“As the music industry confronts declining sales, the Warner Music Group said yesterday that it had filed to sell up to $750 million of stock in an initial public offering. The company, which is the smallest of the world’s four major record conglomerates by market share, said it expected to sell its stock on either the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq. It did not detail the number of shares it planned to offer or their expected price range.”
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The Big Broadway Spam Scam
Theatregoers who signed up for e-mail newsletters for two popular Broadway musicals may be getting more than they bargained for, after it was discovered that a software glitch allowed the e-mail addresses of those signing up to be accessed by any savvy visitor to the shows’ websites. The security hole is one that has frequently been exploited by hackers to gain lists of e-mail addresses for spaming purposes. And in case you were wondering: yes, Monty Python’s “Spamalot” was one of the musicals affected.
America The Manic Depressive
Has America’s obsession with wealth and material possession become a mania that distracts us from recognizing the truly important things in life? A new scholarly book argues that, “in the age of globalization, Americans are addictively driven by the brain’s pleasure centers to live turbocharged lives in pursuit of status and possessions at the expense of the only things that can truly make us happy: relationships with other people.” If the author is right, the country has crested the manic wave created by the 1990s stock market boom, and is headed for a very big emotional fall.
Exhibit? What Exhibit?
A new exhibition celebrating the legacy of photographer Larry Clark is opening in New York, and the organizers are treading very cautiously. Clark’s body of work consists in large part of “stark, intimate photographs and movies of teenagers having sex, shooting drugs and waving guns,” and there has always been debate over whether it can accurately be described as art. The exhibitors made a deliberate decision not to apply for any government money to back the exhibit, and the entire show seems to be intentionally flying well under the radar.
David Byrne: PowerPoint As An Instrument Of Art
Rocker David Byrne is touring with his current instrument of choice – a computer loaded with PowerPoint. “Byrne is most interesting when he goes off on flights of fancy that illustrate why he is called the Renaissance man of rock. “PowerPoint is a symptom of a long train of thought that started picking up steam during the Enlightenment,” he says. “The idea was that we could name everything and draw lines that connect them.”
What’s Next For Weinsteins Apres-Disney?
“According to insiders at Miramax, the Weinsteins envision a new company, with a net worth of about $2 billion, with its own theatrical distribution and home video label. The Weinsteins want to raise a deep war chest so that they do not have to hustle for money and presell foreign territories to raise production coin. They hope to lure employees by promising to share the wealth when the company goes public within five years. But raising money is one thing. Structuring a new company in a way that satisfies investors is another.”
Cleveland Goes Looking For Big Money
Cleveland arts organizations are looking for big money. Can they find it? “Three of Cleveland’s nonprofit institutions have campaigns that together hope to raise more than $700 million. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s $300 million effort is the newest, seeking money to expand and renovate the University Circle museum.”
Whose History Of 20th Century Art?
A new history of art of the 20th Century suggests a new narrative, writes Eric Gibson. “Indeed, “Art Since 1900” is less a historical narrative than an extended piece of art criticism arguing for a particular point of view. In this one respect the book has something in common with Paul Johnson’s recent “Art: A New History.” The difference is that Mr. Johnson’s approach is traditional and art itself is, for him, front and center; his insights grow out of his close look at the works of art that he is writing about. In “Art Since 1900” works of art are subordinated to one theory or another, reduced to little more than illustrations. And most of the theory itself is tendentious in the extreme, pushing a political “reading” of culture that amounts to a tired paean to Karl Marx and Walter Benjamin.”
A Model Orchestra Built On The New
You don’t build an orchestra by playing contemporary music. Or do you? Michigan’s Plymouth Symphony is “an orchestra on the make with a growing budget, expanding menu of concerts and education programs, bulging attendance and, significantly, the most progressive programming of any orchestra in southeastern Michigan, including the Detroit Symphony. No one locally does more to promote living composers, present thematic programs laced with intellectual pop and unusual repertoire and create a sense of adventure when the lights go down.”
The New 24/7 Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center is growing. “With jazz after midnight and late-morning, breakfast concerts of classical music, Lincoln Center is evolving into an almost “24-7″ performing arts hub. As it adds edgy creativity to its mainstream fare, the centre is expanding culturally and physically. It also has enlarged its board of directors to include leaders in non-artistic fields raising money from donors who might never before have given to the arts.”