“The leader of the University of Melbourne’s art fraud unit has cancelled her attendance at an art forgery forum organised by Melbourne’s Art Series Hotels following hotel management’s decision to offer guests prizes of fake Andy Warhol pictures.”
Tag: 05.14.12
Germany’s Pirate Party Wins More Seats In Parliament (Wants Copyright Reform And Free Internet)
“The Pirates won 7.6 per cent of the vote in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most popular state, according to initial estimates, enough for 18 seats in parliament. The Pirates have now won representation in four German states and seem destined to enter Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, in national elections next year.
The Pirates’ platform includes calls a major reform of copyright legislation, as well as demanding free Internet access for all citizens and a minimum income law.”
How The World’s Top Stradivarius Dealer Went Bad
Deitmar “Machold was the Stradivarius man. There are still about 600 violins, 60 cellos and 12 violas from the famous workshop in Cremona, Italy in existence today, and Machold has held about half of these instruments in his hands. His reputation was so stellar that he was permitted to prepare the appraisals himself for the two Stradivarius instruments given to the Bremen bank as collateral, and he has also appeared in court as an expert witness.”
Do Cultural Boycotts Work?
“Whatever about calls for divestment or economic sanctions and protests such as refusing to buy produce grown in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the notion of a cultural or academic boycott leaves many, including some sympathetic to the Palestinians’ plight, conflicted or uneasy.”
Why The Traditional TV Is Losing Out To Other Options
“When it comes to the traditional screen that families gather around, live television is competing against a growing array of self-selected content. Given the amount of high-quality shows idling in my DVR and on-demand queue, channel surfing for live television seems very last century.”
The Second Time Around – Why It’s Good To Revisit Theatre You Know
“The relationship between any work of art and its perceiver is mutable. (Every time I reread “Anna Karenina” or “David Copperfield,” I feel differently about the title character.) But that of theater and the theatergoer is especially fluid. Unlike books or paintings or movies, works of theater are not fixed creations.”
The English Civil War (About Language) – Descriptivists Vs. Prescriptivists
“For a long time, many English speakers have felt that the language was going to the dogs. All around them, people were talking about ‘parameters’ and ‘life styles,’ saying ‘disinterested’ when they meant ‘uninterested,’ ‘fulsome’ when they meant ‘full.’ … To others, the complainers were fogies and snobs. The usages they objected to were cause not for grief but for celebration. They were pulsings of our linguistic lifeblood, proof that English was large, contained multitudes.”