Tag: 02.28.05

Japanese Museum Tops 2004 Attendance Figures

For the first time, a Japanese museum has topped world museum attendance records compiled by the Art Newspaper. “The most visited show of 2004 was “Treasures of a sacred mountain” at the Tokyo National Museum which was seen by an average of 7,638 visitors a day, while another exhibition at the institution, “Treasures of Chinese art” has also made it into the top 10.The remarkable increase in attendance to Japanese exhibitions follows the 2001 semi-privatisation of all State-run museums, combined with the country’s continuing recession which has fostered a ruthlessly competitive climate among Japanese institutions.”

Ringtones – Recording Gold

Cell phone ringtones “cost about two dollars and are typically no more than twenty-five seconds long. Nevertheless, according to Consect, a marketing and consulting firm in Manhattan, ringtones generated four billion dollars in sales around the world in 2004. The United States accounted for only three hundred million of these dollars, although Consect predicts that the figure will double this year.”

Did Orff Write The Original “Springtime For Hitler”?

Canada is in love with Carmina Burana. “Right now we’re in the midst of a rush hour of Canadian performances of the whole cantata, with or without dancers and fireworks. Recent critical discussion has tried to determine whether, in effect, the Nazis were right. Was Carmina Burana “the original Springtime for Hitler,” as musicologist Richard Taruskin has suggested, and is it somehow dispensing a toxic mist of Nazi mythology over all who hear it?”

(Tax Breaks) Ireland To Release Artists’ Names

Ireland is going to release the names of artists who have benefited from the country’s tax breaks for artists. “Disclosure would reveal that the Revenue considers the works of the artists to be original and creative and to have cultural merit. There is also significant public interest in ensuring maximum openness regarding public expenditure, particularly where there may be a perceived lack of transparency in the public body’s procedures and criteria.”

Actors Trade Fake Da Vinci Code For Real In China

Actors dressed as characters from The Da Vinci Code spent a day at Shanghai’s Book City exchanging pirated copies of the best-selling thriller for legal editions. “Customers looking to turn their fake copy in for a legitimate edition had to tell the actors where and when they bought the pirated book. Since the Chinese version was published last year, 500,000 legal copies of the book have been sold, but pirated versions are still readily available throughout the country. The real book sells for about 28 yuan (US$3.38), while pirated versions sell for between 5 yuan and 10 yuan.”

Churches Gobble Up Micro-Radio Licenses

Newly authorized low-watt radio stations were supposed to be places where “low-income folks and communities of color – ‘new voices,’ in government parlance – could grab a tiny slice of a radio dial now dominated by conglomerates. These micro stations would be a programming rainbow, where Hawaiian music would lead into debates over the fate of the local landfill — a type of community-focused format rarely heard on big-city stations. But something unexpected happened on the way to the dial diversity the left thought it was getting: Low-power frequencies have been gobbled up by Christian organizations. Church groups make up roughly half the 344 applicants licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.”

Laboring To Keep Oscar Interesting (And Not Succeeding)

This year’s Oscars telecast was pretty lame. “The Oscars are losing their status as a big national party and turning instead into de facto political conventions — and if there’s anything TV and the nation don’t need, it’s more of those. Chances are the ratings for this year’s Oscar show will not be especially high and might be especially low, unless Rock turns out to have been enough of a name to bring viewers back to their sets. More likely, the whole horrible mess will have to be rethought once again, and next year’s Oscarcast will be preceded by a fresh wave of hype about how new and improved it all is.”

Churchill’s Epic History, A Sequel

Winston Churchill’s “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” told an epic tale of 2,200 years of history. Now “historian Andrew Roberts has taken on the daunting task of picking up where Churchill’s narrative left off, at the dawn of the 20th century. Roberts is writing a fifth volume to add to the four Churchill wrote. It will trace the main events of the 20th century chronologically, with the wartime leader himself a dominant figure.”