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Friday, May 8, 2009

current top story
Urgent: National Gallery's East Wing Needs Major Repairs
"Exterior panels, made of Tennessee lavender-pink marble, are tilting outward, which the gallery says indicates problems with the support system. A consultant has recommended that the gallery remove all 16,200 panels and install new supports behind them." Washington Post 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:15AM


media
Surprise: Canadian Video Game Sales Down "After years of steady sales increases, the Canadian video-game market has taken a step backward. Retail numbers released this week by the research firm NPD Group showed hardware, software and accessory sales down 8.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year. It was the first sales dip since NPD started tracking the industry here in 2002." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:36AM
people
Is Jose Carreras Retiring? (There's Some Confusion) "His international manager, however, has said Carreras would perform opera again if the right production came up. For the next few years, though, he will focus on concerts and touring." BBC 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:19AM
visual
Urgent: National Gallery's East Wing Needs Major Repairs "Exterior panels, made of Tennessee lavender-pink marble, are tilting outward, which the gallery says indicates problems with the support system. A consultant has recommended that the gallery remove all 16,200 panels and install new supports behind them." Washington Post 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:15AM
media
TicketMaster Defends Itself "We are often blamed for the behaviour and practices of artists and event providers who hold tickets back. People are less concerned with facts and figures than with watching Ticketmaster get slapped around." Toronto Star 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:14AM
visual
What Ails The Art Market (Not Just The Recession) "The only real threat hanging over the art market became evident as seldom before in this week's sales of Impressionist and Modern art in New York. It is the drying up of art supplies, and that has little to do with the recession." The New York Times 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:07AM
visual
Prognosis For LA's MuseumOf Contemporary Art: Looking Up? Reduced circumstances, sure, but perhaps by the end of the year the troubled MoCA could be ready for its next chapter... Los Angeles Times 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:44AM
people
Theatre Director Augusto Boal, 78 "He was the founder of the Theater of the Oppressed, a popular international movement for a participatory form of theater as a means of promoting knowledge, democratic forms of interaction, and transformation." Democracy Now 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:31AM
music
Are We Down To Our Last Great Tenor? "Ever since the Three Tenors lit up the 1990 World Cup in Rome and began counting their fortune in millions, expectations have been artificially inflated in the higher reaches of the human voice." But who's actually a contender now? La Scena Musicale 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:26AM
issues
Making Art From The Anguish Of Africa's Child Soldiers "Out of interviews with former child soldiers in Uganda and the Congo, Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin and Belgian director Josse de Paauw have fashioned a gripping multimedia music theater piece, Strange News. Its North American premiere by the Chicago Chamber Musicians will take place Friday night at the Museum of Contemporary Art." Chicago Tribune 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:53PM
dance
Four-Year-Old Triple Amputee Thrives In Ballet Class Harvey Phillips suffered meningitis as a baby and lost both lower legs and his right arm. But when he saw his big sister take ballet, he "was so determined to take part that he took to the dance floor without the aid of traditional prosthetic limbs. Now he is able to run, jump and twirl using custom-made plastic caps to protect his legs." The Telegraph (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:52PM
visual
Auckland Art Gallery Receives 15 Modern Treasures "The works include significant paintings by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Piet Mondrian dating from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. The total value of the works is between $200million and $250million [NZ] and is the most significant collection gifted to any New Zealand public gallery." National Business Review (New Zealand) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:50PM
people
Britain's Angriest Artist Joins The Tories Tracey Emin "may have loathed Thatcher in the 1980s … but her generation of Britartists, with their cunning commercialism and shrewd manipulation of the media are (it is not new to suggest) absolutely Thatcher's children." The Guardian (UK) 05/05/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:48PM
music
Met's Beverly Sills Award To Bass John Relyea "The award, which comes with a prize of $50,000, has been given annually since 2006 to singers between 25 and 40 who have appeared in featured solo roles at the Met." Previous winners include Nathan Gunn, Joyce DiDonato and Matthew Polenzani. New York Times 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:47PM
ideas
The Neuroscience of Magic Tricks "Our brains don't see everything - the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with relatively simple algorithms for what things are supposed to look like. Magicians capitalize on those rules." Says Teller (of Penn and), "If the audience asks, 'How the hell did he do that?' then the experiment was successful. I've exploited the efficiencies of your mind." Wired 05/17/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:46PM
ideas
Where Free Will Comes From (A Little Behind Your Ears) "Free will resides in a place toward the back of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests. When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless." New Scientist 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:44PM
dance
Mikhail Baryshnikov, Dance Photographer "He is one of the great ballet dancers of all time, has shown his acting chops, conquered modern dance (and continues to), and has become an impresario with the opening of the Baryshnikov Arts Center. And now he has published a book of photographs of Merce Cunningham Dance Company." Brooklyn Rail 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:43PM
visual
A Mobile Home Fit For A Glossy Shelter Mag? "From its bamboo floors to its rooftop deck, Clayton Homes' new industrial-chic 'i-house' is about as far removed from a mobile home as an iPod from a record player." The iHouse (as it is branded), "was conceived as a moderately priced 'plug and play' dwelling for environmentally conscious homebuyers," who can customize the structure online. AP 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:42PM
people
Augusto Boal, 78, Who Created 'Theatre Of The Oppressed' "[T]he visionary Brazilian theatre director and dramatist, who has died aged 78, spent his life proving that you didn't have to wait until 'after the revolution' for worthwhile social improvements - you could use theatre to make radical changes in the here and now." The Guardian (UK) 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:41PM
theatre
Henry Hitchings Replaces Nicholas De Jongh At London Evening Standard "Described by The Evening Standard as 'one of London's most exciting new writers', 34-year-old Oxford graduate Hitchings is the author of The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, which in 2008 became the first non-fiction work in six years to win the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize." The Stage (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:40PM
publishing
As Centuries-Old Manuscripts Are Digitized, Unexpected Treasures Emerge "Improved technology is allowing researchers to scan ancient texts that were once unreadable - blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll." The new finds include "never-before-seen versions of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on Aristotle." Wall Street Journal 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:35PM
music
A New Classical-Only Digital Store "[Pierre] Schwob, a businessman who is largely unknown in the insular world of orchestras and operas, has put some $4 million of his own money into the launch of Classical Archives, which is a new version of a site Mr. Schwob founded 15 years ago. His site's selling points: an emphasis on high-quality audio and a browsing system designed by musicologists." Wall Street Journal 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:35PM
music
San Francisco Symphony Launches Online Social Network - Will It Work? Anne Midgette: "But isn't the point of an on-line social network that it puts you in touch with hundreds of like-minded people around the globe? Is the San Francisco Symphony really going to pull in the numbers to make a viable network, which involves people wanting to log on regularly to post, chat, check out other people's profiles, and so on?" Washington Post 05/06/09 (second graf onwards)
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:34PM
media
Incomprehensible Plots, Clarified Never figured out just what the heck actually happens in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ziggy Stardust, Pink Floyd's The Wall (wait, that had a plot?) or James Joyce's Ulysses? The good folks at Wired explain it all for you - in Twitter-sized summaries, no less. Wired 05/17/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:31PM
ideas
The Allure Of Studying Klingon (No, Really) "Let's just skip over the customary jokes about 40-year-old virgins who still live in their parents' basements. Klingon speakers have heard them all. But the insults don't bother them, because they know … that Klingon is a sophisticated, extremely complex language that very few can master … Klingon is difficult but not impossible, weird yet totally believable [linguistically]." Slate 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:30PM
publishing
Translating Urdu Literature: First Up, A 19th-Century Epic "Launching a new publishing venture in the current economic climate is risky enough, but Toronto-based writer and translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi is really going out on a limb. Not only is his new company, Urdu Project, dedicated exclusively to publishing English translations of classical and contemporary works of Urdu literature, but he has chosen, as his debut offering, a centuries-old, 24-volume fantasy epic." Quill & Quire 05/05/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:57AM
theatre
Stop Calling Alan Bennett A National Treasure "It makes him sound like a theatrical Queen Mum radiating beneficence over a grateful populace. He's not nearly as cuddly as the term implies. I see him as a sharp-eyed analyst of contemporary England and a genuinely complex writer.... His talent has always been for satirical nostalgia; and by treating him like a warm tea cosy, we ignore what he has to say." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:45AM
media
Copying DVDs Is Illegal, But It Shouldn't Be "A federal judge ... Thursday or soon thereafter is likely to conclude RealNetworks' DVD-copying software is unlawful, and therefore should be permanently barred from distribution. That's the correct interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Yet we think it's offensive that the 1998 act produces the absurd result that consumers are considered hackers and copyright scofflaws just for duplicating DVDs for personal use." Wired 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:26AM
media
Who'll Fill The Void In British Arts-TV Programming? "Melvyn Bragg's retirement is the moment ITV has long been waiting for to dump this hugely expensive flagship, and replace it with an enthralling new reality/talent show plumbing a new depth of public taste. ... Melvyn's departure leaves the BBC nowhere to hide. It's constantly claiming that it wants and needs to improve its arts coverage, so here is a golden opportunity...." The Telegraph (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:21AM
issues
UK's Immigration Laws Are Harming The Arts "Thanks to the one-size-fits-all anti-terrorism laws, artists from outside the EU now need to go through a complex process of finding a sponsor and getting all manner of fingerprints and face-scans prior to travelling to the UK. ... [D]o we really need a scan of Robert LePage's face to know that he's not coming here to bomb Canary Wharf?" And that's hardly the only problem with the laws. The Guardian (UK) 05/05/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:17AM
visual
An Utterly Dispensable Mies? Go Ahead, Knock It Down. An Illinois Institute of Technology building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe "will soon be demolished.... And you know what? That's perfectly fine. Mediocre buildings by world-class architects sometimes have to make way for pieces of civic infrastructure that uplift the community as a whole. As you might suppose, a cadre of historic preservationists doesn't see it that way." Chicago Tribune 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@07:05AM
visual
Take That, Canaletto! Fueled By Ego, Turner Fights Back. "JMW Turner was one of the most egotistical of all the 19th-century artists, with a firm belief that he was a match for any of his contemporaries - or indeed any painter who had gone before him. Now that lofty self-assessment is to be put to the test on an unprecedented scale. The Tate announced today that for its big autumn show this year it would hang Turner's responses to some of the greatest paintings side by side with the originals." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@06:54AM
visual
A Gauguin Painting From Boston Draws Throngs In Japan "Though the enormous painting is set in Tahiti and has never been seen before in Asia, the Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players. Gauguin's work is much loved in Japan, where it has a special resonance, with its subtle references to Buddhism, its embrace of the natural world, and the deep Zen-like riddle of its title." Boston Globe 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@06:16AM

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Today's Headlines (by topic)

ideas
The Neuroscience of Magic Tricks - Wired 05/17/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:46PM

Where Free Will Comes From (A Little Behind Your Ears) - New Scientist 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:44PM

The Allure Of Studying Klingon (No, Really) - Slate 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:30PM

more Ideas...

dance
Four-Year-Old Triple Amputee Thrives In Ballet Class - The Telegraph (UK) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:52PM

Mikhail Baryshnikov, Dance Photographer - Brooklyn Rail 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:43PM

more Dance...

issues
Making Art From The Anguish Of Africa's Child Soldiers - Chicago Tribune 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:53PM

more Issues...

media
Surprise: Canadian Video Game Sales Down - The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:36AM

TicketMaster Defends Itself - Toronto Star 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:14AM

Incomprehensible Plots, Clarified - Wired 05/17/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:31PM

more Media...

music
Are We Down To Our Last Great Tenor? - La Scena Musicale 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:26AM

Met's Beverly Sills Award To Bass John Relyea - New York Times 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:47PM

A New Classical-Only Digital Store - Wall Street Journal 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:35PM

San Francisco Symphony Launches Online Social Network - Will It Work? - Washington Post 05/06/09 (second graf onwards)
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:34PM

more Music...

people
Is Jose Carreras Retiring? (There's Some Confusion) - BBC 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:19AM

Theatre Director Augusto Boal, 78 - Democracy Now 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:31AM

Britain's Angriest Artist Joins The Tories - The Guardian (UK) 05/05/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:48PM

Augusto Boal, 78, Who Created 'Theatre Of The Oppressed' - The Guardian (UK) 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:41PM

more People...

publishing
As Centuries-Old Manuscripts Are Digitized, Unexpected Treasures Emerge - Wall Street Journal 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:35PM

more Publishing...

theatre

more Theatre...

visual
Urgent: National Gallery's East Wing Needs Major Repairs - Washington Post 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:15AM

What Ails The Art Market (Not Just The Recession) - The New York Times 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@08:07AM

Prognosis For LA's MuseumOf Contemporary Art: Looking Up? - Los Angeles Times 05/08/09
email this story | Posted 05/08/09@06:44AM

Auckland Art Gallery Receives 15 Modern Treasures - National Business Review (New Zealand) 05/07/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:50PM

A Mobile Home Fit For A Glossy Shelter Mag? - AP 05/06/09
email this story | Posted 05/07/09@09:42PM

more Visual...