Today's Media - Consumer Control, Marketers' Sophistication "Where the old-media system was one-way, today's new media technologies allow consumers to talk back -- and tune out. On Internet message boards and blogs, people can slam products they don't like, celebrate certain brands over others, and help shoppers find the cheapest prices. New technologies do give consumers unprecedented leverage over the marketplace. It's crucial, however, to realize that marketers are using these same technologies to undermine that leverage, making it harder than ever for audiences to escape, and resist, their advances." Boston Glob 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 9:22 pm
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Leonardo, Rediscovered? A conservationist believes he knows where one of Leonardo's greatest works is hidden. "But for three years he has been frustrated by wrangling in Florence. Now the election of a new government in Italy, where art is seldom apolitical, has given his search fresh impetus. Francesco Rutelli, the Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister, will soon appoint a committee to resolve the issue." The Guardian (UK) 08/28/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 9:48 pm
Do The Stuckists Know Anything About Good Art? The Stuckists are sharp critics of what has been the main stream of contemporary art. "Opposed to conceptual art, anti-art and postmodernism, they also deride what they see as a cosy relationship between the elite of the art world, using their own works to launch satirical attacks on people who they believe to perpetuate the status quo. But is it art?" The Guardian (UK) 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 12:47 pm
UK's Best Buildings This Year? Here's a gallery of contenstants for this year's Stirling Prize. The Guardian (UK) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 12:41 pm
Iraqi Cultural Leader Quits Iraq's top cultural official has resigned. "Donny George has resigned as President of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) in Iraq, citing his frustration at lack of funding and at growing interference from the radical Shi’ite party now in control of the government ministry to which SBAH is attached." The Art Newspaper 08/25/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 6:53 am
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Musicians - When Just Getting Paid Requires A Law Degree "If being an independent rocker conjures images of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle and easygoing contracts, think again. Whether it's a major-label contract or one from an independent label, artists can find themselves lost in a legal web when dealing with their music's availability and royalty payments." Chicago Tribune 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 9:35 pm
The New Music Tastemakers "Despite the disparate nature of today's pop music consumption and the implosion of the genre's distribution, there are still "tastemakers" out there, people who influence what many of us hear on TV (the last bastion of massive music promotion), commercial radio, surging satellite radio and the Internet. These people aren't publicists, record producers or frustrated artists-turned-critics. They started out as music fans, then parlayed their passions into rewarding careers behind the scenes - on TV, through satellite radio and online - managing to carve out a role exposing listeners to new music." Baltimore Sun 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 8:53 pm
Jazz At Lincoln Center - One-Man Band? Wynton Marsalis is the face of and driving force behind the organization. "Once you’ve made that decision that the Jazz at Lincoln Center brand really can work well with your brand, Wynton’s power as the spokesperson — the front man, if you will — for Jazz at Lincoln Center really kind of takes on a life." The New York Times 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 8:00 am
Sharing Talent With The World An anonymous guitarist makes a video of his virtuoso rock version of Pachelbel's Canon and it becomes a sensation on YouTube, watched more than seven million times. It's a phenomenon that speaks to the way talent is being shared and embroidered. The New York Times 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:53 am
A Requiem For Tower Records The Tower Records bankruptcy marks the end of a generation. "If Tower is looking for a convenient scapegoat, it could well point its corporate finger at Seattle's Beacon Hill, where Amazon.com resides. Record retailers such as Tower liked to boast that they offered far more breadth and depth in music selection than the mall stores or the music departments of the discounters. But even the music retailers couldn't match the universe of offerings from Amazon, which didn't have the carrying cost of bricks-and-mortar stores." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 08/25/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:35 am
Winning Wagner (Now Wait A Few Years) Seattle Opera holds a Wagner competition. "The contrast of demonic emotions with the more mundane prospect of building an operatic career gave a special poignancy to the competition at the Seattle Opera, the most Wagner-centric of American opera companies. Unlike the army of teenagers who appear for piano or violin competitions, the finalists were mostly in their mid-30’s, which put them barely on the brink of being likely to perform a major Wagner role onstage. The proper age for initiating a Wagnerian career seemed like a movable goalpost throughout the competition, getting older and older." The New York Times 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:32 am
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Fidel And The Cuban Artists "Castro's passing will certainly mean the end of an era, and may touch off a wave of nostalgia for Hemingway's 'Islands in the Stream' Cuba. But it isn't likely to release a wave of Cuban artists coming to this country, or have much impact on the dominant contemporary trends -- at least in part because so many Cuban artists are already here." Newark Star-Ledger 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 10:23 pm
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Wolfgang Sawallisch Calls It Quits To A Great Career "His blood pressure continues to fluctuate, and does so unpredictably. 'So it is not easy for me to fly for a long time and to be on the podium for a long time. It can happen without announcement that my blood pressure is too low. This instability gives me the necessity to finish my career after 57 years of concert and opera conducting'." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 10:31 pm
Canadian Composer John Weinzweig, 93 He was consdered the dean of Canadian music. "He introduced contemporary techniques through his own avant-garde pieces and a lengthy teaching career that touched the lives of the country's greatest musicians. 'In many ways, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have the wealth of Canadian composers that we have now'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:16 am
Eudora Welty On Film Five hours of film of writer Eudora Welty has been found in the archives at the National Endowment for the Arts. "This is the only known 60 millimeter film of Eudora Welty reading and discussing her work. This is the earliest known footage of one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century."
Yahoo! (AP) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 6:56 am
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Thriller - Jacko Next For Juke The latest jukebox musical to try to hit? The songs of Michael Jackson, about to take to London's West End. "Thriller Live features more than 80 performers including a gospel choir, children's ballet and West End singers and dancers to reinterpret the singer's most memorable songs. Producer Adrian Grant has hailed the show a 'musical celebration' and says it will help to revive Jackson's status as the King of Pop." BBC 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 8:55 pm
Canadian Wins Edinburgh Comedy Award "A Canadian comedian's take on a debauched weekend away in Amsterdam has won this year's £8,000 'if.commedies' prize, the new name for the Perrier award, one of the most highly regarded accolades in comedy." The Observer (UK) 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 12:43 pm
Best Of The Fringe (In Repertory) Fringe festivals offer so many plays, how do you sort out the best and makes sure people get to see them? The New York Frings has an idea: "Ten of the audiences’ and critics’ favorites from the current festival will run in repertory at two downtown theaters through Sept. 24 in what the organizers, Britt Lafield and John Pinckard, say will become an annual showcase called FringeNYC Encores. For the Fringe, this provides another opportunity for its shows to be noticed by producers and earn a possible commercial transfer." The New York Times 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:40 am
Kandernebb - A Partnership That Survives Death There's a new musical out being billed as the latest from John Kander and Fred Ebb. But Ebb died (of a heart attack) in 2004, so how can this be? The two had such a close partnership, it's impossible to thibnk of one without the other. "If that relationship, which produced the scores to 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' and 'Kiss of the Spider Woman,' was often misunderstood as romantic, it’s not hard to see why: the two men worked in the theater, neither had a wife, and over the course of their 42-year collaboration their last names had all but fused into one, a songwriting entity that Mr. Kander, now a vigorous 79, calls 'Kandernebb'." The New York Times 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:19 am
At Edinburgh - An Angry Theme As usual, there are all manner of productions at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But "the vein that runs through the festival this year is anger: anger at the state of the world in general, and anger at America in particular. Comedians need only display a picture of President Bush to provoke hollow laughter or indignant booing, depending on the context." The New York Times 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:11 am
Lloyd Webber Goes Russian Andrew Lloyd Webber has chosen his next project. It's a musical adaptation of "Mikhail Bulgakov's fantastical tale of the Devil, a talking cat, Christ and Pontius Pilate, a tormented writer named Master and a girlfriend named Margarita, who becomes a witch. A Faustian tale that satirizes the oppressive Stalin regime, the novel is considered a major work of 20th century Russian literature." Yahoo! (Playbill) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:08 am
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A New Norman Mailer Novel January will see a new novel by Norman Mailer, his first in ten years. "The title of the new book is 'The Castle in the Forest,' Random House said in a statement. It said a synopsis was not available." Yahoo! (AP) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:43 am
The Good Old Days In Canada (As In 3000 "Serious" Readers) "The adjective 'serious' was never precisely defined, but it was understood to describe those readers who could be counted on to go to a bookstore at least once a week and buy one or two titles on each occasion, mixing purchases of fiction with those of non-fiction. Since then — a time some publishing types like to call the B.C. Era (as in 'Before Chapters/Indigo') — that estimate has dropped, I'm told, to between 1,600 and 2,000, the result, one imagines, of the competing distractions-attractions of the Internet and the rise of digital media." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:14 am
Encyclopedia To The World A goal of Wikipedia is to create articles in as many languages and cultures as possible. But "how do you create an online encyclopedia when few native speakers have access to the Internet? What use is an encyclopedia when literacy rates among a language’s speakers can approach zero? And who should control the content of an encyclopedia in a local language if not enough native speakers are moved, or able, to contribute?" The New York Times 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:04 am
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24, Office, Win At Emmys "HBO emerged with the most Emmys — 26, including the awards given out at last week's creative arts ceremony for technical and other achievements. NBC, struggling in the ratings, got a shot in the arm with its cumulative 14 awards, the most for any broadcast network." Yahoo! (AP) 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 10:51 pm
The Biggest IMAX Movie Ever (But Now What?) "Edutainment funded by Lockheed Martin doesn't sound like box-office gold, but The Dream Is Alive is the top-grossing movie in IMAX history. It has earned more than $150 million since its 1985 debut, putting it several million dollars ahead of such competitors as 1998's Everest and 1991's Antarctica. Yet for all its success with such films, the IMAX Corp. dislikes being thought of as a purveyor of mega-sized documentaries. It now wants to show Hollywood blockbusters on its trademark six-story screens—a strategic shift that seems to have caused the company considerable trouble." Slate 08/25/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 12:58 pm
Why Do We Care How Much Money A Movie Makes? "These days, the summer moviegoer has two things vying for control of his imagination: the movies and the box-office receipts. Each operates according to an outsized, cartoonish aesthetic. Even for those of us who chuckle at the notion that summer blockbusters are special-effects abominations that have "ruined" the movies, it's striking that the numbers should exert such a hold over us." Slate 08/25/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 12:54 pm
Video Games Crank Up Their Music Offerings Music for video games is getting a big upgrade, with more sophisticated quality. "The game itself is interactive, the story line is interactive, so to the extent that you can make it work, and it doesn't mess up the experience, the music should be interactive as well." Yahoo! (Reuters) 08/26/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 7:37 am
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And Now, The International Ballet Festival of Miami "Instead of inviting a few companies to perform full programs, this year's 10th annual festival, which runs Friday-Sept. 10, culls principal dancers from a dizzying number of U.S., European and Latin American companies and features them in a near-marathon of bravura solos and pas de deux from Don Quixote to Swan Lake." Miami Herald 08/27/06
Posted: 08/27/2006 10:14 pm
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