“The impulse to idolize is as old as the gods, of course. Jesus was a superstar some time before Andrew Lloyd Webber came around. What’s abnormal about the phenomenon of stardom is the condition of being a star, of living as the object of desire of, and the subject of scrutiny by, countless strangers. Stardom is normal for everyone but stars.”
Month: May 2012
Helsinki Rejects Plan For Guggenheim
“The Helsinki city board, a vetting committee of 15 municipal politicians selected to consider proposals for the Helsinki city council, voted eight to seven against putting the Guggenheim project forward for the council’s consideration.”
A Debate On Stabilizing Arts Funding
What can we do to stabilize funding for the arts? Can we learn from other countries’ examples? A New York Times debate…
Big Box Content Producers Say Piracy Costs US $58 Billion/Year. But The Truth?
“Given the scale of the problem, one might expect the movie business to have rock-solid numbers on what piracy costs them. But the closer one looks, the more dubious the figures seem.”
Arts Council England Spending Down Six Percent
“Arts Council England spent more than £588 million of public money in support of the arts in 2010/11 – down from £625 million in 2009/10 – according to its newly published annual report.”
TV Production Way Down In LA
“TV shooting last week slid 28% to 257 days, down 100 days from the same frame a year ago. It was the second-slowest week of the year for TV — only 31 days more than the first week of the year, which saw the fewest TV shoots of 2012. Largest drop came in TV reality, down to 130 days from 180 last year.”
Why Is So Much Of The Art Coming Out Of China So Bad?
“At the same time it’s hard not to be disheartened that so much art coming out of China falls short of what it might be. A colonized land and an oppressed people suddenly becoming a world power could not offer richer opportunities for photographers able to capture the ordinary, slow changes as well as the enormous ones.”
How The Telephone Shaped The Way We Communicate
Where the world’s wires once hummed with the electrical impulses of people talking, that conversation, in the digital age, has been subsumed by all the other information we are exchanging. “At this point, voice isn’t even a rounding error in network operators’ calculations.”
UK E-Book Sales Soar 54 Percent
“Digital content now accounts for 8% of the total value of book sales in 2011 – it made up 5% in 2010. However, total book sales fell by 2%, with the market worth £3.2bn.”
Two Arrests In Big Cambridge Museum Theft
“A 28-year-old man and 15-year-old boy were arrested earlier at addresses in east London by officers from Cambridgeshire and the Metropolitan Police.”