“Most museums celebrate centennials by trotting out their signature masterpieces, staging blockbusters, and campaigning for significant new acquisitions. [Boston’s] Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum can’t do any of those things. The masterpieces are already up, displayed in the permanent installation dictated by the founder. There’s no room for a blockbuster. Mrs. Gardner’s will prohibits the museum from adding to the collections. So the museum celebrates its 100th year with ‘The Making of the Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect & Designer,’ a show that attempts to rebrand her as a pioneer in the museum world, as opposed to a loose cannon in Brahmin society.”
Blog
Will Apple’s Music Service Be A Killer App?
So Apple’s getting into the music download business. At first look, “the integration between the one-click purchase service, Apple’s iTunes music jukebox software and the iPod player goes well beyond what any other music service has done. It will genuinely make paying for music online easy, even an impulse buy, and artists and music labels see that as a big step forward. Label executives privately say the Apple service is an experiment, which could be expanded if it proves successful. Apple’s small market share means that the stakes are relatively low.”
Beating On, Boats Against The FCC Current
Sometimes, it seems as if the battle against corporate domination of the media is a futile one, waged by a few hardy souls who simply don’t know when they’re beat. And it may be true that the fight for radio as a useful public medium (as opposed to a cash cow for giant conglomerates) has already been lost to the likes of Clear Channel and the ex-CEOs currently running the FCC. But to some activists and consumer advocates, the issue is so important that they simply cannot back down, even in the face of almost-certain defeat.
Why Kazaa Isn’t Worried About Apple
“Will Apple’s new paid music service put a dent in free file-trading services like Kazaa and Gnutella? No, because most files being traded on [peer-to-peer file-swapping] sites aren’t music files at all. Surprise — they’re porn.”
Laura Greenday-Ness, This Is Your Life! Oh, Wait, No, It Isn’t.
This much we know is true: Laura Greenday-Ness is the head of a small music school in a Dallas suburb. But nearly everything else in the Texas composer’s resume appears to be patently false. According to her school’s promotional materials, Greenday-Ness is a two-time winner of the national Composer of the Year award, is in residence with the Dallas Symphony, and has written for the Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony, and Philadelphia Philharmonic. Reality check: there is no such award; no one at the orchestras in Dallas, Boston, or Chicago has ever heard of her; and there is no such orchestra as the Philadelphia Philharmonic.
The Industry Gets Direct
The recording industry is taking its anti-piracy message directly to song-swapping consumers, sending notices to thousands of file-traders informing them that they can be easily identified and prosecuted if they continue to download copyrighted material without paying. The warnings are the latest salvo in a strange and disjointed campaign against piracy by the large record companies, and come in the wake of a court’s recent decision that file-trading services may not be held liable for the actions of their customers.
Italy Gets Tough On Pirated CDs
Italy is cracking down on counterfeit music recodings. “Street vendors could be fined 103 euros (£70) for every pirate copy they sell and may also face between six months and three years in prison. Buyers of illegal CDs, who up until now have gone unpunished, will be fined 154 euros (£106) if caught buying illegal CDs and repeat offenders could be hit with a fine of 1,000 euros (£700) when the new law is introduced on Tuesday. Italy has one of Europe’s largest counterfeit markets and the music industry estimates that one in four compact discs sold is pirated.”
Feld Shuts Down Company For 2003/04
Eliot Feld’s Ballet Tech is suspending operations for the 2003/04 season, citing difficulty in raising money. “The suspension is the first among major American dance companies as they try to cope with the troubled economy. “There has been a general consolidation within many of the companies. Companies have shortened seasons and downsized dancers. Middle-size companies like Mr. Feld’s, which has 14 dancers and a budget of $4 million, appeared to be struggling the hardest.”
Coming Up Next…
“Television has become obsessed with telling us what is coming up next. Hardly any programme is allowed to approach its conclusion without suffering the rude interruption of an over-loud voiceover, laboured link or fancy graphic signalling the arrival of whatever is due to follow the closing credits. It is as if the viewer is being urged to fixate on the imminent future at the expense of the present: not so much of ‘carpe diem’ as ‘carpe the next diem’.”
New Energy Needed For Cultural Studies
Cultural studies have yielded a great deal of understanding about the behaviors of those around us. “In this pervasive view, key aspects of life can best be understood by exploring the fundamental beliefs and assumptions of a culture and (in some formulations especially) the language in which they are expressed. Recently, however, the fascination with culture seems to be waning: Historians, for example, are conducting symposiums and editing volumes about “what comes next,” and erstwhile culturalists are publicly bemoaning the decline of interest in relevant theory. Aside from demonstrating that humanists are not immune to faddism, the transition invites some comment about the state of cultural research more generally.”