“Vladimir Jurowski is one of the youngest and most successful maestros around: he’s been in charge of the opera house at Glyndebourne since 2001; next summer he takes up the reins of the London Philharmonic Orchestra as its principal conductor; and he’s principal guest conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. All this and he’s only 34.”
Tag: 12.02.06
The Physics Of Pollock Fractals
“Two physicists contend that a method intended to identify complex geometric patterns in the seemingly chaotic drip paintings of Jackson Pollock is flawed and may be useless in the increasingly convoluted world of authenticating Pollock’s work.”
Enron: The Ultimate Song & Dance
What do you do when a multi-billion dollar company headquartered in your city collapses under the weight of its own lies and lawlessness, leaving thousands of employees penniless and your civic economy in shambles? Write a musical about it, of course.
Capitalizing The Kimmel
Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is five years old and still short on funds. The problem is that, while no expense was spared to build the center, organizers failed to see the need for a major endowment to keep it solvent. “The Kimmel and the Philadelphia Orchestra previously flirted with the idea of a merger, and have already combined some operations. A second study by Deloitte & Touche will look at various possible business models… The Kimmel would like to reach an endowment of $70 million and eliminate its $30 million debt, or have $100 million in endowment if retaining the debt.”
Reconstructing Leonardo
“Anthropologists said they have pieced together Leonardo da Vinci’s left index fingerprint– a discovery that could help provide information on such matters as the food the artist ate and whether his mother was of Arabic origin… The research was based on photographs of about 200 fingerprints — most of them partial– taken from about 52 papers handled by da Vinci in his life.”
Call It The Rock Hudson Mental Block
As liberal as Hollywood is, many gay actors have chosen to remain closeted throughout their careers, partly out of fear that American movie audiences wouldn’t accept a known gay actor playing a straight role. “Indeed, while top straight-identified actors have for years received praise and prizes for playing gay characters — Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, for example — executives, casting directors and maybe mass audiences still seem to have a block when it comes to gay people in straight parts.”
Baby, You’re The Top
“If things are looking up for architecture in the 21st century, it’s partly because of the roof. After decades of neglect, it is once again becoming the most visible element of new buildings, let alone whole cities. All those flat-roofed towers constructed since the 1950s and ’60s are being reimagined as occasions for greenery, gardens, pools, playgrounds and even parks. Then there’s the advent of Google Earth, a free computer program that has people everywhere looking at buildings — and entire cities — from the top down. Suddenly, the whole planet has been turned into a roofscape.”
And By “Study,” They Mean “Leave It For Someone Else To Deal With”
The city of Cleveland has been making a big push to draw Hollywood films to its borders, but a major part of the plan – passing statewide tax incentives that would make the city competitive with other big film towns – has hit a snag. “An Ohio Senate committee is recommending a study of the incentives, instead of a bill that would go ahead and enact them.”
Fractal Geometry & Jackson Pollock: Something’s Not Right
“In an article published this week in the prestigious science journal Nature, two physicists contend that a method intended to identify complex geometric patterns in the seemingly chaotic drip paintings of Jackson Pollock is flawed and may be useless in the increasingly convoluted world of authenticating Pollock’s work.”
NaNoWriMo: Embrace The Mediocrity
November was National Novel Writing Month, a seven-year-old extravaganza of wordsmithing in which participants attempt to complete a 50,000-word opus in thirty days. “The secret to writing a novel in a month is just to do it — and it’s a good idea to accept from the start that, barring miracles, it will be very, very bad.”