Buildings That Change In The Wind (Or Rain) A new breed of architect is looking at buildings that respond to their environment and adapt. They're called "responsive structures that observe their internal and external environment and change form to suit any situation. A building that mimics a living system would be able to sense and respond appropriately to exterior conditions like varying winds, temperature swings or changing sunlight. Inside, the building might change to accommodate crowd flow or better circulate warm air." Wired 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 7:49 am
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Police Recover The Scream Two Edvard Munch masterpieces stolen from a Norwegian museum two years ago have been recovered by police. "The Scream and Madonna were found in a police operation. "We are 100% certain they are the originals. The damage was much less than feared," police said. They had been missing since two armed men ripped them from the wall and threatened staff at the Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital in August 2004." BBC 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 11:59 am
MoMA: On Restoring Modern Masterpieces Another sign of the "aging" of the Museum of Modern Art's mission is the need to do some serious conservation of some of its important works. "The reason these things were never done before is that they've never come off the walls. And I think you have to make some choices here. It seems to me one has to accept the fact that it's important to do this and when they come back, they're going to be much better than when they left." CultureGrrl 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 7:40 am
Fire Damages Royal Academy A fire broke out in London's Royal Academy Wednesday. "The fire broke out yesterday at the former Museum of Mankind, now owned by the Royal Academy, in Piccadilly. Part of the roof and first floor was damaged, a London Fire Brigade spokesman said." The Independent (UK) 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 5:37 pm
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Early Music Heaven The Utrecht Early Music Festival offers 100 concerts in a week. "About 55,000 people will attend. More than half of the concerts are free; most of the rest have ticket prices around 15 euros, or a little under $20. About 25 concerts are broadcast live. Seen from the United States, where classical radio is courting extinction, you wonder whether this is utopia." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 8:35 am
Beatles Sue Record Companies The surviving members of the group are the latest musicians to object to recording company sales accountability. "The lawsuit, filed in December, claims EMI and its affiliate Capitol wrongly classified copies of Beatles recordings as destroyed or damaged "scrap" but then secretly sold them. It also alleges the number of units sold was under-reported, and the firms classified some recordings as 'promotional' and as a result non-royalty bearing, but then sold the material. The lawsuit was triggered by an audit of the companies' books from the period 1994 to 1999, which the band says uncovered allegedly deceitful behaviour." BBC 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 7:27 am
Mozart In The Clubs Classical musicians are moving into clubs. "Purists may shudder at the thought of string quartets spliced with breakbeats and dance grooves, but none of these young musicians, composers and producers sees classical clubbing as a threat to traditional classical music. If anything, they hope that, by introducing classical sounds to a club-going audience who would never usually set foot inside a concert hall, they may breathe new life into the genre." The Telegraph (UK) 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 11:59 pm
Hear The Music, See The Commercial The new service SpiralFrog is offering with Universal to give away music is a marked change in the traditional music industry business model. "Instead of copying Apple's iTunes store by charging customers to buy music, SpiralFrog says it will replace the traditional cost of downloading with money made from advertising. Audiences will have to sit through a short advertisement before downloading their track of choice, a tactic used by some other media websites but thought to be a first for music." The Guardian (UK) 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 7:31 pm
A Great "Vile" Australian Opera? The opera "Batavia", with music by Richard Mills and libretto by Peter Goldsworthy has had its premiere in Sydney. But Peter McCallum, the Sydney Morning Herald's critic described the opera as "the vilest thing I have experienced in the theatre ... one felt raped by the volume, alienated by the lack of sensitivity or aptness in the musical symbols, and repelled by the unctuous sermonising." PlaybillArts 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 6:49 pm
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Tax Donation Change Worries Museums The tax rules for those donating art to non-profits is changing, and som art experts are worried. "Provisions in the new federal pension law change the tax rules on charitable donations of fractional interests in such property. The changes complicate a practice known as the partial gift and could dissuade collectors and others from making donations, experts say." Chicago Tribune 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 8:12 am
SAT's Down (And Fewer Students Taking The Test) There was a large drop in the average SAT score this year. "A five-point drop in critical reading, to 503, was the largest decline since 1975 and the two-point drop in mathematics, to 518, was the largest dip since 1978." InsideHigherEd 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 6:39 pm
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Remembering Naguib Mahfouz The Nobel-winning Egyptian writer was 94. His "city was teeming Cairo, and his characters were its most ordinary people: civil servants and bureaucrats, grocers, shopkeepers, poor retirees, petty thieves and prostitutes, peasants and women brutalized by tradition, a people caught in the upheavals of a nation struggling through the 20th century. Around their tangled lives, Mr. Mahfouz chronicled the development of modern Egypt over five decades in 33 novels, 13 anthologies of short stories, several plays and 30 screenplays." The New York Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 10:15 pm
Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Writer, 94 "Acclaimed Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab writer honoured with the Nobel Prize in literature, died in a Cairo hospital Wednesday morning. He was 94. Regarded as one of the Middle East's finest writers, Mahfouz rose to international fame in the 1950s with his renowned Cairo Trilogy — the novels Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street." CBC 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 7:37 am
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Hamburger Out At Dallas Theatre Center After 15 years as artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, Richard Hamburger is calling it quits. "I've been running theaters for 20 years. It has been an incredible gift, but it's 24/7. Coming to the end of a contract, it was time to assess moving on. I feel like I need some breathing room." Dallas Morning News 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 8:27 am
Chicago Theatre Versus The Critic, Round 3 More letters of complaint and a spirited defense by Chicago Sun-Times critic Hedy Weiss' negative reviews of a workshop project: "Reviewing of this showcase has been standard practice for a number of years; the proof is in the archives. In addition, I heard not a peep from the Stages staff after publication of my review of last year's showcase. Perhaps that was because the 'mixed to positive' reviews were more acceptable to them. In fact, I would bet that a copy of my review was submitted as supporting evidence for many grants, etc., that the Musical Theatre Writers' Workshop made to funding organizations this season. You simply cannot have it both ways." Chicago Sun-Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 7:22 am
- Chicago Critic Defends Workshop Reviews Chicago Sun-Times theatre critic Hedy Weiss is defending herself against criticisms from the Dramatists Guild over reviews of workshop performances she wrote. "Ms. Weiss said that she had reviewed the festival in the past without objection and no one had told her she could not review it this time. She also said the festival was a public event, with an advertising campaign and tickets. (A ticket to one performance cost $15.) 'If you are given a press kit and if you are given pictures, what are you supposed to do with them'?" The New York Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 11:32 pm
- Previously: Dramatists Speak Out Against Theatre Critic The Dramatists Guild of America is protesting theatre critic Hedy Weiss' reviews of eight projects in the Chicago Sun-Times a few weeks ago. "These musicals were presented in workshop. Every musical in workshop is understood to be a work in progress. Workshopping a new musical provides an opportunity for writers to evaluate their work as it evolves, protected from the consequences of critical appraisal. This security allows writers to take chances, to be bold, maybe even to embarrass themselves—in short, to do their work." Dramatists Guild 08/28/06
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Google Offers Free Books Google plans to let surfers download complete texts of public domain books. "Using Google's Book Search service, Web surfers hunting titles like Dante's 'Inferno' and Aesop's 'Fables' will be able to download PDF files of the books for later reading, to run keyword searches or to print them on paper. Up to now, the service only allowed people to read the out-of-copyright books online." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP) 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 8:40 am
The Mystery Literary Hoax A prominent British biographer is duped into using a faked letter in a new biography. Yes, there's embarrassment to have been taken in by a clever hoax. But who perpetrated it? The New York Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 11:19 pm
Penguin Goes To China "The British publisher announced yesterday that classics such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, Crime and Punishment and Moby Dick would be translated into Mandarin and sold under its logo in the world's fastest growing book market." The Guardian (UK) 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 7:34 pm
From Screen To Book (How Long Till The Napster Of Publishing?) "The role of a 21st-century publisher is making books available offline and on. Blurb.com, a self-publishing startup, will invite 600 bloggers this week to test out its new service by creating a free bound copy of their blog. It's a fresh shot across the bow to traditional publishers in an industry already facing disruptive changes from digital giants Google and Amazon." Wired 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 7:10 pm
Thief Steals Lit Mag's Fundraising Proceeds There was a lovely little fundraising party last weekend in New York for the literary magazine n+1. Then someone made off with the money. "We've been much drunker than this, but the party was so nice that we were lulled into a false sense of security. Everybody was wearing jackets; there was classical music. We didn't think anyone was going to steal our money. Also, our office manager got into a fight with his girlfriend and had to leave the party, and he's usually the guy who watches the cash box." New York Sun 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 6:44 pm
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Short Stuff - New Attention For Short Films With technology advances and falling prices for equipment, the number of people making and distributing short films has exploded. "In all, there are more than a hundred short-film festivals worldwide. And if you figure in the feature festivals that include short-film competitions, the number could be in the thousands." Los Angeles Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/31/2006 7:46 am
Videos And The New Video Stars MTV hasn't been all about music videos for some time now. Now fans are making the videos. "So what do music fans do when they have cheap cameras and an easy way to share their work with other fans? They sing cover versions of their favorite songs, or show off their lip-synching skill, or do silly little dances. On YouTube this means that artists sometimes end up competing with their own fans." The New York Times 08/31/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 10:24 pm
Senate Won't Consider Second Term For Tomlinson A US Senate committe says it will not take up confirmation for a second term of Kenneth Tomlinson as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors after a highly critical government report that said he used the office for personal gain. Yahoo (Reuters) 08/30/06
Posted: 08/30/2006 7:14 pm
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