A proposal in San Francisco to “strip public funding from the Opera, Symphony and Ballet to help plug a projected $97 million hole in the municipal budget has been put on hold.”
Tag: 12.10.04
Proposal: Cut SF Arts Funding
The chairman of San Francisco’s budget committee last week “recommended taking roughly $800,000 from the combined budgets of the opera, symphony and ballet in order to keep more social services afloat during mid-year reductions. The sum equates to half The City’s current backing, which performing arts supporters point out has already been reduced by 25 percent.”
At The Movies: Which History?
Movies on historical subjects are popular. But the history they tell is colored as much by the time in which the movie is made as the original story itself. “There’s a huge problem in that (students) assume the history they see is true. However, historical films often are more about the period in which they’re made than the period they depict.”
A Failed Chamber Music Org – 3 Cents On The Dollar
Two years after it suddenly shut down operations, the Washington Chamber Society has settled claims of creditors. “And so a listener who put down more than $500 for two subscriptions to the announced 2002-03 season ended up receiving a refund check for $19.07 — more than two years later.”
A Whole New Experience In TV
“TV over Internet protocol – IPTV – will transform couch-cruising into an on-demand experience. Instead of broadcasting every channel continuously, service providers plan to transmit them only to subscribers who request them. In effect, every channel will be streamed on demand. This will free up huge amounts of bandwidth for hi-def TV and high-speed broadband. Add IP and you get interactive services like caller ID on your TV. And the system will be able to track viewing habits as effectively as Amazon tracks its customers, so ads will be targeted with scary precision. Put it all together and you’ve got television that’s as intensely personalized as 20th-century broadcasting was generic.”
Most Expensive Furniture Ever
An antique cabinet sells at auction for £19illion, making it the most expensive piece of furniture to be sold at an auction. “The sale broke the cabinet’s own record price of £8.5m when it was bought at Christie’s in 1990. The Florentine furniture was made between 1720 and 1732 for Henry Somerset, third Duke of Beaufort.”
PEN v. PEN
Disputes are ripping apart the British writers’ association PEN. “In one camp are the ascetics, who believe that PEN’s only purpose is its traditional one of working selflessly and frugally for persecuted writers around the world. In the other are the modernisers – decadents, say their critics – who envisage a rather more glittering future involving celebrities and media events. In both – as you might expect – are some of the most sharp-tongued people in Britain. The reluctance by those involved for the fighting to be made public is, for others, a further reason to be bitter.”
Taiwan President Pledges Support To Guggenheim Branch (With Conditions)
The president of Taiwan says he’ll endorse building a branch of the Guggenheim Museum on the island if his party wins in parliamentary elections this week. Critics assailed the president’s promise, calling it campaign rhetoric. “Taichung city council earlier this week rejected Hu’s proposal for a Guggenheim branch, citing insufficient funding. The mayor intended to seek the central government’s help to save the project.”
Melbourne’s New Theatre Complex
Melbourne is getting a new theatre complex, and the architecture is firmly contemporary. “The $91 million project combines two buildings – one providing a new home for the Melbourne Theatre Company and the other housing the city’s first purpose-built recital hall for acoustic music. They will be built on a car park opposite the ABC headquarters.”
Podcast – Have It Your Way
Niche radio. Anywhere. Any time. That’s podcasting. “On terrestrial or satellite radio, one can tune into a dozen formats or maybe even five dozen formats. But with podcasting, everybody is a format of one. Podcasting is just making it easier for this new set of niche listeners and this new set of producers to find each other.”