Ruins on Peru’s desert coast are 4,700 years old and suggest civilization in the Americas is far older than previously thought. “The site of Caral, in the Supe Valley north of Lima, covers 66 hectares (165 acres) and includes pyramids 21m (70ft) high arranged around a large plaza. Whether it can truly be seen as a civilisation comparable in attainment with contemporary Egypt and Mesopotamia is doubtful, but it demonstrates that the tradition culminating in the Inca Empire had deeper roots than anyone imagined.”
Tag: 08.20.05
Plain Beauty – From Book To Screen
Why do filmmakers cast pretty women for movies of great novels? “Books link readers directly to the interior lives of their heroines, but the camera needs the beauty out on the surface, where the audience can fall in love with it faster. In novels, other characters are wooed by wonderful minds, and infer beauty from what’s within. On film, a plain face has to work so much harder to persuade people. It’s so much easier to start with the lovely, but it loses so much. The great women novelists of the 19th century had no great interest in the great looking; among the first to trade on their brains rather than their appearance, they created characters who also had greater interior than exterior worth.”
Has The iPod Peaked?
Okay, so Apple rules music downloads and players. “Today, Apple commands 80 percent of the MP3 player market and 75 percent of online music sales. But even as analysts predict another massive holiday sales season for the company this year, many believe Apple’s reign will last only another 12-18 months before the playing field levels out.”
Hunter S. Blasts Off
The remains of Hunter S. Thompson set off on their space ride. “The counterculture author killed himself six months ago at his home near Aspen. His ashes, intermingled with fireworks, were fired out of the tower Saturday evening in front of a star-studded crowd at his Owl Farm compound.”
A List Of Worsts
Forget about Best Art. What’s the worst art in Britain? The Guardian asks ten experts to pick ’em, and the accompanying images are evidenc…
Garth Brooks – Only At Wal-Mart
Brooks has cut a deal with the mega-retailer to sell his music exclusively there. “Brooks’ arrangement is the first time an artist has made an entire catalog available only through one outlet. Exclusive albums as special one-time promotions are becoming increasingly common, such as when Alanis Morissette and Bob Dylan limited sales to Starbucks Corp. Music retailers complain, however, that such deals are bad for the industry. Some pulled Morissette’s albums from their shelves after she cut her Starbucks deal.”
Getting To Know Michael Brand
The new Getty Museum director spent his summers as a youth traveling to see art. “Hearing the music in Italy, going to temples in India, eating the food in France — those formative lessons helped shape Brand’s philosophy, his view of art. People who approach art purely through art history and European paintings, he said, might tend to look at paintings as two-dimensional things, of another time, to be purchased and put on a wall. But ‘my first experiences were more in places where there are rituals going on and there are people and sculptures and temples and sound’.”
Batman And Robin Kissing? Take It Down!
A New York gallery has been told by DC Comics to take down pictures depicting Batman and Robin kissing. “The colour pictures, which depict the superheroes in a number of homoerotic poses, were put on display in the gallery in February. Seven images from the collection were subsequently displayed on the Artnet site.”