When the NEA gives money to community arts projects but California’s budget wipes out the state agencies that fund the same types of projects, what’s the message to communities and artists? (Pretty mixed.)
Tag: 02.24.12
The Mousetrap: Dear God, Will It Ever End Its Run? (Probably Not)
“It is the sort of play one imagines a play ought to be if one has seen very few. It lends itself to an elaborate if conventional set design: dark wood, chintz chairs, a large bay window, a staircase, and multiple doors allowing for the entrance and egress of the various suspects from kitchen, cellar, parlor, and upstairs bedrooms.”
Turns Out Life Maybe Crawled Out Of Volcanic Ponds, Not The Oceans
A new study claims that “life evolved inside cooled inland ponds formed from condensation from volcanic activity deep inside the Earth. Life later would have spread into the oceans.”
Rethinking A Bad Eisenhower Memorial
“There’s been a growing chorus of hoots and raspberries, and mounting pressure on the National Capital Planning Commission to use a coming review of the project to put the kibosh on the plans. And so Mr. Gehry’s defenders have been playing the They-All-Laughed trump card, harrumphing about know-nothings and their resistance to artistic innovation.”
What We’re Learning From The “Mona Lisa” Copy
“The greatest surprise about the Prado copy is that it was worked on alongside the original, giving us a greater insight into the Louvre’s version. It would have been very unusual for a copyist to have laboriously worked in this way, since copies were normally done from completed pictures.”
Canada’s National Gallery Ordered To Negotiate Artists’ Fees
“A federal tribunal has ordered the National Gallery of Canada to the bargaining table, telling the Ottawa art museum it has 60 days to start negotiating with artists’ groups about the fees it pays to exhibit or reproduce their work.”
How Technology Is About To make Us Rethink Copyright
“Fortunately, a technology on the verge of going mainstream will soon give us a chance to re-examine the role that copyright plays in our lives. By connecting the physical and the digital, 3-D printers remind us that copyright is not a general-purpose legal right that allows people to demand control over whatever they want. Instead, copyright has a narrow scope. And most of the things that make up our world simply do not fall into it.”
The End Of Cash?
“Thanks to technology, trustworthy banking (well, mostly), and our insatiable appetite for convenience, we’re all carrying less and less cash, and soon we’ll probably quit it altogether.”
Will 3D Printing Change The World? (It Already Is)
“In many ways, the progression of 3-D printing from giant warehouses to living rooms has happened faster than anyone had a right to expect. 2-D printing was the exclusive province of industrial presses and foundries for centuries. Computers were refrigerator-size beasts for decades before the Commodore PET and the Apple II. And yet 3-D printers have gone from lab to living room in less than 20 years–and at prices that are already coming within reach of the upper-middle class.”
JK Rowling’s New Book – For Adults
“Rowling has turned her back on Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter series whose first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released 15 years ago. Little, Brown Book Group, owned by Hachette, has acquired the rights to publish Rowling’s new novel and the publisher will have the lucrative English language rights in both print and ebooks.”