“After four days of painstaking negotiations, technology and consumer groups said they have failed to reach a consensus with the entertainment industry on the language of the Induce Act, a proposed bill making it illegal to encourage copyright infringement.”
Blog
Actors’ Insurance An Ever-Dicier Proposition
“Living the actor’s life often means uncertainty. Your job, working environment, and level of income are constantly in flux. While most actors are happy to choose this sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying existence over the grind at a fluorescent-lit cubicle, the very nature of it also means that certain necessities aren’t a given. Like rent money. Or health insurance. The process of getting and maintaining reliable coverage is a chief worry for the working actor.”
Homer Tops A Best-Seller List (Thank You, Brad Pitt)
“The ancient Greek Homer remains one of today’s most popular poets, topping the chart of bestselling poetry books for 2004 with online retailer Amazon. Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, which both dealt with the Trojan War, were the first and second bestsellers. His popularity has been partly put down to release of the movie Troy, starring Brad Pitt, which is based on The Iliad.”
Hotel’s Big Budget Benefits Colorado Artists
“Colorado artists are set to get a windfall worth nearly $1 million as decorators for the new $278.5 million hotel across from the Colorado Convention Center go shopping for art. … Another $1.5 million worth of artworks will be purchased through the city’s long-running percent-for-art ordinance, which requires that 1 percent of city-funded construction budgets be set aside for art.”
The World As One Giant Design Project
“Massive Change,” Bruce Mau’s much-anticipated, optimistic but uneven new show on the future of design, has arrived. “The exhibition doesn’t set out to map the future of design in any way one might expect…. (It) maps, instead, the often invisible design of things such as the global market economy, advances in medicine and agriculture, systems of ecological renewal and human transport. Every activity mankind engages in, everything that leaves our material stamp on the world, must be contemplated as a design project, says Mau. And we have choices.”
Cattelan’s Hanging Child Does It Again
“An exhibit depicting a hanged child at an art fair in the southern Spanish city of Seville has sparked a row between the gallery and local authorities, who yesterday demanded it be removed. The work in resin by Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan is on show at the Biennial of Contemporary Art but has sparked controversy — as it did in Milan last May.”
Austria’s Elfriede Jelinek Wins Nobel Prize
“Acclaimed and controversial Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, whose work often explores the role of women in society, was awarded the 2004 Nobel Literature Prize, the Swedish Academy announced.”
Off Off Broadway Missing From Revamped Times
“The redesign of the Arts & Leisure section at the Sunday New York Times won no raves from Off Off Broadway. The small-print column known as the Guide used to provide a comprehensive listing of all legit shows, even those playing the tiniest venues. But as of Oct. 3, the Guide is gone.”
MoMA Rethinks Design: Less Tiffany, More Kevlar
There will be much more to see in the Museum of Modern Art’s design collection when MoMA reopens Nov. 20. Rethought during the closure, the collection now includes objects from 1821 to 2004. “But the new installation does not seize the popular moment, with respect to two important cultural developments: the arrival and establishment of virtual design and the Internet, and the remapping of the domestic landscape because of multiculturalism.”
In Terminal 5, Art Lovers Behaving Badly
When the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to allow an art exhibition in Kennedy Airport’s vacant Terminal 5, the landmark Eero Saarinen building that Steven Spielberg used in “Catch Me If You Can,” it probably wasn’t envisioning graffiti on the walls or vomit and broken glass on the floor. But no, artists weren’t responsible for those displays. The damage was done by guests at an opening-night party that got out of hand, and now the show of installations, which was to have run through Jan. 31, has been closed.