Month: June 2000

BUYING FREEDOM ONLINE

At around 6pm EST on June 29th, an original first printing of The  Declaration of Independence sold for $8.14 million on Sothebys.com. The same copy, which was last sold for $2.4 million, failed to sell at a regular auction in 1993. So maybe it was the new technology, which allows viewers to examine the document, and the fourth of July holiday that spurred the buyer on. – MSNBC

  • CELEBRITY BUYER: Television producer Norman Lear was the buyer. The price was a record sum for an online auction and far more than the estimated selling price of $4 million to $6 million. – Los Angeles Times

THE MEANING OF COLOR

Why do we think of certain colors as possessing beauty or emotion? “Flamboyant colour has always been associated with the pursuit of the beautiful, with aestheticism, with hedonist visual pleasure. Think of Matisse and his painting The Red Studio, in which every object in the room is choreographed to the rhythm of an overwhelming red; the boundaries of walls, a table and a clock are visible only as traces in redness. The very vocabulary of colour is saturated in ideas of beauty; the word “hue” comes from the Old English for ‘beauty’.” – The Guardian

THAMES BRIDGE TO STAY CLOSED

London’s Millennial footbridge across the Thames will likely be closed for months while engineers try to correct a problem with severe swaying whilst people are on the structure.  Engineers “concluded the movement was caused by ‘synchronized footfall,’ or hundreds of pedestrians stepping in unison. “I am disappointed, but not ashamed.” – Times of India (AP)

Architect Norman Foster defends London’s “bouncing bridge”, the £18.2 million Millennium Bridge, insisting that its problem had been diagnosed and the solution would be designed, although the structure might remain closed for months. – The Guardian

WHAT’S THE 411?

Everyone talks about the overload of information, the swamp of media overload we find ourselves in the middle of as we enter the 21st Century. “I would like to dispute this view, to argue that every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that communication systems have always shaped events.” – New York Review of Books

POINTED CRITICISM

A new 15-year study in Britain finds that training for ballet dancers not only damages young dancers by pressuring them to become anorexic, but produces “incredibly emotionally immature youngsters who are ill equipped to cope with the complexities of life beyond their narrow, rarefied existence. Low self-esteem is rife in a milieu where no tutors are required to undergo training, and teaching is often archaic.” – The Guardian

CBC GOES INTERACTIVE

The Canadian Broadcasting Company launched its interactive web service yesterday. “The hybrid service is being inaugurated with the launch of 120seconds.com a storytelling site that will feature a wide range of bite-sized programming, submitted by young freelancers and ordinary Canadians. Items may be presented in a variety of formats – audio, streaming video, still photos, text or animation, or any combination of these.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 06/28/00

THE CRITIC IN THE HOT SEAT

As actors increasingly lash our at critics after receiving negative reviews (Donald Sutherland and Kelsey Grammer, most recently), the role of the critic – and arts journalism in general – is being widely debated. Should a critic be a neutral mediator of experience? Or a subjective arbiter of taste? “The critic is not a straw-poll merchant, a tipster or a second-guesser of audience taste, simply an individual paid to record his or her reaction. Throughout history this has been a source of creative tension between artists and critics.” – The Guardian

PROFIT MOTIVE

  • Since the internet is rapidly transforming the music industry, and some estimates have us downloading our music rather than buying CDs by the year 2010, how will musicians continue to get paid for their songs? “Currently, there are four different ways: when listeners pay to download songs; subscription-only sites; advertising revenue from running banner ads; and cashing in on the musician’s identity by selling tee-shirts or fan club memberships. The most important thing artists can do is remind their listeners that music is worth paying for.”  – NPR [Real Audio file] (Part 1 of a series)

A BUDDING CAREER THAT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN

A month ago a Starbuck’s store manager in Manhattan won the Van Cliburn international piano competition for amateurs. Since then, he’s been giving concerts, getting great reviews, and there’s even talk of a recording. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The president of the Van Cliburn Foundation admits he’d be concerned if the amateur competition became known as a stepping-stone to professional careers.” – Dallas Morning News