“Although many faculty members like to complain about the declining capabilities of incoming students, the data show that students’ have increasingly taken advanced courses in high school. The demographic data provide little in the way of surprises; they show the high school-age population growing increasingly diverse over time, with white students making up 86 percent of the national high school senior class in 1972 and declining to 62 percent by 2004.”
Month: June 2008
Some Actors Prepared To Work Without Contract
Still, “while the union has yet to seek a strike authorization vote from its members, the industry is already in a “de facto” strike, with the studios winding down all but a few film productions by Monday. Hollywood is still recovering from a 14-week writers strike that ended in February.”
A Representation Of Everything
“Language is one of the best data-compression mechanisms we have. The information contained in literature, or even email, encodes our identity as human beings. The entire literary canon may be smaller than what comes out of particle accelerators or models of the human brain, but the meaning coded into words can’t be measured in bytes. It’s deeply compressed. Twelve words from Voltaire can hold a lifetime of experience.”
Canadian Opera Company Gets A New Director
“For the last four years, Alexander Neef served as director of casting for the Opéra National de Paris, where he worked closely with the renowned artistic director Gérard Mortier. Before that, he was involved with artistic administration at Germany’s Ruhr Trienniale, where he was charged with preparing opera, theatre and dance productions. And before that, he worked at Austria’s Salzburg Festival.”
Jefferson’s Library Recreated
“The Library of Congress has managed to re-create –with the help of rare-book collectors —the missing two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson’s Library.”
Entertainment Tonight For Composers?
Would it be hopelessly superficial to market composers based on their personalities, making the case that their traits and quirks necessarily inform their music?
That’s “Sir Salman” To You
“Queen Elizabeth II conferred a knighthood on “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie on Wednesday, a year after the announcement of the knighthood provoked protests from the Muslim world.”
Study: Your Personality Changes When You Change Languages
It “found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on which language they were using at the time.”
LA MoCA Gift Shop Strays Into Legal Trouble
“The temporary retail space allowed in October by the Museum of Contemporary Art has become the center of litigation, though. A class action suit brought Monday by an L.A. collector alleges that Louis Vuitton failed to take the law into account when selling limited-edition prints by Japanese Pop artist Takashi Murakami at his show at the museum’s Geffen Contemporary.”
Design College Gives The Boot To President
After an intense grass-roots protest movement by students and alumni of Art Center College of Design, trustees of the elite Pasadena institution have decided not to renew Richard Koshalek’s contract as president when it expires at the end of 2009.