Reconstructing A Document Of The Ancient World "Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers." Wired 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:42 pm
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At The Guggenheim - Paid To Talk Up The Art That visitor at the Guggenheim is no ordinary patron. He's been hired to be there. "Although all of New York’s major museums have educational programs, only the Guggenheim hires people to mingle full time in the galleries, interacting with museum patrons in all their quirky diversity." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:13 pm
Arthur Erickson - Architecture As Exercise Arthur Erickson is Canada's top architect. Greatness has eluded him, but why? "Erickson remains strangely disengaged from architecture as anything more than an exercise in aesthetics. In an age as ugly and coarse as ours, one is loathe to complain about an architect whose main preoccupation is beauty, yet even the most diehard connoisseur of buildings must admit they have a broader function, a larger social responsibility. The best buildings — and the most beautiful — transcend themselves in a way that Erickson's rarely do." Toronto Star 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:08 pm
Artist Sues Over Destruction Of His Mural Artist Kent Twitchell has filed lawsuits over the destruction of his large-scale mural "Ed Ruscha Monument" that was painted over in June. The defendants, "the suit contends 'willfully and intentionally desecrated, distorted, mutilated and otherwise modified' the work. Twitchell has said he received no notice — as required by law — that the artwork, on a downtown building owned by the federal government, would be painted over." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 11:52 am
Inside Chihuly Inc. Glass artist Dale Chihuly has built an empire that nets tens of millions of dollars a year in sales. Has the artist become a factory removed from the art? Seattle Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 10:25 am
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Music, Period (But Not In America?) The period music movement has long been absorbed into the classical mainstream. But why has it not found its way into the larger American musical culture? "What comes out of obscure colleges in the middle of the Arizona desert is amazing. But this doesn’t translate into everyday musical life. I don’t know why. Maybe the structures are too rigid, or there isn’t the motivation. So American players by and large still have to come and work in Europe." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:17 pm
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Getty Chairman To Step Down Under A Cloud Getty Trust chairman John Biggs is leaving after scandals involving the leadership of the institution. "A Times review of internal Getty records, along with interviews with current and former trustees and staff, shows that at crucial junctures, Biggs contributed to the controversies the board is now taking credit for fixing." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:38 pm
New York's Cultural Building Boom "In what amounts to a cultural building boom, more than 60 arts institutions spread across the five boroughs — from smaller community organizations like MoCada to citadels of culture like the Morgan Library — are all undergoing or have recently completed architectural renovations or new construction. Fifty-two of the projects, representing an aggregate cost of $2.8 billion." But can the city sustain all this expansion? The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:11 pm
Protecting Kids For Entertainment? How About Some Parenting? There have been many attempts to shield children from entertainment that might be "dangerous" to them. "Stickers, chips and the alphabet soup of ratings represent just a few ways that freaked-out parents -- or, more accurately, politicians pandering to freaked-out parents -- have tried to control what their kids encounter in the media. And that desire for control is precisely where parents go wrong, says an emerging group of cultural observers and media and parenting experts. The key, they say, is to parent within the new technological realities, not in spite of them." Wasjington Post 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 11:56 am
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Loneliness Of The Long Distance Actor Being in a long-running show is a blessing for the actor's bank account. But there is a downside. "It has all the elegance of an old vaudeville clunker: The good news for a theater professional’s nearest and dearest is having that person end up in a long-running show. The bad news? The same." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:20 pm
A Responsibility To Be Hard Hitting? Richard Montoya's Culture Clash has made a career out of trenchant political commentary. So what is the responsibility of creators of such work? "Do the creators of, say, the hit musical 'The Drowsy Chaperone' feel a certain responsibility to their audiences? I would assume yes. But for Culture Clash and other dramatists of color, it remains a loaded and constant question. I must admit I sometimes suffer from responsibility fatigue." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 11:49 am
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Dispute Over Book Filming Sparks Debate The halting of filming of a popular book by Monica Ali in London has provoked a debate about cultural sensitivities and freedom of expression. "In some ways, the debate has revived a much wider discussion in Europe about whether free speech may be limited by the sensitivities of people who feel affronted by it. Should old Western societies, in other words, rewrite their definitions of liberty to accommodate the sensitivities of others?" The New York Times 08/05/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:27 pm
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Hollywood Tries To Tap China American business are looking hungrily at China and its huge market. Hollywood is right in there. "Following the remarkable worldwide success of the Ang Lee's Chinese-language 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' in 2000, Hollywood has been anxiously trying to cultivate the Asian talent pool and market. A variety of American talent agencies and studios have recently set up outposts in China." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:34 pm
Great Expectations - How Hollywood Judges Success A Hollywood movie might make tons of money, but whether it's seen as a success or depends on whether the project beat expectations about it. "The process is similar to evaluating a football team's performance not on the outcome of the game but on whether it beat the point spread set by oddsmakers. An amorphous group of Hollywood executives and box-office pundits mulls over how much a film should gross. Hollywood buzz then sets a line of demarcation defining success." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:31 pm
Outcry Over PBS Firing Of Kids' Show Host "The Public Broadcasting Service has weathered recent criticism from free-speech advocates saying that the network is being overly cautious in a new policy to censor foul language in nonfiction programs by digitally obscuring the mouths of speakers. But the outcry has been dwarfed by the thousands of complaints, mostly from parents, over the PBS Kids Sprout network’s firing of Melanie Martinez, the host of 'The Good Night Show,' after learning that she appeared years ago in two videos spoofing public service announcements advocating teenage sexual abstinence." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:25 pm
Bamiyan Afghans See Their First Movie A filmmaker who made a movie about the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan takes his movie back to the scene of the crime to show local people, many of whom had never before seen a movie, the story of the destruction. Toronto Star 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:04 pm
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Breaking The B-Girl Image "Hip-hop has become a worldwide phenomenon, a world of bling and bravado in which women sometimes appear as little more than a jiggling, sexually rapacious wall of thongs. This image is especially distasteful to the growing number of b-girls, for whom breaking is not just a dance form but a way of life." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 12:23 pm
So You Hate Ballet? Here's The Reason "When other forms of concert dance — not to mention movies, TV or the theater — are this empty and useless, it's easy to openly dislike or even despise them. But ballet has cultivated an intimidation factor that acts like a computer firewall. If people hate ballet, they frequently feel guilty and assume that it's got to be their own fault, that they're not educated or sensitive enough... Forget it. Most ballet is every bit as bad as audiences secretly suspect — and it's not going to improve until companies stop conning or shaming us into accepting damaged goods. In the meantime, guilt-free hatred of ballet is reasonable, maybe even necessary." Los Angeles Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/06/2006 11:46 am
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