In Finland, music is practically the national language. Children are frequently taught to read notes before they can read words, and the government pours money into national music and arts education at a rate which would cause U.S. lawmakers to choke on their tax cuts. The result of all this national emphasis on music is clear: Finland, with a population comparable to the state of Minnesota, is dominating the international music scene, and “classical music has little of the elitist aura that tends to be the case in the United States.”
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Billionaire On The Lam: The Axelrod Myth Unravels
In the days since New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod fled to Cuba to avoid indictment on tax evasion charges, details have begun to emerge about the man who had been called New Jersey’s greatest arts benefactor. “It has become clear that myth and reality were always hard to separate in the life of Herbert Axelrod, whether the subject be tropical fish, charity or musical instruments… A review of lawsuits, public documents and interviews with those who were once close to Axelrod suggest he was never quite what people thought. Court papers filed in a pending lawsuit against him depict him as a liar and a womanizer who funneled cash in the form of author’s payments to a woman with whom he had a years-long affair.”
Does Oakland Need A Ballet?
As the Oakland Ballet struggles to reestablish itself financially, an old Oakland refrain is rearing its head: why does Oakland need a ballet/symphony/arts scene, anyway, with San Francisco’s glittering cultural landscape just across the bay? Such talk has always been a thorn in the side of East Bay artists, and the Ballet is at a crossroads that Oakland’s symphony and theater professionals have seen before.
What’s In A Name? For TiVo, Not A Lot.
In only a few years on the market, TiVo has become one of those brand names, like Scotch tape or Kleenex tissues, that consumers use to refer to an entire industry, regardless of actual brand. But even as its name continues to be the industry gloss for digital video recorders (DVRs), TiVo is in danger of being pushed out of the top spot among DVR producers by a raft of competitors, including cable companies which can package their DVRs with attractive channel packages.
Premium Onion Comes With A Price
Readers of online newspapers are used to their favorite publications suddenly deciding to charge for access to certain stories. But The Onion? The satirical newsweekly launches a new subscription-based site this week, offering readers more content and no ads in exchange for $7 per month. In addition to the standard content that appears in the paper’s print edition, the premium site will allow staffers to be more experimental, and to develop animations, slide shows, and other web-based projects that wouldn’t necessarily work on paper.
Filmmaker Jose Giovanni Dead at Age 80
“The Corsican-born director, author and screenwriter was well-known in France for his crime movies. He began his career as a scriptwriter in the late 1950s and began directing movies such as The Hitman in the 1970s. Giovanni also won several awards in France for his crime novels. He died of a brain haemorrhage at a clinic in his adopted homeland of Switzerland.”
Calder Gets A Cleaning
“The National Gallery of Art has removed its overarching signature Calder mobile from the central court of the East Building this week for a top-to-bottom refurbishment. The gallery took down the 76-foot, 920-pound artwork before the building opened on Monday. A crew of 24 people, including engineers, curators and a film crew, started work at 5 a.m. and finished six hours later.”
Are We Cloning Kids or Selling Tickets?
A new wave of marketing-driven web sites masquerading as actual businesses is causing consternation and confusion among consumers, but businesses insist that, with traditional advertising techniques losing their impact, the fake sites are nothing more than a new and savvy method for generating “buzz,” that all-important but difficult to quantify measure of cultural worth. From a fake genetic research company offering to clone your dead children (actually an ad for the new movie Godsend), to a guy in a chicken suit on a webcam who will do whatever you ask him to (brought to you by Burger King), it’s harder than ever to distinguish web reality from marketing fantasy.
Absolut Art
When Andy Warhol first told the Absolut vodka company that he admired the design of their bottle, and wanted to paint it, no one suspected that a Swedish booze company would become the subject of one of the most widely-viewed pop art collections of all time. But 25 years and countless Absolut ads later, the collection is taken quite seriously not just as a successful ad campaign, but as a legitimate collaboration between commerce and art. Oh, and in case you ever wondered: yes, the campaign sold a heck of a lot of vodka over the years.
Brampton: Canada’s Home for Weird Art
Small cities often find themselves with a hard row to hoe when they attempt to reinvent themselves as arts destinations, but the much-maligned town of Brampton, Ontario, is determined to give it a try. But Brampton isn’t just looking for artists – it’s embracing all the avant-garde, taboo-defying “weirdo” artists it can get. “Brampton is, after all, the home of Scott Thompson, weirdest and wildest of the Kids in the Hall. This sprawling commuter conglomerate of 400,000 — expected to grow to 700,000 this decade — might just be the Canadian centre for strange, experimental art.”