A computer programmer has written a program that allows his computer to monitor satellite radio and search and record music in which he’s interested. Music companies (and the satellite radio people are understanably freaking out. The program makes satellite radio a kind of super-jukebox download system.
Tag: 08.26.04
What Is “Dick-Lit?”
“Dick-lit” fits a familiar matrix: It takes the form of first-person memoir or first-person fiction, is set among striving young people in a large city (usually New York) and tells the story of a youngish man — a man who is starting to feel not so young — who works in the world of media, just like Bridget Jones. He has achieved a tolerable level of financial success and is bored or simply fatigued by the endless sexual possibilities of urban life. He is looking for a serious girlfriend and is frequently and amusingly disappointed. Career is not an issue for him, politics is not an issue, art is not an issue (indeed, art is usually dismissed as embarrassing, as cringingly pretentious and effeminate, a girly substitute for television). There are no philosophical questions at all in life other than the quest for a satisfying mate. In other words, it is exactly like chick-lit in every way, but with the genders reversed.”
The Next Big Thing In Chicago Theatre
Chicago’s House Theatre is the latest of the city’s “generation-defining ensembles that includes Steppenwolf and Lookingglass. With 26-year-old Nathan Allen as head carpenter, the House — with its boyishly playful, highly physical shows that keep a steady finger on the pop-cultural pulse as they win mostly rave reviews — has quickly become the theater for the under-35 crowd, a demographic that few other companies seem able to pry away from their date movies and ‘Friends’ reruns.”
The Air Guitar World Championship
Forget the Olympics. This week in Finland, “experts” from all over the world will be converging on Finland for the Air Guitar International Championships. “What air guitar is all about is to surrender to the music without having an actual instrument. Anyone can taste rock stardom by playing the air guitar. No equipment is needed, and there is no requirement for any specific place or special skills. In air guitar playing, all people are equal regardless of race, gender, age, social status or sexual orientation.”
How European Art Theft Works…
“Investigators specializing in stolen art – many of them based in London, the center of Europe’s art markets – say that art thieves in Europe, where most of the high-profile thefts take place, tend to fall into two categories. Some are low-level criminals who are more likely to bungle the operation and dispose quickly of the works, often for a fraction of their value; others are members of organized gangs who use the paintings as collateral or bartering chips in underworld deals involving drugs, forged documents and weapons. In such cases, recovering the paintings, if they are recovered at all, can take years, even decades.”
Disputing Hockney’s Optic Theory
A couple of researchers test out David Hockney’s theory that Old Masters used optical devices to assist in their work. They registered a van Euck painting using a computer. “If the two arms had been painted in perfect perspective they would align well; they did not. Therefore the Arnolfini chandelier is not painted in perfect perspective. If van Eyck had used a concave mirror to project an image of a chandelier onto his canvas and had then traced the image with a pencil, later covering over the evidence with paint, his chandelier should be really accurate. Why cheat if you can’t get good results?”
UK Breaks Author’s Last Wish For Manuscripts
The British government has gone against author Anthony Powell’s last wish that his manuscripts should go to his school. Instead, the government will give them to the British Library. “These manuscripts are a national treasure and should be viewed by as many scholars, researchers and members of the public as possible. That is why I decided that the British Library would be the right home for these manuscripts. It is part of government policy to make works of art and important documents available to as many people as possible.”
What The Powell Archive Means To UK
“Almost alone among the output of his eminent contemporaries – including Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh – Powell’s documents are to stay in Britain thanks to the loyalty to their country of the author, his wife and their two sons. But they will be available to the public in the British Library, the national book depository, rather than at Eton, Powell’s old school, thanks to the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell.”