Just For Laughs (Why Everyone Thinks You’re Funny)

Scientists have discovered that positive sounds like laughter trigger positive reactions in our brains. “We’ve known for some time now that when we are talking to someone, we often mirror their behaviour, copying the words they use and mimicking their gestures. Now we’ve shown that the same appears to apply to laughter, too – at least at the level of the brain.”

The Unlikely Tenor

Lawrence Brownlee is not a likely opera star. “With a sound and technique made for the music of Handel and bel canto composers such as Rossini and Donizetti, he’s on his way to a breakthrough as the first internationally feted African-American coloratura tenor. While opera houses still crave Peruvian Juan Diego Flórez, the current king of that repertoire, Brownlee is emerging as a major competitor.”

Glenn Gould Thief Sentenced

An American college professor has been sentenced for stealing items from the Glenn Gould archive. “Accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of items from the collection — after having had access to it for research purposes during the late 1980s — Moore was acquitted in October of all felony charges in the case. However, she was found guilty of two misdemeanour counts of criminal possession of stolen property.”

How To Self-Destruct Your Opera Career

Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu have managed to make themselves the most unpopular couple in opera with their selfishness and petty demands. “Together, the pair have now achieved an apogee of unpopularity that unites three of the world’s big five opera houses, leaving just Paris and Vienna to pick up the pieces of a couple who appear to be once again on advanced self-destruct.”

The Black Art Of Art Sales Projections

By most accounts, this year’s Basel Miami Art Fair was a bifg success. “By the time the fair closed on Dec. 10, three top sellers estimated that sales totaled between $200 million and $400 million, and dealers of both young and established artists reported turnover as strong or even stronger than that of a year ago. But CultureGrrl is skeptical: “What exactly does this mean? Apparently, three anonymous wheeler-dealers, out of the 200 gallerists with booths at the fair, tallied up their own totals, consulted the gossip grapevine, and came up with separate guesstimates of what the other 197 dealers had done.”

Is iTunes Losing Its Beat? (Claim: Sales Down 65 Percent)

Apple is disputing a research claim that sales of iTunes music tracks were down 65 percent in the first half of 2006. “Research group Forrester said it was too soon to say whether its findings showed that buyers were ‘reaching their saturation level for digital music. Apple said the report is ‘simply incorrect’, but will not divulge iTunes financial figures. Forrester said Apple users may be put off since iTunes songs can only be played on iPods or via iTunes itself.”

New Thinking About The Illiad & Odyssey

“One of the most vexed questions in Homeric scholarship is how, exactly, the written texts we have emerged from the songs of illiterate bards. It is easy to imagine a series of singers wandering through the towns of archaic Greece, telling and retelling the story of Troy. But how could a poem as long as The Iliad or The Odyssey–each of which would have taken at least three days to perform–have been composed without the use of writing?”

Hedging Their Bets

“In the fast-shifting sands of New York’s moneyed classes, the explosion of hedge fund wealth has created a new financial pecking order… Institutions like the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center are making a push for the newest money on the block as they try to lure hedge fund executives to join their boards. This effort has dovetailed with an emerging tendency by hedge fund moguls to spread their wings a bit in greater New York society.”