“Pope Benedict recalls his doubts over whether Dylan should have been allowed to play a concert at the behest of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in 1997. Describing Dylan as a type of ‘prophet’, he claimed the singer’s message diverged from that the Pope wished to convey.”
Tag: 03.08.07
Composer Currier Wins Grawemeyer
Sebastian Currier wins this year’s Grawemeyer Prize for Music Composition for his quintet Static, written in 2003. “The prestigious award includes a cash prize of $200,000 and is eligible to any composition ‘in a large musical genre’ by a living composer based anywhere in the world receiving its premiere in the past five years.”
Screw The Critics. Popular Movies Get Bad Reviews
“How does a movie score in the 90s with an audience and get a 9% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes? How do you figure that? Is the audience that stupid? Is America’s taste that bad? I don’t think so. If you read reviews on a consistent basis on all films, you realize that the majority of films just get murdered. The only films that get good reviews are the ones that nobody sees. I just don’t think you can make movies for critics.”
Study: Funding Support For College Up In 2006
“According to the study, state and local support per full-time equivalent student was $6,325 in the 2006 fiscal year, a 5.1 percent increase over the previous year. Measured in constant 2006 dollars, the high point since 1980 was 2001, when per student support was $7,371.”
Key To Unlocking The Universe? Biology, Not Physics
“A new theory asserts that biology, not physics, will be the key to unlocking the deepest mysteries of the universe, such as quantum mechanics.”
Richmond Theatre Series Shuts Down
Richmond, Virginia’s Landmark Theatre is dark after the city’s Broadway Under the Stars series went out of business. “Many season ticketholders, who shelled out $180 to $287 for the five-show series subscription last spring, have been unable to secure refunds. ‘When a theater goes out of business or leaves people high and dry, it’s bad for the whole industry; it’s bad for theater in general’.”
Gehry Goes Back To His First Museum
Frank Gehry will revisit the first American museum he designed, designing “a $10 million addition to the Weisman Art Museum on the University’s east bank Minneapolis campus overlooking the Mississippi River. It will add 11,000 square feet or about 25 percent more space to the existing 47,000 square-foot museum.”
The Photo Lies (So Let’s Catch It)
Adobe is developing software that can tell if (and how) photos might have been digitally tampered with. “Photo manipulation is nothing new. During the Stalin era, Soviet officials frequently vanished from official photographs after falling out of favor at the Kremlin. But the advent of Photoshop and its variety of tools has made it easier for photographers to tinker with images after they’re captured.”
Learning To Read From Books? (Doesn’t Work)
“We have a collection of books that don’t do a very good job teaching people how to read, with a series of bogus antagonists and misleading titles. What might be the point? The better ones function as highfalutin Reader’s Digests, a way to get the pleasures and buzz of literary masterpieces in a fraction of the time required to actually read them. On the face of it, this is a kind of literary laziness…”
D.C. Ballet School Names New Head
“Former Boston Ballet soloist Kee-Juan Han, 49, has been named to head the Washington School of Ballet, the institution announced yesterday. He will take over in July, becoming only the third director of the 63-year-old school, founded by the late Mary Day.”