Jerry Brown became mayor of Oakland talking about how the arts should flourish as an essential part of the city. And that’s what they became. “Although some are critical of the mayor’s follow-through, there can be no doubting that his rhetoric about the arts and downtown housing helped sow the seeds of the city’s current cultural renaissance.”
Tag: 01.03.07
Key To A Long Life? Education
“The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income. And, health economists say, those factors that are popularly believed to be crucial — money and health insurance, for example, pale in comparison.”
Nazi-Looted Painting In London Museum
The Art Newspaper reports that “a painting in the National Maritime Museum in London was looted by British troops from the Mürwik Naval Academy, in Germany, and later presented to the Greenwich museum.”
You’re Fat? Blame Your Building!
“Did you know that architecture can be bad for your health? It’s an idea that the government advisory body, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), will be urgently promoting this year. Cabe argues that town planners and architects must help tackle Britain’s obesity epidemic by designing cities and housing that encourage exercise.”
Oxford English Dictionary On A Word Search
“The OED is enlisting the public to help them trace 40 well-known words and phrases. All of them are in the dictionary with a date of the earliest evidence of usage, but researchers want to know if the British people can do better.”
New DVD Copy Protection Will Allow Burning
Hollywood movie studios approve a new content lock for DVDs which should make available thousands of movies for downloading and burning to DVD. “The system can also be used in retail kiosks, which could hold hundreds of thousands of older films and TV shows for which studios don’t see a huge market. Customers could pick a film, TV episode or an entire season’s worth of shows and have them transferred to DVD on the spot.”
Phones Are The New Japanese Publishing Phenom
“A mobile phone novel typically contains between 200 and 500 pages, with each page containing about 500 Japanese characters. The novels are read on a cell phone screen page by page, the way one would surf the web, and are downloadable for around $10 each. The first mobile phone novel was written six years ago by fiction writer Yoshi…”
Corporate Dissolution May Hit Museums
The breakup of Altria is likely to diminish the company’s support for the arts. “The museum likely to be most severely affected is the Whitney, which receives more than $500,000 per year to support exhibitions at Altria’s corporate headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Altria has also sponsored each of the past five Whitney Biennials, providing $500,000 for the 2006 edition.”
The New Art Cops
London is looking for some. “Art Beat Special Constables are being recruited from museums such as the Victoria & Albert and the British Museum, universities, insurance companies and other cultural organisations. After four weeks training in police procedure as well as specialist art squad techniques, volunteers will be sponsored by their employers to work as Special Constables for 200 hours a year or one day a fortnight. They will be uniformed and will have full police powers.”
Seattle Newspapers Fall Down In Orchestra Coverage
The Seattle Symphony has had a turbulent year filled with musician unhappiness over the orchestra’s musical leadership. The orchestra’s talented executive director got out when things started to get really bad, and the orchestra posted a big deficit. But the city’s two newspapers have done a lazy job of covering the problems, and a messy situation has become even worse.