A small Rembrandt etching was found in some junk due to be thrown out in the garbage. “The small image of two beggars was discovered among items at the Emmaus charity shop in Carlton, near Bedford.”
Tag: 11.25.03
Sell ‘Em The Hockey, Then Hit ‘Em With Arts
A local arts advocacy group in Calgary is marketing a ticket package designed to get sports fans to the symphony. “The $70 package includes a ticket to a regular season Calgary Flames hockey game as well as tickets to two arts and culture events, including performances by local theatre troupes, a jazz dance ensemble or the the Calgary Philharmonic.” Sports and arts are not generally considered to have much audience in common, but some on the Calgary arts scene see the package as important audience-building.
Amazon Gets Into The Cataloging Business
“The British Library and online retailer Amazon are helping the public to source and buy rare antique books. The library’s catalogue of published works is now on the Amazon website, meaning it has details of more than 2.5m books on the site. Some 1.7m of these books are pre-1970 volumes, not previously available… [However,] the British Library stressed it was only the catalogue records that would be made available, not the archived collection.”
Nielsen Tries To Explain Ratings Drop
Why have younger viewers switched off the TV this fall? The ratings are down. So down, in fact, that network execs have begun blaming Nielsen, the ratings company. Now Nielsen has produced a report attempting to explain the dropoff. “The report from Nielsen, which has stoutly defended its data since the complaints from the networks began, found that changes in Nielsen’s methodology that started as long as a year and a half ago are partly – but not wholly – to blame for the decline in viewership of network series among men ages 18 to 34.”
Of Widow Villages And Wild Geese
“There are the so-called ‘widow villages’ throughout the United States, where Korean wives gather to live for their children’s education. Meanwhile, the ‘wild geese dads’ in Korea send all of their paychecks to their families in the ‘widow villages.’ The amount of money that Korean husbands send to America is reportedly astronomical. All of this indicates that something is not quite right in Korea these days.”
Shocker – Scotland’s 7:84 Loses Government Funding
In a surprise move, one of Scotland’s best-known theatre companies – 7:84 – has lost its core funding from the Scottish government, and its future is in doubt. “It stands to lose about £225,000 a year – half of its annual income – as part of a package of cuts, worth nearly £1m, from nine organisations.”
Luring Musicals To Town
Connecticut’s Goodspeed Musicals has a $45 million theatre it wants to build. Now the theatre is being enticed to Middletown with a package of incentives. “If accepted, the Goodspeed offer would be the cultural crown jewel Middletown is seeking for its downtown development, which includes a newly built hotel, restaurants and cinemas and a tourist-friendly link to its proposed South Cove riverfront development.”
Study: There Are Too Many Humans To Be Sustainable
A new scientific study concludes that there are about 1000 times too many humans on the planet for us to be sustainable as a species. “Our study found that when we compare ourselves to otherwise similar species, usually other mammals of our same body size, for example, we are abnormal and the situation is unsustainable.”
Why EMI Shouldn’t Feel Jilted
EMI had wanted to merger with Warner. But it shouldn’t feel too bad the deal won’t happen. “The truth is that Warner is being bought by a music industry wannabe responsible for one of the worst deals of the 1990s – the sale of Seagram, the Bronfman family’s drinks and entertainment firm, to Jean-Marie Messier’s Vivendi.”
Beatty: Broadway Needs Actors, Not Stars
Ned Beatty is one of America’s most respected stage actors, currently starring in a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The production is receiving good reviews, but in an interview, Beatty appears to rip his co-stars, Hollywood darlings Jason Patric and Ashley Judd, for being part of a new theatrical culture which favors celebrity over acting ability. “In theater you want to go from here to there, you want it to be about something… Stage actors learn how to do that. Film actors often don’t even think about it. They do what the director wants them to do, and they never inform their performance with — call it what you wish — through-line, objective.”