beginning in fall 2007, it will make the new arts center's 2,750-seat Williams Theatre its home. The move is historic: It marks the first time a major-city opera company will leave its established location within a city and move all its performances to a suburb, according to Opera America, a service organization based in New York. And though metro Atlanta's reputation may be that of one large, sprawling landmass, for the opera, being in Cobb County could present an uncertain bundle of financial, sociological and political ramifications." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:08 pm

  • Atlanta Opera Cuts Back Programming, Sells Headquarters The company will "sell its Midtown headquarters for $4 million and make significant cutbacks in its programming. The moves will allow the 27-year-old opera company to pay off its $2.85 million debt and trim back its annual budget by $1 million. The actions come on the heels of its historic decision last month to move its performances from Midtown's Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center to the new Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in 2007." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/13/06
    Posted: 07/16/2006 12:04 pm

Why Opera Languishes In Boston "Twice in the past, Boston has arrived at the top level of international opera, with a combination of adventurous repertoire, major singers, and theatrically exciting productions. This occurred early in the 20th century at the old Boston Opera House on Huntington Avenue, and later on with the late Sarah Caldwell. But this can't even be a goal nowadays for two basic reasons: There isn't the money for it because of competition for funding with older and more prestigious arts organizations such as the BSO. And there isn't a suitable venue." Boston Globe 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:35 am

Man Hears/Records Songs Of The Dead A Canadian fiddler claims he hears music written by dead people. "Holed up in his trailer in Inverness, Cape Breton, the 81-year-old master fiddler pens 10 to 15 tunes a day, often hunched over his kitchen table. By his own count — and he keeps a daily tally on small sheets of paper — he has produced 33,300 compositions, but he still balks at publishing them, saying he hasn't yet reached his personal goal of 35,000. Yet MacDougall insists he's not creating art; he's simply recording history. 'It's from the people who lived here before ... they could make [songs], but they couldn't write them'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/15/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 10:59 am

Building Homes For Musicians In New Orleans Volunteers are building a housing village in New Orleans for musicians. "The housing program is run by Habitat for Humanity. Saxophone player Branford Marsalis and singer Harry Connick Jr., honorary chairmen of the charity's Gulf Coast rebuilding program, dreamed up the idea to encourage musicians to move into one area. The group bought a vacant lot formerly owned by the city school board and is using its army of volunteers — about 3,000 of them so far — to build 75 homes. It plans another 225 houses elsewhere in the neighborhood." Yahoo! (AP) 07/15/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 10:56 am

The CD Audience Gets Grayer "The neighborhood record store was once a clubhouse for teenagers, a place to escape parents, burn allowances and absorb the latest trends in fashion as well as music. But these days it is fast becoming a temple of nostalgia for shoppers old enough to remember 'Frampton Comes Alive!' In the era of iTunes and MySpace, the customer base that still thinks of recorded music as a physical commodity (that is, a CD), as opposed to a digital file to be downloaded, is shrinking and aging, further imperiling record stores already under pressure from mass-market discounters like Best Buy and Wal-Mart." New York Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 10:50 am

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Arts Issues

A Grand Plan To Reconsider Shostakovich "Valery Gergiev, the director of the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Theatre, has come up with a grand plan to rebut these fatuities, commanding, on the centenary of the composer's birth, a fabulous spread of Shostakovich's work to be set before the world's cities. All 15 Shostakovich symphonies are being performed, under Gergiev's own baton (at the Barbican), along with all his less well known operas and ballets, in a celebration that the conductor hopes will convince the world to see the composer differently." The Telegraph (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:36 pm

Some Claim The Love's Out Of Berlin's Loveparade The history of Berlin's "Loveparade is the stuff of myth, as documented in countless guidebooks and Web sites. The first Loveparade, in July 1989, was actually staged as a political demonstration, and it attracted a crowd of about 150. Over time the parade grew and grew, the number of attendees skyrocketing for more than a decade. According to the Loveparade Web site (loveparade.net), the event has had more than 8.8 million visitors since its creation and has attracted some of the world’s most famous D.J.’s." But changes this year have some of the original organizers protesting. The New York Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:25 am

Massachusetts Overrides Governor, Approves Arts Infrastructure Aid Last week the Massachusetts legislature approved millions in funding for improving and repairing arts infrastructure. "The groups surveyed said they needed about $1.1 billion to repair, expand, or construct buildings in the next five years. Governor Romney vetoed the $13 million for the fund this summer, but this week the House and Senate decisively overrode his veto. 'This is not the Legislature saying, 'Hey, we want better ballet on stage. It's saying, 'We want these cultural resources improved as the infrastructure for tourism.' " Boston Globe 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:15 am

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People

Opera's American Champion "In the first decade of the 21st century, Mark Scorca may be the most passionate activist for opera in America, a role for which he appears to be typecast. As president and chief executive officer of the New York- based national service organization Opera America, he knows virtually every plot twist in the challenging music dramas that big and small opera companies face on a daily basis." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:44 pm

The Forger Goes Legit "John Myatt is an artist. He is not, he is the first to admit, the world's finest artist. He is, however, quite possibly the world's finest forger. What he is doing, now, for up to £5,000 a painting, is forging to order, entirely legitimately: his 'genuine fakes' are stamped as such on the obverse, and his perfect (if Dulux) versions of, say, Giacometti's Seated Nude, or Matisse's The Pink Room, now grace ski lodges in Aspen and villas in Tuscany. It's all great fun, and above board: it wasn't always so." Toronto Star 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:20 pm

Netherlands Goes Nuts For Rembrandt On His 400th Birthday "The town of Leiden hosted a festival where 17th-Century food and drink was served at restaurants and entertainers performed street theatre. In Amsterdam, some of Rembrandt's most famous masterpieces have been put on display. Saturday also saw the opening night of the quirky Rembrandt the Musical at Amsterdam's Royal Theatre Carre." BBC 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:28 am

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Theatre

Are Writers' Estates Ruining Innovation? "The oddity of the general intransigence of the posthumous representatives of Brecht and Beckett has always been that both dramatists were radicals who overturned theatrical convention. Yet subsequently their executors have sought to seal these free-thinking pieces in an artistic formaldehyde at least as strong as the conservatism that the authors originally stripped away." The Guardian (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 7:47 am

Is There Any Other Theatre Like Chicago's Steppenwolf? "Most regional theaters would have hesitated to produce a single one of the works in the current Steppenwolf season (which can now be viewed as a whole). Steppenwolf willingly took seven doses of box office poison in the name of its art. Back to back. Especially because it took an inevitable and fiscally sobering toll on subscription levels, it's an accomplishment worthy of note and admiration. But the anniversary season also reveals something about how much this theater has changed under artistic director Martha Lavey." Chicago Tribune 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:41 pm

Thinking About It (The Real Theatre) On London Stages this summer the interior side of acting is on show. "In a season rich with A-list actors giving bright external life to the shadows of the human mind, it is often — more than anything that is actually done or even said — the thought that counts." The New York Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:33 pm

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Publishing

Not Enough Good Fiction In Toronto? Toronto Life's last annual fiction issue has gone to press. Why no more? Not enough good writing to be found? "Spurred by the realization that Toronto had become one of the world's literary hot spots, the annual fiction issue was launched in 1997, and has received as many as 200 submissions annually. The magazine canvassed publishers, agents, members of the Writers' Union and others to gather a range of material. The idea was to find stories consistent with the mandate of the magazine, and for the first three years this proved feasible. But by the fourth year, the magazine was inviting submissions from across the country." And not finding them. Toronto Star 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:17 pm

What's A Memoir Without Some Pain And Suffering? "Contemporary memoirs tend to be either convalescent or nostalgic in mood. Suffering produces meaning. Life is what happens to you, not what you do. Victim and hero are one. Hence the preponderance of memoirs having to do with mental illness, sexual and other violence, drug and alcohol addiction, bad parents and/or mad or missing loved ones." The New York Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:31 pm

The Essence Of The Literary Magazine "Where indeed in the independent 'little' literary magazines does the pleasure lie? The exercise of judgment, the settling of scores, the advocacy or the pillorying of the new: each magazine has an area of rhetorical specialism, a politics, and advances or counters the interests of a movement or a generation. In the past three decades, which magazines have made a substantial mark, a difference, a contribution?" The Guardian (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:23 pm

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Media

The Phenomenon That Is YouTube YouTube, the internet video site phenomenon, is now serving 100 million videos a day. "YouTube videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online, the company said. Videos are delivered free on YouTube and the company is still working on developing advertising and other means of generating revenue to support the business." Yahoo! (AP) 07/17/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 8:18 am

"Pirates" Is Already The Year's Top Movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" had another smash weekend at the box office, earning an estimated $62.2 million. In only ten days, the movie has grossed $258.2 million, making it the top-selling movie of the year. Yahoo! (AP) 07/17/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 8:14 am

Why Aren't Books And Culture On American TV Or Radio? "In America, when people advocate gutting government support of PBS and NPR, which Congress tried again this year despite President Bush's mild opposition, they often cite cable TV and talk radio as the marketplace's answers to any audience needs. That's hardly the case when one considers what laughably passes for books-and-arts coverage on cable or talk radio. I've detected no such programming on commercial radio, except when another culture-war distraction flares up. And there's precious little on cable." Dallas Morning News 07/16/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 7:33 am

A&E Channel - Our Own Definition Of "A" In recent years it's been hard to find the "arts" in the A&E cable channel. Not so, says A&E's chief programmer: "I would completely refute that. I think they're absolutely about the arts and culture and pop culture. You look at this country and 50%, [a] huge chunk of the population belongs to gyms even if they don't go to them. It's a huge focus on bodies and exercise and getting fit, and I think absolutely this is representative of our culture. We're getting at it from a sort of particular angle and following, you know, personalities here, but that's absolutely about representing the arts and culture. So, yes, it's — you know, we're not focusing on the traditional arts, but I think both these series are going inside the creative process." Los Angeles Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 11:18 am

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Dance

ABT - More Than The Crowds American Ballet Theatre's season at the Metropolitan Opera House is a crowd pleaser. "Whether it or any company could be great and grand enough to fill the 3,900-seat Metropolitan Opera House consistently on the highest artistic level week after week is another matter. Ballet Theater needs the Met to certify its grandeur; the Met needs Ballet Theater to plug a two-month hole in its schedule with a lucrative rental. The match is not ideal." The New York Times 07/17/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 8:01 am

Acosta: Dealing With The Color Barrier "The first black principal of the Royal Ballet, Carlos Acosta was adamant about not being typecast. He has been a pioneer in the extension of colour-blind casting from opera to classical ballet. 'The fact that I'm the first black Romeo - and I make people forget it - is a big achievement,' he says. 'If they'd judged me for my looks, and put me in a box, the world would never have seen the Romeo that lies beneath me ... In New York there are black dancers and their aspirations are constantly killed.' Yet in his view, recruitment of black people into classical ballet, as opposed to contemporary dance, remains a problem." The Guardian (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/17/2006 7:43 am

Jewel In The Bolshoi Crown Svetlana Zakharova is the Bolshoi Ballet's reigning star. "In the flesh, it's hard not to be a little dazzled by Zakharova's improbably fine features and impossibly big blue eyes - but these are merely the finishing touches of a long, strong, beautifully proportioned body that's one of the great balletic instruments of our times. On stage, such is her athleticism and purity of line, that one doubts she has ever found anything difficult. Is this true?" The Telegraph (UK) 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 9:32 pm

Choreographers Of The World's Most-Seen Dance Rich and Tone Talauega are "two of the most sought-after choreographers for television commercials, which makes them two of the most important and influential choreographers in the world: in the course of just 30 seconds, their work will reach millions of people, far more than ever see even the most successful theatrical dance production. And for their labors they’re paid far more than a theatrical production could manage: upwards of $3,000 a day." The New York Times 07/16/06
Posted: 07/16/2006 12:26 pm

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