A European court has reversed approval of a merger of two of the world’s largest recording companies – Bertelsmann and Sony. “The Court said regulators had not adequately shown that the 2004 deal would not hurt competition. The merger created the world’s second-biggest record label.”
Tag: 07.13.06
Enough With The Hallelujahs Already!
Leonard Cohen’s mournful paean to music, “Hallelujah,” has been around for more than two decades now, but filmmakers and TV producers just can’t seem to get enough of it. Chris Hewitt loves the song, but wouldn’t mind never hearing it again as an all-purpose backdrop to some melodramatic plot twist that could have stood on its own. “Great as it is, the song has become the musical equivalent of a tube of toothpaste. Each time it’s used, it becomes a little emptier, a little less effective.”
How Two Guys Sold Scam Art On eBay
“Their method was simple. They bought cheap paintings at estate sales, antique shops, small auction houses and even garage sales, then turned around and offered them for sale on eBay. They bid against each other (shill bidding) to drive up the prices and wrote descriptions of the art that suggested the sellers didn’t know the extent of the “treasures” they owned. They listed art under a wide range of user IDs (legitimate) and complimented each other’s false practices (illegitimate).”
Adele’s New Home
Conventional wisdom these days says that art unfairly looted by invading armies (especially Nazis) should be returned to its rightful owner and country of origin, no matter the consequences. So it was that Gustav Klimt’s famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was removed from Austria’s National Gallery and returned to the model’s heirs last year. Rather than keep the painting, however, the family promptly took it to auction, where it sold for a record $135 million. Now, one of the most famous paintings in the world is hanging in a New York businessman’s Fifth Avenue gallery, 4000 miles from its Austrian home.
OCPAC Gets A Much-Needed Pledge
With only two months to go before the opening of its new concert hall, the Orange County (CA) Performing Arts Center is still frantically raising the money it needs to complete construction and manage the facility. The effort got a big boost this week with the announcement of a $5 million gift by a longtime OCPAC board member’s family. The center has thus far raised $138 million for the concert hall since 1999, on a total goal of $200 million.
Musée du Contradiction
Paris’s new Musée du quai Branly has been absorbing plenty of body blows from critics since opening last month, but Lisa Rochon points out how seldom the city of light has even attempted architectural provocation, and says that the Branly “a scandalous and necessary aberration that drags its jagged edge over the lousy, looting history of the French colonial era… And herein lies the great dilemma of the museum — its very existence is an assault on aboriginal peoples around the world.”
Native Museum To Go It Alone
“After nearly 30 years together, Kendall College and the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian are going their own ways. On Sept. 1, Kendall plans to give title to the museum’s land, building and collection, all in northwest Evanston, Illinois, to a non-profit formed to assume them.” The split has been years in the making, as “Kendall wanted assurances that the new non-profit — which was named after the museum — had the wherewithal to sustain the Mitchell.”
But It’s Educational Porn, Right?
Student magazines used to trend either to the ultra-serious or the supremely satirical. But these days, there’s a new campus publishing trend in the mix, and it’s enough to make the boys at the Harvard Lampoon blush. Student-run sex magazines have been around for years, but never before have such erotic publications gained such legitimacy as they now have on college campuses across the U.S.
Paperback Boom
Why would a book that sold only modestly when it first hit stores suddenly become a huge hit in paperback? The answer is complicated, but suffice to say that book clubs, word of mouth, and the influence of big-box retailers all have something to do with it.
Met To Hike Entrance Fee 33%
In an attempt to compensate for an operating deficit that has been averaging $3 million per year, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hiking its suggested admission fee to $20. The Met’s admission charge has always been voluntary, but the museum doesn’t go out of its way to call attention to that fact, and some are already complaining that the hike will discourage many lower-income individuals from seeing one of New York’s great museums.