HBO Wants To Ban Viewers From Recording Its Shows

“HBO has joined a recent FCC filing in which it argues that its video-on-demand programming-and all ‘Subscription Video On Demand’ services-should fall into the category of ‘Copy Never.’ In a broadcast-flagged world, that translate into consumers not being able to record on-demand broadcasts by HBO. No TiVo, no VCR, no video capturing on your PC, no nada.”

My Death, Now In Previews

A prominent Hungarian director who is dying is staging previews of his own funeral. “Peter Halasz, who is also an actor, writer and satirist, is in the final stages of liver cancer, and will begin lying in an open coffin at an art museum in the Hungarian capital Budapest later this week. ‘I’m curious how a funeral looks from the other side’.”

Bush Budget Slashes Public Broadcasting Money

George Bush’s proposed budget takes a big cut out of money for public broadcasting. “In the president’s 2007 budget request, CPB funding will be cut by $53.5 million in 2007 and $50 million more in 2008. Those cuts don’t reflect others made in funding at the Education and Commerce departments and the elimination of specific programs for digital TV conversion and satellite delivery system. Public broadcasting officials estimate that the entire budget cuts run $157 million over the two-year period.”

Prize Portents

“In the fields of literature, movies and music, prize scandals prompt people to pay attention to awards, if only to see what gauche lapse in taste happens next. And debates about the credibility of a prize, by their very existence, benefit the concept of art and artistic value by implying that they exist in a realm separate from politics and compromise. Clearly, questions about prizes’ credibility haven’t hampered their proliferation: ours is a culture beset by and obsessed with prizes, even if we disagree about their meaning. So what do they mean?”

The Neuroscience Of Dance Improv

Neuroscientists are studying improvisation in dance. Is there some similarity with how birds move in flocks? “There’s no lead bird who dictates, ‘Now we’ll be in this V.’ They’re forming patterns by sensing where they all are in space, by wind currents, all the different variables. They’re self-organizing themselves into a pattern. That’s what the dancers are experiencing, they’re forming their own patterns from within.”

Largest Mexican Music Festival Is A Free For All

“Once on the verge of extinction, the fast-paced and irresistibly rhythmic son jarocho (pronounced ha-RO-cho) is undergoing a revival. The genre is being fueled by a new generation of jaraneros, a name derived from the genre’s typically small guitar, or jarana. This evolution of son jarocho doesn’t have a new name yet, but it definitely has a new energy and fresh sound.”