The UK has a new law to try to slow the trade of illegal antiquities through London. “The Dealing in Cultural Objects Offences Act outlaws the handling of an item knowing that it was illegally removed from a site anywhere in the world after 2003.”
Blog
Do Titles Matter?
The title makes the book. Who even wants to crack the cover of a book with a dull title? So how do you come up with a winning title that will make the cash regsisters sing?
Movies Of The Future – Living For The Niche
“While 2003 was a year marked by the further consolidation of power by a handful of mega-media companies, the audience is not without some power to fight against them. The more we reject embarrassing big-ticket stunts like “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “Coupling,” the riskier it becomes to produce bloated would-be crowd-pleasers chasing after a theoretically homogeneous crowd. Vanity — and perhaps the possibility of found money — might even drive the media giants to bolster their output of more diversified, less costly and perhaps better products that speak to our various niches.”
World’s Languages Are Becoming Extinct
“While estimates suggest that in the next 100 years perhaps five per cent of species will be wiped out, Mark Abley’s ‘Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages’ argues that it is languages that are really under threat. The consensus seems to be that on current trends, between 50 and 90 per cent of the world’s 6,000 or so languages will cease to exist over the next century. Should we care?”
Is There Linguistic Free Will?
Does the language you speak affect the way you think? It’s not the conventional thinking – indeed, the accepted idea is that we’re born with some set of language templates already in place. But at least one linguist is playing with the idea that the structure of language helps structure how we think.
Disney To Close Animation Studio
Disney is expected to close its animation studios in Orlando this week, cutting loose 260 workers. “Under pressure to reduce overhead and consolidate production, Disney already has shuttered animation studios in Paris and Tokyo. In all, the studio has cut more than 700 jobs in recent years — including 50 animators in Orlando last year — and trimmed animators’ salaries as much as 50 percent. The most recent cuts would leave Disney’s animation division with a core staff of 600 to 700.”
Classical Enjoyment – A Cost Barrier
Why are there not more young people at classical music concerts, wonders John Rockwell. “The incontrovertible fact remains: classical music, by and large, is ludicrously overpriced. MoMA’s $12 is barely more than the $10.25 to which some movie theaters in Manhattan have recently ascended. Rock concerts may be pricey, but songs can be downloaded for 99 cents or less, all the way down to zero.”
Orchestras – Harmful To Your Hearing?
Symphony orchestras are loud (and they ought to be). But they can also be harmful to the hearing of musicians. The issue “has bubbled to the surface recently with press accounts of a new regulation imposed by the European Union that reduces the allowable sound exposure in the European orchestral workplace from the present 90 decibels to 85. The problem is, a symphony orchestra playing full-out can easily reach 96 to 98 decibels, and certain brass and percussion instruments have registered 130 to 140 at close range.”
The World’s Largest Book
The world’s largest book has been published. It’s a book of photographs of the kingdom of Bhutan. “Opening to 1.5 by 2 metres and weighing more than 60 kilograms, the book is so big it needs its own Sherpa. The price? A cool $10,000 (U.S.), 17 times what the average Bhutanese earns in a year, although the books only cost $1,000 each to produce, with the remaining $9,000 benefiting the Bhutanese ministry of education as a charitable donation.”
Careful Of That Cough – The Musicians Might Attack!
Cellist Stephen Isserlis is fed up with audience members who snooze, cough, or forget to turn their pagers, watches or cell phones off. “I do believe that the first step has to be taken by the audience – or rather, by that usually tiny minority who believe that, contained within the right to free speech, is the right to ruin concerts. I should advise them that, if they continue to ignore the warning signals, it is only a matter of time before a musician turns truly violent; and a cello spike or a piccolo placed in an inappropriate orifice could prove to be really quite uncomfortable…”