“Work on the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1965. The mammoth enterprise has survived fire and funding problems and has had to be constantly updated to incorporate new words,” but it’s finally being published this fall. “It contains almost the entire vocabulary of English, from Old English to the present day, giving a unique insight into the development of the language.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Box-Office Numbers Mean Zilch If Inflation Isn’t Factored In
“The problems with our growing fixation on box office figures–they don’t account for costs of the film, they don’t include home-entertainment revenue, etc.–have been chronicled in the past. But as long as we continue to indulge this obsession, shouldn’t journalists at least factor in inflation, instead of pretending that it doesn’t exist?”
NYC’s Film & TV Tax-Credit Fund Runs Out Of Money
“New York City has exhausted its budget for tax incentives for film and TV productions as of Tuesday, city officials announced…. ‘New York City’s “Made in NY” tax credit for qualified film and television production — the only one of its kind administered by a city in the U.S. — has reached its full allocation of $192.5 million and funds are no longer available for new applications,’ the NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting said.”
In Open Library, Imagining Books As Networked Objects
The Open Library’s goal “is to create a single page on the web for every book that has ever been published; an enormous, searchable catalogue of information about millions of books. … But with information about books already being processed by hugely popular websites such as Google and Amazon, the question remains – why bother?”
Restored Fresco Said To Reveal Michelangelo Self-Portrait
“The restoration of frescoes by Michelangelo in the Vatican has revealed what is believed to be a self-portrait of the artist. The face is in a wall mural in the Vatican’s Pauline Chapel or Cappella Paolina, according to Maurizio De Luca, the Vatican’s chief restorer. The chapel, which is used by the Pope and not open to the public, was unveiled this week after a restoration costing €3.2 million (£2.7 million).”
What Rub Might Do With Gehry, He Did With Vinoly In Ohio
While Timothy Rub, incoming director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, “brings to his new job a resume strong on all the essential art-world skills, one of the qualities that surely impressed the Philadelphia trustees is his ability to manage a big construction project and a big architectural ego.” This is key as the museum embarks on a $500 million expansion designed by Frank Gehry.
Gap Founder Gives Up On Plan For Presidio Art Museum
“Gap founder Donald Fisher and his family have decided to abandon their efforts to build a contemporary art museum at the Main Post of San Francisco’s Presidio…. The question now is whether the Fishers will invest additional time and money on a local proposal, trusting the word of critics who have said they would like to see the renowned collection stay in the city as long as a museum was built at a less sensitive location.”
Not All $$$ News Is Bad: Ten L.A. Artists Get $20K Grants
“Forget the recession for a minute. The California Community Foundation, in partnership with the Getty Trust, is still doling out money to Los Angeles County’s visual artists. In this year’s round of fellowships, to be announced today, 10 mid-career artists will receive $20,000 apiece and four emerging figures will each get $15,000.”
Surge In Private Commissions Enlivens Concert Repertoire
“[S]mall-scale commissions by individuals are becoming increasingly popular as new types of networks link composers with potential patrons. While many of these commissions arise out of private occasions, the resulting music is set to revitalize the concert repertoire for generations to come.”
Thomas Jefferson, A Young Nation’s First Violinist
Music was Thomas Jefferson’s “particular delight, ‘an enjoyment, the deprivation of which . . . cannot be calculated,’ he declared in 1785. From early boyhood, he pursued this ‘passion of my soul,’ studying the violin with a teacher in Williamsburg, Va. By the time he matriculated at the College of William and Mary in 1760, his playing was so fluent that he was invited for weekly chamber music gatherings with the royal governor of Virginia.”