London’s Royal Academy is having a dreadful year. Divisions in leadership, accusations of mismanagement, and plenty of general squabbling have muddied the RA’s reputation. “Now the talk in London’s art circles is that the Royal Academy has lost its way.”
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Balancing Books In The Desert
For a trio of Arizona arts groups, the news is good: “The Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera and Ballet Arizona all announced last week that they closed fiscal 2003-04 with surpluses.”
How Your Brain Distorts Muscles
A new study into exercise-induced fatigue shows that “the brain’s ability to judge the position of limbs is distorted when muscles are fatigued. Before this research, scientists believed athletes’ ‘clumsiness’ after a strenuous performance was caused by damage to sense organs in the muscles.”
Maybe They’ll Find Leprechauns On Atlantis?
People have been searching for the hidden city of Atlantis for generations. Many theories of where the legendary city was have emerged. The latest? “A geographer has claimed that Atlantis, first described by the Greek philosopher Plato as sinking under a tidal wave 12,000 years ago, was actually Ireland.”
Taiwan Goog Still On Track?
The proposed Taiwan Guggenheim Museum is still a go, say Taiwanese officials, even though funding for the project has been bogged down for some time…
Pittsburgh Ballet Elevates Six
After making no promotions in the past two years, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has just elevated a half-dozen dancers, a record for the company. Two are now principal dancers, and four are soloists.
Whitewash? The History Of Rock ‘n Roll On Beer Cans
When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first musicians in 1986, six of the 10 honorees were black. Now Miller Brewing is marking the “50th Anniversary of Rock ’n’ Roll” with eight beer cans featuring Rolling Stone cover shots of great rock ’n’ roll artists, all of them white.
Blair Witch Cinematographer Dies In Plane Crash
Neal Fredericks, 35, who shot the low-budget 1999 hit, “The Blair Witch Project,” died in the crash of a single-engine plane while filming a new movie near Key West.
A Racist Classic We Should See
Last week, a Los Angeles theater owner canceled a planned screening of D.w. Griffith’s 1915 movie “The Birth of a Nation” after civil rights groups promised protests. But the movie ought to be screened, not suppressed, argues Renée Graham. “Much like Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 Nazi propaganda documentary ‘Triumph of the Will,’ an equally acclaimed, equally troubling film, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is a painful totem to our own intolerance and to how such ill feelings still vex us today.”
New York – Where We Subsidize Movies?
“State lawmakers have approved the first tax credit to benefit film and television productions in New York, and many in the industry say the incentive will help lure more film productions to the city and the state and counter the flight of film jobs to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. … In addition, the measure would permit New York City to contribute as much as an additional $12.5 million annually to the tax credit program.”