A new study of art in Britain’s public institutions says that “over 80 percent (120,000 pictures) are probably held in storage or in buildings without access. What is publicly owned is not publicly accessible. Of the 150 collections which have so far been recorded by the foundation, only one (a hospital) was able to provide a complete set of data on the first attempt.”
Tag: 11.11.06
Picking Hits (Scientifically)
“Every year, a handful of songs do much, much better than all the others, and nobody has much idea why. If the hits only did a little better than the non-hits, this unpredictability wouldn’t matter. But that’s not how it works. Only about one-fifth of artists end up making money for the label, and a few make so much that they subsidise everyone else, but you can’t tell in advance which ones will do well.” But new software hopes to have cracked the hit code.
Stoking Interest In Pynchon In The Digital Age
Thomas Pynchon is now 69, but “time, and the Internet, have advanced in his favour. It’s been nine years since his previous novel, ‘Mason & Dixon,’ came out, and fans have fully digitized their passion, building an online community worthy of an author who as much as anyone brought a high-tech sensibility to literary fiction.”
College Sells American Masterpiece To Museums
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia is selling its prized 1875 painting by Thomas Eakins “for $68 million to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by the Wal-Mart heiress Alice L. Walton and under construction in Bentonville, Ark. That sum is a record for an artwork created in the United States before World War II.”
Critics Denounce Portrait Museum’s “Appalling” Acquisition
London’s National Portrait Gallery has bought a picture of Lady Jane Grey for £100,000. But critics are deriding the purchase. “It’s an appallingly bad picture and there’s absolutely no reason to suppose it’s got anything to do with Lady Jane Grey. But if the National Portrait Gallery has public money to burn, then so be it.”
Turkish State Opera To Women Musicians: Cover Up!
Female Turkish orchestra musicians have been warned not to show any cleavage. “It is not appropriate for a musician’s cleavage to draw more attention than the instrument they are playing. This is a state institution. Women wear dresses that show the cleft in their cleavage, which is unsightly.”
Rethinking How Languages Are Taught
“Too often, in practice, bilingual education has been a disaster in America. However, the problem has been one of implementation, not of philosophy. Worldwide, it has been shown endlessly that children learn to read more quickly when first taught in their native language and are gently transitioned into the dominant one.”
Why Are Agents Shut Out Of Oscar Voting?
Sometimes it seems, like they let anyone vote for the Oscars. Besides actors, directors and producers, casting directors and makeup, design and other technical teams all get votes. Even publicists. But not agents. “As they prepare to argue their case yet another time, agents note that their role has changed from the days when they simply got actors to sign on the dotted line.”
UK To Confiscate Criminals’ Book, Movie Profits
The UK has proposed that “money made by criminals who sell the stories of their crimes to newspapers or have them turned into books or films will be confiscated through the courts.”
Back From The Dead
New recordings are expensive. And better technology make it easier and easier to bring old historic recordings back to life, making them sound, in some cases, like new. “It really is amazing, after all, to put on a recording by Enrico Caruso that was made in 1920 and have it sound as though the tenor, dead 85 years now, is in the next room.”