“The European commission will tomorrow defy a high-profile lobbying campaign by composers and songwriters and order a new pan-European system of selling online music rights.”
Tag: 07.15.08
The Iraqi Looting That Wasn’t?
A story in The Art Newspaper disputes the widely reported news that important Iraqi archeological sites have been looted or damaged since the American invasion. “No one had bothered to challenge the reports, the evidence or the logic, not least because many ancient sites were in hostile terrain and couldn’t be double-checked.”
Missing The Mark Of Satire
“Unfortunately, as debate about the image grew, the New Yorker missed a golden opportunity to question the rather odd American relationship to satire. Why must it be broadly effective rather than just funny? Why must humor, like grief, somehow be good for us on a deeper level? Instead, the magazine fell into the deadly trap of overanalyzing the funny in public.”
Munch Prices Soar Because Of Famous Theft
According to auctioneers, works by Edvard Munch have significantly increased in price as a direct result of the 2004 robbery of the artist’s The Scream and Madonna.
In Battle Over Letters, a Tricky Poet Gets Complicated
“Pessoa was the shy, probably celibate, at the time virtually unknown Portuguese poet who lived through a multitude of literary pseudonyms. Crowley was the larger-than-life spectacle whose recent biographer felt compelled to point out that his subject ‘did not–I repeat not–perform or advocate human sacrifice.’ “
Athens of the North: A Survival Guide
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival offers comedy, dance, theatre, music, “and other weird types of performance that are unclassifiable but tend to involve eastern Europeans wearing snorkel masks.”