“Researchers have shown that if the conditions are right, subliminal advertising to promote a brand can be made to work.” And the cumulative effect of ads builds up in our brains. “Earlier this month, the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine published a report showing that for each additional hour per day that a child watched television an average of one additional request was made for an advertised product. The effect of the commercials on children lasted up to 20 weeks.”
Tag: 04.28.06
Will Smoking On A British Stage Be The New Nudity?
The English ban on smoking could after plays onstage. “For example, do almost all Ibsen’s male characters smoke because it is central to the argument of the drama or because Ibsen was a social realist and, at the time, being in a room after dinner was like walking alongside a steam train? Under the Finch rules, smoking might become for future generations of actors equivalent to nudity in the past, with respectful reference to performers who were ‘prepared to light up’ but only ‘if the part absolutely demanded it’.”
Judd At The Altar
“It is unsettling that the first large-scale U.S. exhibition of the work of Donald Judd in almost 20 years has been organized by Christie’s auction house. Not because this isn’t a museum, although this fact gives pause. What’s unsettling is this isn’t a show at all. It’s a sale—some would say an unnecessary one.”
UK To Compensate Family For Nazi-Looted Drawings
The British government is to compensate relatives of a man whose drawings were stolen by the Nazis. The drawings are in the British Museum. “Relatives of Dr Arthur Feldmann are to receive £175,000 after a special panel decided they had ‘firm evidence’ that the works had been seized in 1939. The family says the Old Master drawings can stay in the British Museum. The panel has asked the government to introduce laws permitting the return of objects plundered during the Nazi era.”
Chicago Symphony Appoints Haitink
The Chicago Symphony has named Bernard Haitink to the newly-created post of principal conductor, as longtime music director Daniel Barenboim prepares to depart. “Pierre Boulez, 81, the CSO’s principal guest conductor since 1995, will become conductor emeritus.”
Kennedy Center’s Arab Initiative
The Kennedy Center will stage a major festival of Arab art. “We don’t know enough about what other people are about. We read about government and politics. That doesn’t say anything about what they like, what they find beautiful. Also, the idea starts from my rather naive belief that arts create peace.”
Publisher Pulls Viswanathan Book
A novel by a Harvard student has been withdrawn from publication by the book’s publisher. Michael Pietsch, the firm’s publisher, said in a brief statement that bookstores would be asked to stop selling “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” and return any remaining copies to the publisher. He said the book’s author, Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan, had agreed to the withdrawal.
Pittsburgh Library A Hit With Kids
Who uses Pittsburgh’s libraries? Kids. According to a new study, the city’s Carnegie Library is a hit. “A magnet for teenagers and 20-somethings, the library rivals a shopping mall with its assortment of books, videos, DVDs and Internet access. The former bastion of the bookish, the library draws more crowds than the region’s sports teams.”
Back To The 80s – The Wedding Singer
“This transformation of a Hollywood movie into a Broadway musical, a trend that appears as irreversible as global warming, is an example of recycled recycling, or second-hand nostalgia.”
Star Power
Do big stars really matter to the movies? “If carefully tended, thoughtfully managed and brilliantly used, stars can still make a movie work as an almost dizzyingly proficient entertainment. If mishandled, they throw the project out of whack so that it putters along like a toy car with a wheel missing.”