“While dopamine normally helps us feel the pleasure of eating or having sex, it also helps produce euphoria from illegal drugs. It’s active in particular circuits of the brain. The tie to dopamine helps explain why music is so widely popular across cultures.”
Tag: 01.10.11
New Salvador Dali Museum Opens
For the first time in the DalÒs history, the museum will have room to exhibit all 96 Salvador Dalà paintings in its permanent collection. The entire collection, about 1,400 works, is worth between $500 million and $700 million. Besides the galleries, the museum has a gift shop, cafe, theater and community room for rent. There are also outdoor gardens.
This Year’s YouTube Symphony Musicians Announced
“Among the final group is a vuvuzela-fixated trombonist from Germany, an Arizona-based clarinetist who has never left the U.S. and a Guzheng player from China, whose instrument is one a lot of the world has never seen or heard before. They’ll come together from March 14 to prepare for a final performance on Sunday, March 20, which will be streamed live to the world on YouTube.”
Rock Music Has Its Worst Year Since 1960
“Only three rock songs appeared in the UK Top 100 singles of 2010 – the lowest number since 1960, research by Music Week magazine shows.”
Dudamel At The Movies; Reactions
“Would folks show up just to watch a symphony orchestra on a big screen? The answer is yes. But certainly not in the same numbers the Met simulcasts command — at least not yet.”
Paulo Coelho Says Iran Has Banned His Books
“Brazilian author Paulo Coelho has said his books have been banned in Iran and has appealed to Brazil to intervene. … Coelho, whose 1988 allegorical novel, The Alchemist, is one of the best-selling books of all time, said he would make all of his books translated into the Persian language … available for free on the internet.”
English Nat’l Opera to Simulcast in 3D
“Directed by Mike Figgis, who is best known as a film director and whose credits include Leaving Las Vegas,” ENO’s upcoming production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia “will be broadcast live on February 23 on Sky Arts 2, Sky 3D and in a range of cinemas.”
How Kubler-Ross’s ‘Five Stages’ Led to a Grief Industry
“The primal flaw in our culture’s journey into the bereavement and counseling industry … is that Kubler-Ross was initially writing ‘about the experience of facing one’s own death, not the death of someone else’.”
Afghanistan Play Marathon Headed to Pentagon
“The Tricycle Theater will present two special performances of The Great Game: Afghanistan, its seven-hour marathon of short plays about Afghanistan’s history of foreign occupations, for the Pentagon on Feb. 10 and 11.”
India Ambivalently Embraces Reality TV
“In a country where public kissing and handholding are largely frowned on, a fast-growing crop of prime-time reality television shows are attracting large audiences, and generating heated controversy, with unconventional guests and risqué situations.”