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Hizzoner Puts His Money Where His Budget Knife Is

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a $20 million personal donation to the city’s arts groups through his preferred vehicle, the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Bloomberg has long been known as one of New York’s leading philanthropists, and while his donations to Carnegie have officially been anonymous, his willingness to spend his own considerable wealth on the arts has long been an open secret. “While the grants through Carnegie represent just a portion of the mayor’s overall philanthropy – last year he gave a total of about $140 million in donations to more than 800 institutions and groups – they are often vital to local groups that are struggling with fund-raising and, sometimes, have also struggled with budget cuts imposed by the Bloomberg administration.”

Edinburgh Summer Fests Going Through The Roof

Edinburgh’s multiple summer festivals are doing particularly well at the box office this year, with many upcoming events already sold out. “Ticket sales for this year’s International Festival are 14 per cent up on last year as theatre and dance fans snap up briefs for the most sought-after productions.” The book fest is selling at a record pace as well, and the always-popular Fringe Festival is on a steady track as well. Overall, it’s a positive sign for the arts in Scotland, given the recent history of government funding controversies and struggling companies.

Uh-Oh – DVD Sales Are Slumping Too

There are “small but troubling signs are emerging that the DVD market’s growth could be trailing off faster than Hollywood expected. On June 30, Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR ) cut its earnings-per-share estimate for the second quarter to 10 cents from 15 cents, due to slower-than-expected DVD sales of its blockbuster The Incredibles. The stock of Dreamworks Animation (DWA ) dropped sharply in mid-May, after the studio reported that returns of its own blockbuster Shrek 2 left sales 5 million short of its forecasts. Major retailers have noticed that DVD sales have been softer than anticipated recently, too.”

Fire Destroys Berkeley Rep Shop

A fire has destroyed Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s scene shop. “The Rep’s two theaters and adjacent School of Theatre in downtown Berkeley were not affected by the three-alarm fire, but the rented warehouse where the company has built all its sets for 15 years, located many blocks away in northwest Berkeley, was destroyed. The Rep’s immediate losses, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, were principally in the form of tools and materials.”

Men And Women – Our Brains Are Physically Different

“In the prime of life, the cerebral cortex contains 25 billion neurons linked through 164 trillion synapses. Thoughts thread through 7.4 million miles of dendrite fibers and 62,000 miles of axons so compacted that the entire neural network is no larger than a coconut. No two brains are identical, nor are two minds ever the same. Wherever researcher Sandra Witelson looked, she discerned subtle patterns that only gender seemed to explain. Her findings buttress the proposition that basic mental differences between men and women stem in part from physical differences in the brain.”

Study: TV For Kids Under Three Is Bad

“For each hour of television watched per day before age 3, a child’s reading comprehension and short-term memory scores fell at age 6 and 7. But for older children, every hour of television led to slightly better performance sounding out and pronouncing words. Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no television for children 2 and younger, including educational shows. For older children, the academy suggests no more than one to two hours a day of “quality” television.”

Vilar – The Disappearing Man

Philanthropist Alberto Vilar was good to Los Angeles Opera, giving it millions. Now that he’s defaulted on his gifts and got in trouble with the law, “it’s as if the man who once posed with Domingo, celebrity conductors and members of the board, who delighted in publicly handing out checks and watched performances intently from a seat of honor in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, had never set foot in town.”

The V&A’s Sensible Alternative

When the Victoria & Albert Museum finally decided to bag Daniel Libeskind’s controversial “spiral” addition, the museum started over. “This time round the museum started by asking the question, “What do we really need?” or rather, “What does the visitor need?” It commissioned a masterplan, re-thought the whole way the museum is organised, realised the heart of this new vision was the garden, and then brought in designers to suggest what might be done to make what had become a dank and unloved space, dominated by brooding cypress trees, work.”

The Website That Called Fraud On American Poetry Contests

“To make a career in American poetry nowadays you must enter poetry contests and work your way up the prestige ladder. The contests are run by university and small press publishers. Thousands of hopefuls enter their manuscripts, paying a fee of around $25. The publisher is guaranteed a profit. Most contestants are guaranteed to lose. It’s like boxing – just as bloodily competitive and, Foetry alleged, just as crooked.”