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Restorer Of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ Walks Off Job In Protest

The art restorer hired to clean Michelangelo’s “David” for its 500th birthday, has walked off the job, protesting the “modern” cleaning technique chosen by the director of the statue’s gallery. “The gallery director who led an 11-year health check of the statue before it was decided to go ahead with the restoration, wants it to be cleaned using a modern ‘wet’ technique involving small amounts of water. Agnese Parronchi, the restorer, believes that any method other than careful dry brushing to remove the engrained dirt could further erode the protective coating.”

How To Show Appreciation (But It Doesn’t Seem Enough)

Jeanne Marie Laskas goes to the ballet and is wowed. “Do I sound wowed? No, I do not. In other arenas, when people are wowed, they shout: ‘Wow!’ Sometimes they stand up, whistle and make loud ‘Woo! Woo! Woo!’ sounds. But this is not appropriate behavior for a gloriously baroque performance hall. Instead, you are expected to sit here and watch a woman move her stunningly elastic body with a motion that is pure emotion, a bend and a twirl and a leap that has you close to tears, and you are supposed to wait. You are supposed to wait until she is done with this twirl or that twirl, and then, when an audience response is permitted, you may gently put your hands together with a respectful, though reticent, clap, clap, clap. This is bothering me. This is bothering me in a way I have never quite been bothered…”

Daredevil Musical?

Daredevil Evel Knievel has given his okay for a rock musical about his life. “I think it’s a wonderful compliment, said Knievel, who gained fame in the 1970s by jumping his motorcycle over cars and canyons. His daredevil career left him with 37 fractures, including broken bones in both legs, before he retired in 1980.”

‘Titanic’ In Kabul

What popular culture to Afghans want, now that the Taliban is gone? “Most of the pop culture bubbling up in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era is centered on neighbor India. Postcards of Indian stars and their bare bellies decorate everything from taxis to books. Hindi music blares from Internet cafes and car stereos. Bollywood action films are the hottest movies playing. The American exceptions are odd: Michael Jackson; any Hollywood action film, particularly those that went straight to the Third World before they officially hit the video market; and, of course, ‘Titanic’.”

More Women Leading Arts Organizations

“Statistics show that women have made great strides in leadership in the arts. In New England, women run 58 percent of museums today – compared to 25 percent in 1978. The number of women directing art museums nationwide has increased from about one in seven in 1989 to about one in three today, according to the American Association of Museum Directors. But some caution that the gains may not be as significant as they appear.”

I Feel, Therefore I Think (Or Something Like That)

Many philosophers have divided us up into thinking and emotional sides – each often at war with the other. But “for more than a decade, neuroscientists armed with brain scans have been chipping away at the Cartesian façade. Gone is Descartes’ lofty Cogito, reasoning in pristine detachment from the physical world. Fading fast are its sophisticated modern incarnations, including the once-popular ‘computational model,’ according to which the mind is like a software program and the brain like a hard drive. Lately, scientists have begun to approach consciousness in more Spinozist terms: as a complex and indivisible mind-brain-body system. The philosopher anticipated one of brain science’s most important recent discoveries: the critical role of the emotions in ensuring our survival and allowing us to think. Feeling, it turns out, is not the enemy of reason, but, as Spinoza saw it, an indispensable accomplice.”

A Free Market Solution To Looting?

Many of the ancient artifacts in today’s museums were removed from their places of origin before countries declared bans on the exports of cultural heritage. But those artifacts are protected in the museums. Is there a way for the free market to give collectors incentives to find and protect artifacts and shut down looting? “Archaeologists like taking the high moral ground against selling antiquities, but it doesn’t solve the problem of looting. I would like to use market solutions. Sell very common objects, like oil lamps or little pots, and use the money to pay for professional excavations.”

Recipe For A “Golden Age”

Baghdad in the 9th Century was in a Golden Age, a time when “its civilization shone more brightly than any other, when its philosophers, mathematicians and doctors led the way intellectually.” But it was a time made possible by opening up to the outside world. Baghdad was “the Tokyo of its day. Many of the ideas it snapped up were foreign. Yet the Arabs adapted them brilliantly. The hospital was a Persian idea from as early as the sixth century, under the name ‘bimaristan.’ But in Baghdad the institution became much more sophisticated, with special wards for internal diseases, contagious cases and psychiatric patients.”