Category: today’s top story

“The rosiest scenario for the struggling library system here is an 83% budget cut, which would force the immediate closure of seven of the 11 1/2 libraries but leave enough money to operate the rest — through December.” The whole system could shutter by month’s end, “making Siskiyou — an area bigger than Connecticut — the only county in California without public libraries.”

“The protests that saved the program included director Martin Scorsese’s open letter … asserting the importance of movie screenings in a museum context. But despite the high-profile backdrop to their fundraising efforts, LACMA officials say that financial support — presumably from film industry figures who’d be the logical donors to an L.A. film endowment — has not materialized.”

“In the researchers’ investigation, the best sight readers combined strong working memories with tens of thousands of hours of piano practice over several decades. Working memory appears to be a capacity that gels early in life and can’t be improved much by learning, the study suggests.”

“It often goes unremarked, but the first July 4th movie was actually set over the July 4th weekend. If you want a trenchant analysis of what Newsweek called ‘Jawsmania,’ in fact, your best bet has always been to check out Jaws itself.”

Lindsay Blackett on homegrown talent: “I sit here as a government representative for film and television in the province of Alberta and I look at what we produce and if we’re honest with ourselves, why do I produce so much shit? … Why aren’t broadcasters picking up more Canadian content? It’s because Canadian content isn’t what it should be.”

“[She] was 20th-century Canada’s incarnation of the prototypical 19th-century diva. She sang incomparably, gave generously of her rare musical gifts and her worldly goods, and lived life ‘in the large’.”

“Art-school sports resemble intercollegiate athletics at other colleges and universities, but there are some notable differences. For one thing, art-school athletes often haven’t been active in sports previously. … At art school, the stars are still artists, rather than athletes, and celebrations of victories are relatively muted.”

“The appointment of Chris Dercon, from Munich’s Haus der Kunst, was confirmed today, and the 52-year-old promises to bring his enthusiasm for ‘mixing it up’ to the banks of the Thames when he takes over in spring 2011.”

Conservators “used X-rays and spectrometers to distinguish paint layers and identify the pigments in Rothko’s paints, as well as enhancements of the original Ektachrome photographs taken of the murals when they were installed.” They then created “software that will use a digital projector as a light source to augment those now missing colors on the original canvases.”

“The Brooklyn Museum has long faced criticism that its populist tack and exhibitions on topics like the ‘Star Wars’ movies and hip-hop music have diminished its stature. And now the attendance figures raise questions about the effectiveness of those efforts to build an audience by becoming more accessible.”