Thursday, December 15
Help! All My Packages Are Blinking At Me!
"Electronics maker Siemens is readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging, from milk cartons to boxes of Cheerios. In less than two years, Siemens says, the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens."
Wired
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:56 am
What's Happened To Literary Theory?
Some say it's dead. Others see sparks of new ideas. "The devolution and fragmentation of theory may well be a survival strategy, an adaptation to the new realities of academic institutions. An optimist might see it as something nobler, a turn from linguistic grand gestures and outdated ideological gambits toward measurements taken on a more humanistic scale."
Chronicle of Higher Education
12/16/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:43 pm
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Trove Of Nazi Images Now Online
A Nazi archive of 60,000 digital colour images of wall and ceiling paintings in German buildings has been put online. The pictures were taken for the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and the Department of Buildings and Monuments between 1943 and 1945, and show the interiors of 480 buildings?churches, monasteries, castles and palaces, dating from the 10th to the end of the 19th centuries?in what was the 'Greater German Reich'."
The Art Newspaper
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:52 am
World's Top Museums Vie For Hong Kong Project
Some of the world's top museums are competing to be part of the world's biggest arts project, the multi-billion-dollar Kowloon Cultural District. "Last month it emerged that two former rivals?the Guggenheim and the Pompidou Centre?have joined forces to increase their chances of securing the lucrative deal. It also appears that other museums angling to get in the frame include the Art Institute of Chicago and Asia Society in New York, the Royal Academy of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musée d?Orsay and Musée Guimet in Paris, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto."
The Art Newspaper
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:49 am
Computer Declares Mona Lisa's Smile
Mona Lisa is, in fact, smiling, says a computer analysis. "The painting was analysed by a University of Amsterdam computer using 'emotion recognition' software. It concluded that the subject was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry."
BBC
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:43 am
Britain's Most Popular Building (Or One Of Its Biggest Eyesores?)
The new Scottish parliament building was voted the UK's 8th most popular in a poll, just a day after it was voted in another survey as one of the country's biggest eyesores. The Eden Project in Cornwall has been voted the UK's best-loved modern building.
The Scotsman
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:02 pm
What It's Like To be An Art Critic?
"The days on your feet. The camaraderie of the galleries. The athleticism of aestheticism. A fellow art critic recently told me the story of an important figure who, in important tones, once asked him to explain how he goes about criticizing art. Well, the critic replied, I see art ? and I write about it! The response, he reports, was met with bewilderment."
New Criterion
12/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:53 pm
Kramer: The Shady Practices Of "Deaccessioning"
Hilton Kramer wishes museums would be more direct when the talk about "deaccessioning." "As far as I have been able to discover, we have no reliable figures on the number of paintings and other types of cultural property that have been lost to the public as a result of ?deaccessing? works. The practice is not illegal, but it is often suspect or even shady, especially when the transaction relies?as it often does?on a high degree of secrecy and speed in order to lower the risk of public intervention."
New Criterion
12/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:49 pm
A Solution For The Museum Looted Art Mess?
American museums should not grudgingly cough up artifacts piece by piece, like thieves caught with swag. They should make a virtue out of adversity and offer to share their disputed antiquities en masse with plaintiff countries--this applies above all to the Getty, which can afford to lead the world by example and precedent. The Getty should flaunt its courage with a grand public change of heart. It should offer to build Getty museums abroad in the Guggenheim Bilbao manner to house its antiquities in style and to create a system of permanently shared collections."
OpinionJournal.com
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:25 am
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Court Seizes Audubon Quartet Instruments
A federal bankruptcy court judge in Roanoke, Va., has ruled that the three remaining original members of the Audubon String Quartet must turn over their instruments to a bankruptcy court trustee to satisfy a judgment won by the fourth quartet member. "The legal battle has been long and bitter. It has divided the music world and split loyalties in and around Blacksburg, Va., where the quartet moved in 1980 for a residency at Virginia Tech, which ended after the lawsuit."
The New York Times
12/15/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:19 pm
Ready To Overdose On Mozart?
"Wherever you go in the coming year, you won't escape Mozart. The 250th anniversary of his birth on January 27 1756 is being celebrated with joyless efficiency as a tourist magnet to the land of his birth and a universal sales pitch for his over-worked output. The complete 626 works are being marketed on record in two special-offer super coffers. All the world's orchestras will be playing Mozart, wall to wall, starting with the Vienna Philharmonic on tour this weekend. Mozart is the superstore wallpaper of classical music, the composer who pleases most and offends least."
La Scena Musicale
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:39 pm
Florida Orchestra Seeks A Home Of Its Own
The Florida Orchestra is raising money for a new administrative home in St. Petersburg. The orchestra has been leasing office space in Tampa.
St. Petersburg Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:36 pm
Opera In The Popular Culture (What It Is)
"Even as opera remains the butt of jokes, opera-styled pop -- big, booming voices delivering mellifluous melodies over lush, orchestral arrangements -- keeps popping up at the top of the charts. The field isn't especially large, but it encompasses a fairly wide array of stars, from the male quartet Il Divo to teen soprano Charlotte Church, and from former Andrew Lloyd Webber star (and spouse) Sarah Brightman to occasional Luciano Pavarotti duet partner Andrea Bocelli."
The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:07 am
Omaha's New Symphony Space
Omaha has a new concert hall. "For a mere $92 million, Nebraska's largest city has a sonically satisfying 2,000-seat concert hall and a 'black box' space that can seat as many as 450."
Dallas Morning News
11/19/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 7:49 am
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The Kimmel's Budget Woes
Philadelphia's Kimmel Center has serious money woes. "Four years after opening as Philadelphia's answer to Lincoln Center, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is still posting persistent deficits and is looking at a number of moneymaking ventures - from buying parking lots to stripping the front of its building with electronic advertising."
Philadelphia Inquirer
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 8:25 pm
London's Depressing Arts Governors
"There's a certain type of arts board-er who seems depressingly prevalent at the moment. He (usually he) has made a fortune in the City. He genuinely loves the arts. But he regards arts administrators as a bit amateurish and thinks the fact that he's run a bank qualifies him to "know best" about running a theatre (though no one would think of putting Nicholas Hytner, say, on the board of a listed company). He may harbour frustrated artistic ambitions. He likes the idea of being invited to interesting parties, or getting a knighthood. It's time for this attitude to be rooted out once and for all."
The Guardian (UK)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 6:33 pm
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Philip Roth: Let's Shut Down The Literary World
"I would be wonderful with a 100-year moratorium on literature talk, if you shut down all literature departments, close the book reviews, ban the critics. The readers should be alone with the books, and if anyone dared to say anything about them, they would be shot or imprisoned right on the spot. Yes, shot. A 100-year moratorium on insufferable literary talk. You should let people fight with the books on their own and rediscover what they are and what they are not. Anything other than this talk. Fairytale talk. As soon as you generalise, you are in a completely different universe than that of literature, and there's no bridge between the two."
The Guardian (UK)
12/15/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:14 pm
Pianist Gyorgy Sandor, 93
"Mr. Sandor was born in Budapest and studied piano with Bartok and composition with Kodaly at the Liszt Academy of Music there. He began to travel widely as a concert pianist in the 1930's, and settled in the United States after his American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1939."
The New York Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:29 am
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The Theatre Critic's Pitfall?
"Actors can be so charming, such fun. Yet, if you allow yourself to be even temporarily seduced (an essential part of the craft of performance, after all), there comes a point at which, in the cold light of morning, fingers poised above the keys, you can no longer trust your objectivity. There is no unity of opinion as to precisely where the line should be drawn."
The Telegraph (UK)
12/15/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:57 pm
UK Theatre's Ageism Problem
"Ageism is an enormous problem for dramatic writers in Britain today - in theatre, television and film. While many career writers continue to receive fulfilling assignments throughout their working lives, many others find themselves left at the wayside, not because they have nothing new to contribute, but merely because they are seen by commissioners as being a bit shop-worn. And for someone who only finds his or her voice in maturity, the outlook is barren indeed."
The Guardian (UK)
12/15/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:37 pm
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Will Tech Save The Book Biz?
The low-tech business of books is looking to some digital strategies for help. "Technology, often declared the enemy of literacy, has been called upon to save it. With hints of optimism and anxiety, publishers are counting on the digital text and digital channels to win over a public drawn to other media."
Yahoo! (AP)
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 6:04 am
Edith Wharton Library Returns To America
George Ramsden, a British bookseller, has signed "a $2.6 million agreement to sell the 2,600-volume Edith Wharton library to the custodians of the Mount, the writer's estate in Lenox, Mass., which she designed, built and finally left forever in 1911 as her marriage unraveled."
The New York Times
12/15/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:28 pm
Study: Wikipedia Rates High In Accuracy
"A study published Dec. 14 by the journal Nature found that in a random sample of 42 science entries, Wikipedia had an average of just one more inaccuracy per entry than the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nature also polled more than 1,000 scientists who have published papers in Nature's prestigious pages and found that 17% consulted Wikipedia on a weekly basis."
BusinessWeek
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 4:46 pm
How "Alt-" Will New Alt-Weekly Chain Be?
"A half-century after New York's Village Voice launched the genre of alternative weeklies, there's still plenty of war, injustice and corporate domination around. But the anti-establishment counterculture has moved topside. Rock 'n' roll jingles hawk luxury cars, mutual funds come with social consciences and alternative weeklies have become a profitable, parallel universe to the mainstream media. In an unmistakable sign that the counterculture has morphed into corporate culture," now two "alt-weekly" chains are merging...
Los Angeles Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:49 am
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New Zealand Cashes In On Fantasy Films
New Zealand has become the center of the world's fantasy film business. "New Zealand's growing reputation as a go-to place for state-of-the-art visual effects is almost entirely because of Peter Jackson. He has come a long way since starting his career in the mid-eighties with a no-budget horror-science-fiction flick filmed during weekends with friends. The most sophisticated props were the foam masks he made in his mother's oven." The Globe & Mail (Canada)
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 6:37 am
Current Interaction
The TV channel Current is trying to be an interactive experience. "The Internet is a welcome breath of fresh air which re-establishes a highly interactive participatory medium that has even lower barriers to entry than the print medium. A growing number of talented young people in their 20s...have videocameras and laptop editing systems and are increasingly conversant with how to express themselves in the television medium." Wall Street Journal
12/13/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 3:52 pm
Surviving Hollywood's Dark Year
This has been "Tinseltown's most disappointing box-office performance in 15 years as audiences, dazzled by their entertainment choices and disappointed by the mediocre films on offer, turned away from the cinema in droves." So what's in store for 2006? The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:09 am
Canada's Top Ten Films
The fifth annual list, which does not rank the films in order, is organized through the Toronto International Film Festival Group to promote Canadian film. Though Canada's filmmaking veterans were highly visible this year, TIFF director Piers Handling referred to 2005 as a "powerhouse year" because the old guard were augmented by some strong first-time filmmakers. The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:03 am
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Washington Ballet Cancels Nutcracker
Washington Ballet has canceled its performance of Nutcracker tonight because of a labor dispute. "Further performances of the holiday ballet -- as well as the rest of the company's season -- are in question after management decided yesterday evening to cancel tonight's show. Executive Director Jason Palmquist said he was forced to do so because the dancers' union called a strike. The union denied this."
Washington Post
12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 6:23 am
Dance - Across Generation
Tere O'Connor: "What is wonderful about New York right now is that a large group of young makers are not referring to dance history they are not looking at the hierarchies derived from the idiotic , anachronistic power structures of the ballet world or other institutionalized systems. This has created in New York a situation in which young artists and old share a lot of time and thought outside of the constraints of a traditional old/young dialectic."
ArtsJournal Dance Forum
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:39 pm
Washington Ballet Labor Problems Threaten Nutcracker
Washington Ballet's continuing labor problems have flared up again. The troupe's performance of "The Nutcracker" is in jeopardy "because of an impasse between the dancers' union and the company. At issue are a number of health and safety concerns, with the union claiming that too many strenuous rehearsals have led to injuries among the dancers."
Washington Post
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 8:47 pm
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