More exciting than a dotcom (and more profitable too), the cult around perpetuating James Joyce is a big and fascinating business. – New Statesman
Tag: 07.10.00
AN EXPENSIVE NAME
Comic book writer is told to pay a hockey player $24 million after the writer uses the name of the hockey player as a character in a comic book. The court judgment sends a chill though all those who need to name the characters in their books (or comics or songs). – Inside.com
FIGHTING THE SAME OLD
It seems the more conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt likes a piece of music, the less he’s inclined to perform it. He’s a sworn enemy of routine. This and his thoughts on Bach, Bruckner and Beethoven. – The Independent (UK)
TOXIC PARKECOLOGY
Who says parks have to be in beautiful idyllic places? Artist Julie Bargmann creates parks on land no one would ever call pretty – on the site of a befouled abandoned mine. “Its central feature will be a stream of acidic water that will percolate out of the mine and course down a limestone-lined canal into aerating basins and finally to a wetland for a final rinse.” – Time
RESTORATION FOR THE REAL WORLD
The former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan is restoring Bukhara, a stop on the ancient ‘Silk Road’ trading route that became an Islamic center of learning. “Restorers desperately want to maintain the city’s vitality and avoid the mistakes that turned the historic center of Samarkand, a Silk Road city 150 miles to the east, into a gleaming, but lifeless museum piece.” – CNN
MASTERFUL SALES
Usually London is not where the major action in Old Master paintings is to be found. But last week’s sales racked up record after record. – The Telegraph (UK)
GAUGUIN BY A HAIR?
A New Zealand family contends it has a painting by Gauguin that the artist gave to one of their ancestors. Gauguin experts doubt the claim so the family is having four hairs embedded in the canvas tested for DNA to prove their case. – Wired
TIRED OF OTHER EUROPEAN FESTIVALS?
St. Petersburg’s White Nights Festival is the brainchild of Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Kirov, based in the Mariinsky Theatre. The festival “provides an intensive dose of music and opera against the crumbling backdrop of Russia’s intellectual capital, at a fraction of the cost of rival events further to the west. Alongside War and Peace, one of this year’s highlights is Prokofiev’s opera ‘Semyon Kotko’, a four-hour epic with a difficult history that combines some challenging music with a heavy dose of Soviet-era ideology.” – Culturekiosque
“WORSE THAN THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION”
China’s booming tourist industry is threatening most of its precious cultural heritage and natural beauty, according to experts at a heritage preservation conference sponsored jointly by the government, the World Bank and UNESCO in Beijing last week. – China Times (Taiwan)
THE POLITICS OF GIVING MONEY AWAY
The MacArthur Foundation takes a breath to consider how it wants to spend its money. The so-called “genius” grants “symbolize how we would like to be known in the world – as a place that pays attention to releasing the potential of people.” – Chronicle of Higher Education