Hyundai has announced that it will become the first automaker to equip all its U.S.-distributed cars with satellite radios, beginning with 2006 models. The Korean auto company will install XM-ready receivers in 500,000 cars in the first year alone, a significant potential audience for the XM folks, who currently boast 3.2 million subscribers. Hyundai owners would still be responsible for XM’s $12.95 monthly subscription fee.
Blog
Philly Dali A Certified Hit
“The Salvador Dalí exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is off to a flying start. During the show’s first 34 days ending Sunday, the museum sold 195,624 tickets.” The exhibit is scheduled to run through mid-May, with Philadelphia being the only North American stop.
The Quietest Place On Earth
“The quietest place on Earth makes its claim less than a block from a bustling liquor store, adjacent to a city bus stop, under the flight path of jumbo jets, and not far from a playground that hosts a daily scream fest worthy of earplugs. And yet, there it is: the anechoic chamber at [Minneapolis-based] Orfield Labs, an office-size studio used for testing sound equipment. Engineers tested the chamber not too long ago and found, or rather didn’t find, sound. What they didn’t find measured below the threshold for human ears, 0 decibels, and was as quiet as negative 9.4 decibels, an absence so profound that a person standing in the room for more than a few minutes would begin to hear his or her own ear making noise as their brain struggled to understand what was happening.”
The Pain-Free Ballet Company
The New York-based American Contemporary Ballet company could be seen as just one more start-up troupe in an already-crowded dance scene. But ACB is about more than just traditional dance; it’s about reinventing the way in which dancers dance, and protecting them from injury. The idea that dancers should be able to do their job without hurting themselves may sound basic to outsiders, but inside the ballet world, choreographer Lincoln Jones’s quest for pain-free dance is almost revolutionary.
Nielsen To Respond To Minority Concerns
Nielsen Media Research, the company responsible for measuring the all-important ratings by which television networks set their advertising rates, is making some subtle but significant changes to its viewer-monitoring system. The changes are designed to combat the problem of minority underrepresentation.
Pavarotti Recovering From Surgery
“Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti had neck surgery to repair two vertebrae earlier this month. The 69-year-old tenor spent two days in hospital in New York for the operation, which was described as ‘routine and regular’ by his spokesperson. Pavarotti is to return to Italy this weekend before continuing his farewell tour in South Africa next month.”
Girl, Interrupted: A Lolita That Never Was
This week, the Boston Symphony will perform John Harbison’s overture to his opera based on Vladimir Nabokov’s groundbreaking and controversial novel, Lolita. What’s that you say? You didn’t know that Harbison had written an operatic version of the disturbing tale of teenage sexuality and seduction? Well, actually, he hasn’t. He wanted to, you understand, and actually got as far as sketching out the form and writing the overture, but then, the Catholic church in Boston, where Mr. Harbison lives, exploded into chaos with the sexual abuse scandal involving priests, and the composer couldn’t bring himself to finish the project as the dark comedy it is intended to be. Moreover, he concluded that Lolita simply cannot work in operatic form at all.
Ugly But Important?
Choosing one’s battles is always a difficult proposition for a preservationist, and by and large, most advocates for old buildings have not bothered to be too terribly vocal in their support for the Modernist structures of the mid-20th century. For one thing, Modernist architecture doesn’t tend to be terribly eye-catching, which means that any attempt to preserve it inevitably embroils one in a debate of aesthetics vs. historical significance, an argument which can be seen as a lose-lose proposition for preservationists. But two ongoing battles in New York suggest that a movement may be afoot to start protecting important examples of Modernist architecture before they are all replaced by newer, more attractive buildings.
Hope The Concert Was Good
How far would you walk to see a concert? Probably not as far as Hilde Binford, a music history professor at a Pennsylvania college, who just completed a 33-mile trek with several of her students, ending at New York’s Lincoln Center, just in time for a performance of the Philharmonic. Why they did such a thing is a complicated question: suffice to say that it has to do with J.S. Bach’s own 250-mile pilgrimage to hear an organ recital, but also a lot to do with simple intellectual curiosity and the love of a challenge.
A Performance So Bad That People Noticed
Composer James Dillon was very much looking forward to hearing one of his works performed in his hometown of Glasgow, by the renowned Royal Scottish National Orchestra. But at the performance, he was taken aback by what he says was the incredibly poor quality of the playing, as well as a palpable and aggressive disinterest on the part of the musicians and their conductor. The disengaged sound was also noted by both of Glasgow’s daily newspapers, and the BBC, which had planned to broadcast the concert recording, has changed its mind.