The publishing craze sudoku is sweeping America. “Three weeks ago, no sudoku books were on USA Today’s top 150 list. Now, there are six. In sudoku, the game is laid out in adjoining grids. Players must figure out which numbers to put in nine rows of nine boxes so that the numbers one through nine appear just once in each column, row and three-by-three square. The phenomenon originated in 1979, when one of the grids, titled ‘number place,’ was published in an American puzzle magazine.”
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New Orleans Opera Cancels
New Orleans Opera has canceled its fall productions. “The warehouse where the company stores its sets is likely under water. The condition of the Mahalia Jackson Theatre of the Performing Arts, where it performs, is unknown.” There may be more far-reaching effects: “New Orleans Opera is one of the foremost rents of scenery and costumes in the country. They’re having to warn people all over the country that they may not be able to meet the contract.”
Will Reseller Fee Kill UK Art Biz?
“In January, the U.K. will follow France and Germany in making sellers of art pay living artists a royalty, ranging from 120 euros ($149) to 12,500 euros. Art merchants must live with that, though they continue to lobby against such measures. They argue that they will be less competitive with the U.S. market, where the rule does not apply, and will be hurt by scheduled extensions to the resale rights, known in France as “droit de suite,” in 2010 to 2012.”
Woman Attacks Lichtenstein Painting
A woman has slashed a painting by Roy Lichtenstein in an Austrian museum. “Nudes in Mirror – which was insured for $6m (£3.2m) – was damaged but not destroyed in the incident. Police said a 35-year-old woman, from Munich, in Germany, pulled a knife from her bag and slashed it four times on Saturday afternoon. She was stopped by visitors and staff at the Kunsthaus Bregenz museum.”
Turner Wins Greatest British Painting
A painting by JMW Turner has won a poll to find Britain’s Grreatest Painting. “The full title of Turner’s painting, completed in 1839, is “The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838″. The 98-gun ship Temeraire played a distinguished role in Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.”
Napster Users Ditch CDs
Heavy-duty music downloaders say they’re no longer buying CDs. “Some 150,000 of Napster UK’s 750,000 members say they no longer buys CDs, the company has revealed. And Napster UK manager Leanne Sharman said it was “a matter of time” before downloading overtook high street shops as the most popular way to buy music.”
Have We Lost The Striving For Getting Better?
“Simply put, the arts of museum, concert hall, opera house, theater and library have smaller audiences than they once did because growing older no longer means growing up.” Once, we had a drive to “imrpove ourselves” and one of the ways we did this was through the arts. “Whatever it was that prompted such aspiration is absent today. “Bettering yourself” is now primarily understood in terms of money and power. People routinely change the work they do when it denies them comfort or fun, so the idea that anything higher could be gained from leisure-as-work is alien. Staying young no longer only means being idealistic and adventurous or looking like you’re under 30. It can mean a kind of arrested development.”
Rebuilding New Orleans (But How?)
A thirty-year-old book reported that “of all the cities that had been flooded, burned, sacked, leveled by earthquake, buried in lava, or in some way or another destroyed worldwide between 1100 and 1800, only a few dozen had been permanently abandoned. Cities, in other words, tend to get rebuilt no matter what.We’ve been assured that New Orleans will, too. But, after what promises to be a Herculean clean-up operation, what will the new New Orleans look like? How much will it resemble its antediluvian self?”
A List of Damaged New Orleans Landmarks
Compiled as of Sunday…
What’s Happened To The Study Of Arts And Culture?
“The need for reliable data, trusted publications, and a familiar meeting place for the arts industries has never been greater. The arts, both high and popular, are being fundamentally reshaped by economic and technological forces that originate outside the field and are largely unknown or misunderstood. The established mechanisms for supporting, producing, distributing, validating and connecting art with a public are mutating rapidly or simply turning obsolete. Meanwhile, surprisingly little collaboration exists within the world of the arts or across disciplines, borders, and oceans to come to terms with this emerging environment.”