String Theory - It Ain't The Only Game In Town "In string theory - an idea that's been around since the late 1970s - the universe is a 10-dimensional place, with six of those dimensions curled up inside themselves like a cat in front of a fireplace. All particles and forces are different resonances and vibrations of these 10-dimensional strings. Strings are far from the only game in town. There are other, potentially equally promising approaches to unifying physics' two seemingly incompatible visions of the cosmos: general relativity and quantum mechanics." Wired 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:19 pm
Paul Allen, Brain Cartographer "Experts say the Allen Brain Atlas, which will be formally unveiled today, will boost understanding of brain circuits and chemistry — and what goes wrong in conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism to Parkinson's disease and drug addiction." Seattle Times 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:15 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Cuts Put Canadian Museums At Risk Canada's new Conservative government announced this weeks that it would be making major cuts in the Heritage Department, "$4.6-million of which would be coming from the Museums Assistance Program (MAP) over the next two years." The announcement has rocked the country's regional museums, which are already underfunded, and will be in danger of closing if new revenue streams can't be found to replace the federal money. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:26 am
- Didn't You Just Give Us That Money? So who's behind the Canadian culture cuts? That would be finance minister Jim Flaherty, and Martin Knelman says that Flaherty seems to be doubling back on his own word. "In the course of slashing $4.6 million from the Museum Assistance Program of Ottawa's heritage ministry — not to avoid a deficit but to fluff up a surplus — Flaherty seemed to be grabbing money from one culture-world pocket while only midway through putting money into the other pocket. In effect, he has taken back a large part (close to 25 per cent) of the increased funding he promised to the cultural sector last spring in his first budget — not a dime of which has yet made its way to anyone in the arts." Toronto Star 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:25 am
Two UK Galleries Team Up For Big Acquisition "The Tate in London and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh announced yesterday that they were jointly trying to acquire some 700 works of contemporary art from Anthony d’Offay, the retired London dealer. If the millions of dollars needed can be raised, the acquisition will represent the largest addition of contemporary art either institution has received." The two institutions have agreed in principle to share the art, but the details of that arrangement remain to be worked out. The New York Times 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 5:48 am
Scanning Mona Lisa In 3D "Canada's National Research Council (NRC) will use the 3D scan to reveal features invisible to the naked eye, giving scientists and art historians a new perspective on the painting and helping to uncover some of the mysteries surrounding Leonardo da Vinci's 'sfumato' painting technique." The Guardian (UK) 09/27/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:51 pm
On The Trail Of The Russian Fakes "The boom in the Russian art market has been so intense that it has spawned countless forgeries. Many are indifferent landscapes of northern-European origin, which have been embellished with false signatures and details to make non-Russian subjects look Russian and therefore more valuable." The Telegraph (UK) 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:43 pm
Munch Paintings Back On Display The two iconicMunch paintings recovered after a dramatic theft two years ago are going back on display in oslo. "The paintings were not so badly damaged that they could not be displayed without full-artistic appreciation." BBC 09/27/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 6:28 pm
"Sensation"al Dispersal The "Sensation" show in 1997 is one of the most famous art exhibitions in the past decade. So where did the art from the show go? The Art Newspaper 09/27/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 6:24 pm
Rent-a-Saatchi Want to have an art collection like Charles Saatchi's? Now, you can have his collection. The high-profile collector has "privately published a catalogue of 600 works of art which are available for hire. The glossy 393-page publication provides a fascinating insight into his collection." The Art Newspaper 09/27/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 6:22 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Taking The Safe Road, Or Kneeling Before Terrorists? Deutsche Oper's decision to cancel a revival of a 2003 production of Mozart's Idomeneo for fear that a scene depicting Mohammed would inflame Muslims is proving to be front page news in Germany. "Everywhere the charge Kniefall vor Terroristen - kneeling before terrorists - has cropped up," and Deutsche Oper director Kirstin Harms has come in for some vicious criticism. Musical America 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:40 am
No, It's Not Adam Sandler In A Dress Classical music organizations have been looking for ways to broaden their audience for years, but opera companies have frequently been the most reluctant to introduce anything that might offend their notoriously tradition-bound audiences. So this definitely qualifies as news: Pittsburgh Opera has unveiled the Opera Lady, an expert in the form who makes herself available to audiences both at performances and over the internet, answering questions, explaining operatic oddities, and generally trying to make the whole experience more fun. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:36 am
Another Orchestra Dives Into Online Retail The Royal Scottish National Orchestra has become the latest classical ensemble to embrace the digital age, forming a partnership with online retailer Classical World to offer downloadable versions of almost 60,000 recordings. "Live streaming of concerts and new recordings may also be added soon to the service, which costs around £8 per month. The price includes unlimited streaming of all audio tracks and up to eight downloads per month." PlaybillArts 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 5:19 am
Toronto's Back-To-Basics Opera House Toronto's new opera house is a plain Jane. It was also a bargain. "How did the COC come up with so satisfactory a facility for so little money? For one thing it chose to forgo, at least for now, what other theatres clamour for: state-of-the art stage equipment. Everything is manually operated – one reason, the company notes, it opened on time." Financial Times 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:38 pm
Peter Gelb's New Met - A Hit? "The 52-year-old Met general manager arrived just in time to lead a bloated, tired and tiresome outfit that was drifting toward obsolescence with its creaky board, senior-citizen audience and slumping ticket sales. His appointment, while odd - -he had never run a theater and had toiled, not always happily, as president of Sony Classical -- appears to be energizing a company whose previous director, Joseph Volpe, was too pleased with himself and the status quo." Bloomberg 09/27/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:31 pm
- Met Opener - Buzz Over Opera The buzz about the new Metropolitan Opera is high. But, writes Martin Bernheimer, the company's opening night suffered a bit. "The result looks undeniably clever and endlessly artsy. Unfortunately, Minghella blurs many a narrative turn and seems embarrassed by the composer’s unabashed emotionalism." Financial Times 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:14 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Berlin's Skyline Enforcer To Retire Hans Stinmann, the controversial civic planner who some see as Berlin's post-Wall savior, and others deride as a shortsighted pragmatist, is retiring at age 65 from his post as Berlin's building director. "The projects he oversaw cover more than 741 acres in the post-Wall center of Berlin... Concerned that uncontrolled development would produce a forest of skyscrapers, Mr. Stimmann set building heights of 72 to 98 feet, or about six to eight stories tall." The New York Times 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 5:51 am
Northwest Curveball When Amy Schwarz Moretti, the young, talented concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony, announced that she was leaving the ensemble after only two years, it was a stunner, even to her close colleagues in the orchestra. But Moretti explains that her departure, which will see her become director and resident professor at a new music school in Georgia, will allow her more time to develop her career as a soloist and chamber musician. "You never know what life throws at you. This is a curveball I didn't want to pass up." The Oregonian (Portland) 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 5:30 am
Deborah Voigt On Singing 150 Pounds Lighter "I don't think my voice has changed, but I am only hearing it from inside, so I can only speak about the sensation of singing. Every 20lbs I lost, I felt less rounded and less able to support the sound; well, that was because my support system was vanishing. At 150lbs heavier, you take a breath and those muscles are already engaged, you don't have to think about it. Now, I have to think about it, about how things line up." The Guardian (UK) 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:47 pm
Exploring Michael Frayn "He made a starry reputation first as a satirist, writing a bracingly funny column for the Guardian in the early 1960s. His first novels, all five of them comedies, none of which sold well, won critical plaudits (The Russian Interpreter scooped the Hawthornden Prize in 1967), while his philosophy tome, Constructions, a series of 309 numbered thoughts ('you can't live in the present any more than you can live in the border between Kent and Sussex'), set him in territory occupied by the century's greatest thinkers (Frayn read moral sciences at Cambridge)." The Scotsman 09/23/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:01 pm
Click here for more People stories...
A Sure Thing Starts To Fade "Mel Brooks' The Producers, which once looked as if it would run forever, suddenly has lost its footing. In the last few weeks, the bottom has fallen out of the box office, and the cast has been playing to half-empty houses. A show that once grossed $1 million a week is now pulling in about $450,000 - not quite enough to cover its running costs." New York Post 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:32 am
Why London's Theatre Museum Matters "Does it matter? Isn't theatre something that's supposed to happen in the moment rather than be artificially preserved? I'd say it matters hugely for both practical and symbolic reasons. The great advantage of the Theatre Museum was that a large part of our history was stored under one roof." The Guardian (UK) 09/26/06
Posted: 09/26/2006 7:49 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
The Measure Of A Click As the internet continues to overtake television as the dominant entertainment medium of the era, technology to measure online viewership is becoming ever more sophisticated. "With TV, you know who went in your front door, what they bought and how long they stayed. On the Web, tools that monitor your site can tell you not only who visited and what they bought, but which aisles they visited, what they touched there, how long they lingered, where they came from before the store and where they went after." Chicago Tribune 09/27/06
Posted: 09/27/2006 6:01 am
Click here for more Media stories...
