Human evolution has been rapid and sophisticated. But “where do we go from here? Have we attained perfection and ceased to evolve? Many geneticists think that is very unlikely, though few find it easy to say where we are headed or how fast. Until the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, people used to live in small populations with little gene flow between them. That is the best situation for rapid evolution, said Sewall Wright, one of the founders of population genetics. But Sir Ronald A. Fisher, another founder of the discipline, argued that large populations with random mating — just what globalization and air travel are helping to bring about — were the best fodder for rapid evolution. Which of them is right? No one really knows.”
Tag: 08.24.03
Florida Philharmonic – Anatomy Of A Dead Orchestra
“It was never any secret the Philharmonic was staggering from one financial crisis to another, although most patrons and the public never realized how deep the problems ran. Since 1989, the Philharmonic burned through roughly $123 million, with yearly expenses soaring over $10 million, its financial records show. The orchestra’s board and managers borrowed from its own foundation and endowment funds, which were supposed to guarantee its survival.”
Florida Phil Conductor Leaves Quietly
Conductor James Judd left Florida last week without much of a sendoff from the orchestra he led for 16 years. “Recent circumstances make a festive send-off difficult. The Florida Philharmonic, which Judd helmed for 16 years and helped raise to its highest creative level, is in bankruptcy; with a reorganization effort floundering for lack of funds, the orchestra’s demise appears all but certain. The conductor’s abrupt resignation, following several dubious moves by an interim management team that left him out of the loop on key artistic decisions, widened the divide between himself and the organization into a gaping chasm. Still, it’s an undeservedly quiet coda for the charismatic Englishman who built the Florida Philharmonic into a major regional arts institution and brought it international recognition.”
CD’s Are Forever? HA!
So you’re transferring your music to recordable CD’s so you’ll have them forever? Better think again. A Dutch magazine tested CD’s that had been recorded less than two years ago and discovered many of them no longer play. “It is presumed that CD-Rs are good for at least 10 years. Some manufacturers even claim that their CD-Rs will last up to a century. From our tests it’s concluded however that there is a lot of junk on the market. We came across CD-Rs that should never have been released to the market. It’s completely unacceptable that CD-Rs become unusable in less than two years.”
All Things BBC Free For Download
The BBC plans to make all of its radio and TV library available free for downloading over the internet. “The BBC probably has the best television library in the world. Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn’t been an effective mechanism for distribution. But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that.”
Direct This!
“Willful directors can either enliven or distort. Enliven, if they accept the gulf between a playwright’s time and immediate intentions on the one hand and the sensibilities of today on the other, and set up a critical dialogue between past and present, text and audience. Distort, if they just lay a simple-minded, ideologically monolithic interpretation on a multi-faceted play. The temptation to distort is particularly powerful in a climate that discourages the new, like commercially cautious Broadway or the West End today.”
Feeding On The Fringe
New York’s Fringe Festival has become a theatre-feeder. “When the fringe began in 1996, it was a countercultural event. Now, it’s a risk-free development workshop for theater producers, not to mention development types in film and television. And in turn, a lot of shows have hired publicists to exploit their properties and build attention. ‘There’s a total new focus on exploring the fringe. It’s all about buzz – which shows are going to rise above the crowd.’ The New York press has a lot to do with that. And since the Fringe Festival operates during the dull, dog days of August (arts-wise), there are plenty of editorial holes to fill.”
The New Dissonance
Gone are the days of experimenting with sound just for its own sake and calling it music. Now dissonance has to mean something. “Our generation was made to feel we had to come to grips with 12-tone music. We had a psychic investment in it. I have to say my students today don’t feel any such obligation. Back then we would have considered them yahoos. But my students have a lot of honesty.”
Venice Has Sunk Two Feet…
Venice has sunk 24 inches in 300 years, says a new study based on historic paintings. “The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Climatic Change, analyzed eight paintings by Giovanni Antonio Canal, nicknamed Canaletto, (1697-1768) and three by his lesser-known nephew Bernardo Bellotto (1720-1780). Both artists produced their paintings with the help of a portable camera obscura, a lens that projects images onto sketch pads. The trick, described by Leonardo da Vinci 250 years earlier, enabled them to reproduce accurate urban landscapes, complete with the lines of green scum formed by algae left on canal-side buildings by retreating high tides.”
Remembering Bill And Arnie In The Kitchen
Eric Bogosian remembers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane and their early days at The Kitchen in New York. “They brought to the dance works grace and intelligence. But they also brought aggression, something that interested me. They brought stillness. And they weren’t happy just moving around. Language had to be part of it, and has been ever since. Sexual politics, race politics, tremendous movement, a surreal soulfulness all were thrown into the mix.”