How We Search The Internet (What Kind Of User Are You?) How do people use the internet? Studies are fine, but who knows whether people are being truthful. AOL though, released data on how its users search the internet, and it hasn't taken long for some enterprising person to categorize the searches and make some observations on how people search. Slate 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 8:39 am
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A Talk With New Barnes Boss Derek Gillman How would Dr. Barnes have reacted to moving the Barnes Collection? "When he wrote the original indenture with [John] Dewey, it was optimistic and big-pictured and optimistic about American society and making the collection accessible. The Barnes who died prematurely would indeed [rotate in his grave], I'm sure… It's evident from the indenture that he left that he wanted the limited access, the investment of funds in low-yield government bonds and so on… But that's not the Barnes that I think we need to go back to, [I prefer] the Barnes who had this wonderful vision for this wonderful collection who was dedicated to improving America." Modern Art Notes (AJBlogs) 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 9:02 am
Claim: Late Hermitage Curator Stole Art To Buy Insulin The curator who died as a theft scandal was coming to light at the Hermitage Museum sold art to buy insulin, says her husband. "The husband admitted he and his wife had taken 53 objects since the early 1990s. Another person was arrested a few days later. Zavadskaya's husband said they needed the cash to buy insulin for his wife, whose meager salary of $125 a month could not cover her medical needs. The family lived in a dilapidated apartment in the historic centre of the city." CBC 08/13/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 7:23 am
Getty Gets Gritty The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has unveiled a series of intentionally provocative billboards designed to reposition the institution as an edgy, sensational "place where art lives" — not some oppressively quiet, stodgy museum space." And before anyone gets snarky, no, none of the billboards make mention of crooked executives or indicted curators. Los Angeles Times 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:22 pm
Roadside Art Meets The Art Of Dissent "For the past quarter-century, Ron English has been waging a quixotic guerilla war against corporate America by hijacking some of its most visually arresting billboards... These sabotage operations can be carried out in about seven minutes flat if all goes well, and even though the hijacked billboards generally get de-hijacked within a matter of days, the raids usually generate enough publicity to get his message across." English is the subject of a new documentary examining the impact of his guerrilla art on a frequently indifferent society. The Guardian (UK) 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:52 pm
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A Lot Of Fanfare Over Nothing? A debate about Fanfare magazine's pay-for-review policy has broken out, but Kyle Gann believes the debate is overblown. "Given the largely labor-of-love basis on which Fanfare was run, the paid ads seemed to do little beyond ensuring that the magazine would continue to appear. Nobody was getting rich off it, or even anywhere near well-recompensed. With so much massive corporate evil besetting the music business and everyone else from all sides, I have to regard poor little Fanfare as a rather uncharitably chosen target." PostClassic (AJBlogs) 08/12/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 9:07 am
Charge: Brazilian Piano Competition Has Been Rigged The Villa Lobos International Piano Competition begins this week. But the event has been tarnished by accusations of cheating and manipulation of which pianists were allowed into the finals... The New York Times 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 8:15 am
St. Luke's Cancels UK Tour Over Flight Restrictions The New York-based Orchestra of St. Luke's has been forced to cancel its upcoming concerts at festivals in London and Edinburgh as a result of the UK ban on carry-on baggage on all flights. Many of the orchestra's instruments cannot be stowed in airline cargo holds, and despite efforts to reach an accomodation, it was determined that there simply wasn't time for the orchestra to make alternate plans. So far, it is believed that the other American orchestras set to perform at the BBC Proms in London and the Edinburgh Festival, most of which transport their instruments in heavy-duty trunks, will be able to keep to their schedules. BBC 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 7:21 pm
Mostly Mozart Comes All The Way Back It wasn't too terribly long ago that New York's Mostly Mozart Festival was considered a relic, a musty and moribund example of what happens when classical music takes its audience for granted. But today, as the festival cruises through its 40th season, audiences are swelling, critics are cheering, and the whole enterprise feels like a winner again. So what changed? Over the last few years, "Mostly Mozart has become a haven for diverse, conflicting, even fringe-y viewpoints on Mozart and his near-contemporaries and descendants." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:25 pm
Levine Makes Tanglewood His Own It's far too early, of course, to say what James Levine's ultimate legacy as music director of the Boston Symphony will be. But already, it is clear that Levine is having a rejuvenating effect on the BSO's famed Tanglewood Music Center, which brings many of the country's top young musicians together for several weeks of summer instruction and orchestral training. "For years, the presence of Tanglewood icon Leonard Bernstein made the TMC the place to be, despite the competition. And that phenomenon is happening again because Levine is in the Berkshires." Boston Globe 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:04 pm
Welcome Back To That Same Old Place That You Laughed About When the Louisville Orchestra announced that Jorge Mester would be its next music director, many in the industry wondered what the ensemble's leaders were thinking of. Mester, 71, served as Louisville's music director for 12 years in the 1960s and '70s, and is hardly considered a rising star in the conducting world. Furthermore, Louisville was rumored to have several top young conductors on its shortlist. So what happened? Andrew Adler says that, on reflection, Mester's second act could turn out to be exactly what the financially strapped and frequently chaotic orchestra needs. Louisville Courier-Journal 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:28 pm
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Fighting Through To The Heart Of The Music Conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim is well-known for his sometimes controversial efforts to bring Israelis and Arabs together under the banner of art. In the wake of the ongoing violence in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon, Barenboim's "Peace Orchestra" is experiencing the same tensions and anger that are exploding across the region. But according to those in the ensemble, whatever tensions exist can always be channeled into the performance, and some observers even say that the orchestra sounds better than it ever has as a result of the emotionally charged backdrop of current events. BBC 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 8:56 am
A New Wave Of AIDS Art This summer, Toronto hosted the 16th International AIDS Conference, and the city's artists took the issue to heart. "Artists have every reason to want to respond to AIDS since the arts community has proven to be more likely than most to lose members due to the consequences of the disease," and AIDS-related art is now on view throughout Canada's largest city. Toronto Star 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 7:31 am
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Rebuilding China From The Ground Up "Over the last five years [Ben Wood] has transformed himself from a successful Boston architect into a Shanghai powerbroker whose designs translate into billions of dollars in development. The profession’s big players are flocking to China to compete for commissions. Even the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has raved about the opportunities to be had. But Mr. Wood is one of the very few allowed to build whole neighborhoods without a local associate or a government institute to sign the construction documents." The New York Times 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:48 pm
Sculptor's Career Cut Short Jason Rhoades, the controversial pop sculptor who reveled in raunch and seemed to delight in offending middle American sensibilities, has died of heart failure at 41. "Rhoades embedded his three-dimensional blowouts with id, excess, obnoxiousness, rascally ambition and a rampaging life force. His sculpture ran rampant, and as close to amok as he could make it in the 13 jam-packed years of his career." The Guardian (UK) 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:47 pm
England's Next Great Podium Hope Edward Gardner is the UK's "it" conductor of the moment, having made headlines with a production of John Adams's controversial Death of Klinghoffer last year, and then winning appointment as principal conductor of the always tumultuous English National Opera. Now, he's opening the famed Edinburgh Festival with a new production of Strauss's massive opera, Elektra. "It is a big gig even for a musician whose career, at the moment, seems unstoppable." The Guardian (UK) 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:42 pm
The Most Popular Photographer In Cyberspace Rebekka Guoleifsdottir's route from aspiring photographer to rookie success story is yet another lesson (as if one more was needed) in the power of the interconnected world to break down traditional barriers to professional and artistic success. "Just over a year ago the single mother was still teaching herself how to use a camera... She had already put some of her drawings on Flickr, a community website where users post their pictures for others to view, and decided to add some of her early photos." Twelve months later, she was Flickr's most viewed member, and "is set to make a fortune by selling her work online." The Observer (UK) 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:36 pm
Grass: I Was A Teenaged Nazi Author Gunther Grass has admitted to a German newspaper that he served in Hitler's Waffen SS during World War II. "Grass, 78, is regarded as the literary spokesman for the generation of Germans that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war... He was long been active in left-wing politics as a sometimes-critical supporter of the Social Democratic Party and is regarded by many as an important moral voice who has opposed xenophobia and war." He says that a deep sense of shame has consumed him for years regarding his service in the Third Reich's much-feared paramilitary force. CNN 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 9:34 am
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A New Respect For Chicago's Drawing Power For years, Chicago's theatre scene has been treated by New York as just another stop on the national touring schedule, and unworthy of the semi-permanent productions enjoyed by audiences in select cities like Toronto and Los Angeles. But a touring production of Wicked has proved so successful in the Windy City that it has been granted permanent status, thus breaking the so-called 'Chicago curse'. " Chicago Tribune 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:08 pm
One Artistic Retreat, Hold The Solitude Deep in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, a little-known group called the Orchard Project is offering a unique opportunity to theatre troupes that create their work collaboratively. The idea is to provide companies the same kind of retreat that writers and directors have enjoyed for decades. "Eventually [the Orchard Project's campus] will include four rehearsal spaces, costume and prop storage, and housing for 70 participants." The New York Times 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 5:59 pm
New Face Will Try To Revive Colorado Shakespeare Fest The Colorado Shakespeare Festival has tapped veteran actor Philip Charles Sneed as its new producing artistic director, replacing Richard Devin. Sneed inherits a struggling organization with budget problems and "plummeting attendance." Denver Post 08/12/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 9:03 am
An Unusually Dull Fringe This year's Minnesota Fringe Festival- the largest such fest in the U.S. - wasn't bad, exactly, says Dominic Papatola. But it sure wasn't very exciting. "Most of the political theater I saw had a rote, unimaginative quality about it, as if artists couldn't think of anything new to be mad at President Bush about but still felt compelled to be angry. The comedy shows I took in were amusing but not fall-down funny. Clever ideas seldom resulted in equally clever execution. And as for the usually plentiful nudity at the Fringe? I saw a grand total of one bare backside the whole of the festival." St. Paul Pioneer Press 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 7:51 am
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Man Booker Prize: Difficult To Laugh Why does the Booker Prize give short shrift to comedic writers? "There are some terrifically good comic writers around at the moment, such as David Lodge and Howard Jacobson, are in some respect running with a handicap. But I know from experience that when you get into that committee room, it's extremely hard to argue that a trivial book is more important than an earnest one." BBC 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 9:16 am
Starbuck's Blend - A Book In Every Cup? Excitement in the publishing world that Starbuck's would begin offering books with its lattes has calmed somewhat since the coffee company said it would offer first a book that would already have been a best-seller. "Starbucks' biggest gamble may be that its customers will be willing to buy a book with their daily caffeine fix. According to those involved with the project, however, it's a natural fit." Los Angeles Times 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 8:24 am
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Study: For Some, Games Beat TV A growing number of people say they prefer playing video games to watching TV. The study reports "that 31 percent of the over-18 set preferred the games to TV for whiling away a spare hour. Watching movies at home fared better, with 21 percent choosing games instead, but going to the movie theater did slightly worse with 35 percent." Yahoo! (Reuters) 08/14/06
Posted: 08/14/2006 8:31 am
Is Satellite Radio Selling Out? When satellite radio was launched several years back, providers XM and Sirius crowed that they would fill the void left by increasingly consolidated corporate radio, featuring formats and genres virtually ignored on the terrestrial dial. And for a while, that's exactly what they did. But lately, Sirius and XM have begun to sound suspiciously alike. More alarming is the fact that each service has been quietly dropping music formats that fail to garner a large audience - exactly the sort of pandering to the masses that satellite was supposed to alleviate. Washington Post 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:30 pm
The Fine Line Between Sharing And Stealing What constitutes music theft? As it turns out, the legal reality of copyright enforcement is miles away from what most younger consumers believe to be stealing. Many consumers who would never think of downloading music without paying for it believe that there's nothing wrong with copying a few songs for a friend. But the law says otherwise, and that disconnect worries the recording industry. Chicago Tribune 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:18 pm
People Don't Want 3" Movies? You're Kidding! What do the kids want? Answer that question, and a world of marketing consultants and entertainment execs will beat a path to your door. In fact, it can be so difficult to judge the preferences of the young that those manufacturing the cutting edge entertainment devices of today frequently discover tomorrow that no one cares. Case in point: the rush to release all manner of TV shows, movies, and other viewable media in a form viewable on cell phones and iPods. As it turns out, young people just aren't interested. Chicago Tribune 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 6:16 pm
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The End Of The Vegas Showgirl? Las Vegas shows have gone completely over the top in recent years, with dazzling special effects, copious nudity, and massive set pieces all serving as expensive marketing gimmicks designed to lure the maximum number of tourists in the door. So where does all this leave the traditional Vegas showgirl? Nowhere good, unfortunately. The New York Times 08/13/06
Posted: 08/13/2006 9:49 am
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