Wold’s fairs were important in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for sharing information. “The Venice Biennale remains the first, the biggest, the best. More important is who goes there. And everybody goes there. Documenta may be more influential; it is certainly more coherent. But nothing brings out the art world like Venice. It’s a spectacular place to go. The national pavilions are part of it, but so are the other exhibitions.”
Blog
Rowling Calls Teen Reporters
The increasingly reclusive JK Rowling is limiting her contacts with the press. “Rowling has refused to grant interviews to British journalists for two years. Her only contact with the media on the release of the new book will be through ‘cub reporters’ under 16, who will be selected for a ‘press conference’ through competitions. Emerson Spartz, an 18-year-old student from Indiana, was asleep at 9am when his telephone rang. A Scottish voice asked ‘Hello, Emerson? This is Jo. You believe me, don’t you’?”
Report: Take The Blame Away From Downloading
Maybe music downloading isn’t the reason music sales have fallen in recent years, suggests a new report. “The report said it is difficult to establish a causal connection between the rise of file sharing and a drop in music sales. While the music industry’s revenues fell 20 percent from 1999 to 2003, other factors, such as illegal CD copying, might have played a role in the decline, the OECD said.”
Mogul’s Millions Make Reading Difference For Kids
Five years ago, Netscape founder Jim Barksdale and his late wife, Sally, “put up $100 million of their own money to improve ‘preliteracy’ skills for preschoolers and reading for children in kindergarten through third grade in Mississippi. The Oxford-based institute they created provides books and teacher training for some of the state’s neediest and lowest-performing schools. Barksdale chose his brother, attorney Claiborne Barksdale, to run the institute, with strict instructions that he wanted results. An independent analysis recently confirmed the program was making a statistically significant difference.”
NY Library Starts Digital Borrowing Library
The New York Public Library says it is “making 700 books — from classics to current best sellers — available to members in digital audio form for downloading onto PCs, CD players and portable listening devices. Users can listen to digital audio books through a computer, burn them to CDs or transfer them to many portable devices, library officials said. Digital audio books are available for free to members through the library’s Web site. Users can borrow up to 10 digital books at a time, and after 21 days the materials will be automatically checked in and made available to others.”
What’s Wrong With Art Education
Time was, artists honed their craft in school and by learning from the skills of masters of the day. No more, writes Laurie Fendrich. “Art education (by which I mean the education of artists for the professional contemporary art world, as opposed to the education of high-school art teachers, which is an entirely separate matter) has become a hodgepodge of attitudes, self-expression, news bulletins from hot galleries, and an almost random selection of technical skills that cannot help but leave most art students confused about their ultimate purpose as artists. This mishmash approach has been going on for so long that it amounts to an orthodoxy…”
European Labels Want Copyright Extension
European recording companies are pushing to have EU copyright term extended to 100 years. “Currently in the EU, there are separate copyright terms for composers and performers. Composers are awarded copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years. Performers hold a copyright for 50 years from the first recording. It’s the 50-year term the IFPI wants to extend.”
100 Years Of Ashton
Celebrating Frederick Ashton’s 100th birthday has been a major undertaking. “During the Ashton 100 season, along with Scottish Ballet, British companies have performed 23 ballets and excerpts, while overseas American, Russian, French and Asian companies have joyfully learnt ballets often described as “typically” English – forever burying the myth found readily expressed at the Royal Ballet only 10 years ago that Ashton was parochial and out-of-date. No one, surely, would have been more surprised than Ashton himself.”
Beautiful Watermill Theatre For Sale
Britain’s countryside Watermill Theatre is housed in an 1820s redbrick mill, and it’s for sale. “Under the directorship of Jill Fraser, backed up by her husband James Sargant, who worked in senior positions for the RSC for many years, this rural idyll has quietly become one of the most admired and influential theatres in the country. In the past five years, it has transferred more shows to the West End than any other theatre in Britain.”
Hollywood’s Latest Marketing Tool? Blogs
“Costing almost nothing to maintain, the vast majority of blogs are mental clearinghouses for their authors, lo-fi Web confessionals or bully pulpits that vary from current events to niche pastimes to sex. Directors’ blogs, by contrast, are slickly engineered to virally market their movies — to stoke fan ardor. Some observers say this approach allows studios to put a spin on moviemaking — and, by playing to fan interest, head off potential controversies. Movie marketers say the sites allow blogger-directors to reach out to fans in an up-close-and-personal way.”