“Researchers have found that people with musical training have an easier time learning Chinese. Writing in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience, researchers from Northwestern University say that both skills draw on parts of the brain that help people detect changes in pitch.”
Tag: 03.21.07
Trend? Author Videos Replace Readings
“Such films could eventually take the place of in-store book readings, which attract fewer attendees all the time, many booksellers say. Some authors go to events and are really captivating personalities. That does not describe most of them.”
Where’s The Ambition?
AO Scott finds much to like in this year’s New Directors/New Films program. But “as I watched the selections scheduled for its first week, I found myself wishing, in too many cases, that the movies would try harder, risk more, challenge themselves and their audiences. Instead, most of them seemed to hew to familiar themes and strategies, as though they were genre movies for an art-film crowd.”
Albright-Knox Makes The Sale
“The first in a series of sales of antiquities from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo made more than $18 million yesterday at Sotheby’s, providing a substantial boost to the museum’s endowment but saddening a group of patrons who have protested the decision to sell.”
Blockbusteritis
“There seems to be a schism opening up between the idea of attending an event and the actual experience. People appear to care more about gaining evidence of their presence at a cultural landmark than drinking in its pleasures. They want a photograph of themselves in front of the museum or even the star exhibit; they want the souvenir mousemat; in short they want its autograph. The erratic organic memory of looking at beauty seems to have been downgraded to a supporting role.”
Do English Accents Sell In Hollywood? (Not Anymore)
“Planeloads of freeloading British hacks – not to mention the three million British tourists who visit the country every year – have poisoned that well. On first hearing an English accent 50 years ago, Americans might have thought: stately home, private school, good manners. Nowadays, they think: low income, poor diet, alcohol problem.”
Lebrecht Comes To ArtsJournal
Norman Lebrecht is classical music’s most controversial journalist. A prolific author, columnist and essayist, he joins the world of blogging this week with his new blog “Slipped Disc”. Agree or disagree with him, he’s always a provocative force, so check him out on ArtsJournal.