The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London have made an agreement to share collections. “Under the new arrangement, the Fine Arts Museums and the V&A will have preferential position for sharing exhibitions they respectively organize.”
Blog
Nielsen To Measure Ratings For TV Commercials
The ratings company Nielsen “plans to measure how many people actually watch TV commercials starting in November, a move that could result in a decline in advertising rates…”
Canadian Government Declines Help For Quebec Fim-makers
The Canadian government has declined to give Quebec filmmakers $20 million in “emergency” aid. Last month 20 representatives of the Quebec industry went to Ottawa to complain about “Telefilm Canada’s recent announcement that, because of lack of funds, it could help bankroll only four or five Quebec features this year, leaving more than two dozen projects without support.”
CBC In Hot Water Over Mini-series
Canada’s CBC is embroiled in a dispute over a mini-series about Tommy Douglas, a 20th Century political leader. Descendants of one of Douglas’s opponents are protesting the depiction of their ancestor. The CBC seems willing to accommodate the protest, but not to the protesters satisfaction. Meanwhile researchers for the series stand by their portrayals and are angry that CBC is considering the protests. “Is there only one accepted version of history? It’s shocking that this is coming from a public broadcaster.”
In Defense Of Contemporary Playwrighting
Randy Gener is tired of all the doom-saying about American theatre these days. And why are critics attacking our playwrights? “They [playwrights] are taking real risks and reinvigorating our repertory of contemporary drama with muscular ideas and imaginative fervor. The bitter irony is that these bringers of new works are treated as if they were glassy-eyed dreamers and beggars in a house of plenty.”
SOS For The Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Museums need some urgent attention from Congress – both financial and ethical. “The Smithsonian’s leaders and their congressional overseers are allowing too much of our national museum to be transformed into a series of pavilions where, in exchange for sponsorship money and other deals, corporations may determine what parts of the American story should be told.”
Writing Worse Than Before?
It’s an oft-repeated charge that students’ writing is worse than it used to be. But is that provably true?
The Book Storage Problem
Storing data for the future is getting more difficult, not less. To start, what form do you store books in? “We’re talking of moving past gigabytes of information into terrabytes [a thousand gigabytes], into petabytes [a thousand terrabytes], and into exobytes [a thousand petabytes]. We need to install now an architecture into which you will be able to plug in whatever is the storage system of the day, in the future.”
Bad Writing, Truly
Jim Guigli has won this year’s San Jose State University bad writing competition with this passage: “Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.”
Canada Chooses Venice Biennale Representative
David Altmejd, 32, a Montrealer who works in New York and London, was chosen by a Canada Council jury in a nationwide competition.