"Because the Beatsters, as Paul H-O calls them, usually arrived unannounced, dealers sometimes kicked them out -- which made for great footage -- and those who didn't spent the evening on tenterhooks."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"O'Connor joined The Times as a television critic in 1971 and retired in 1997. His tenure coincided with sweeping industry changes, beginning with the advent of the mini-series."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"While prices for the best works seemed high and bidding was often deep, the volume of sales -- nearly $600 million between the two companies -- was vastly diminished from a year ago, when Sotheby's and Christie's sold a combined $729 million or two years ago when the market peaked at $1.6 billion. But the relief that prices are crawling back up was palpable."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Modernity both exalts and threatens remote Aboriginal societies, yet there is no path of retreat back to some gilded pre-contact time. In fact, the academic penetration of the north is now at its height, our knowledge of the Yolngu, the clan groups round Oenpelli and the people of Groote Eylandt is incomparably greater."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
Ezra Furman is "writing a song for every fan who buys his latest album, Moon Face: Bootlegs and Road Recordings 2006-2009. More than 100 albums have been ordered since it became available a few weeks ago. Each consists of 10 tunes culled from Furman's voluminous archive plus a customized song written directly to and for each paying customer."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"ITV1 is currently working on a new show following celebrities as they train to become opera singers. We'll find out who will be hitting (or not as the case may be) the high notes next year."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"The aroma of an old book is familiar to every user of a traditional library. A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness, this unmistakable smell is as much part of the book as its contents."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"The latest and already much-feted makeover, which has cost £61m, was not prompted by any major crisis, but is as radical as any of its precursors. A sleek five-storey structure with 39 new galleries designed by the architect Rick Mather has been slotted with surgical precision behind Charles Cockerell's neoclassical temple of the arts, built in 1845 as a showcase for European sculpture and painting. It gives the museum a new heart and lungs."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Eli Broad is ready to build himself a west side museum to house his 2,000-piece contemporary art EliBroadClendenin collection, and send it into the world with a $200 million endowment that he reckons will give it a $12 million a year budget before another penny is earned or raised. That would be the largest single hunk of cash ever bestowed on the arts in Southern California."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
The story of regional theatre in recent years has been bleak, with some of Britain's oldest venues facing closure. But a new crop of creative directors are making local heroes of themselves....
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
Drawing on a great deal of new research, and relying wherever possible on contemporary journals and letters, Sjeng Scheijen puts Diaghilev into a different frame to any of his previous biographers. He shows us a man "driven by an overpowering need to explore the mystery of human creativity in its highest form" who "resolved to transform his age and consecrate his life to the cult of beauty."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
Has he ever sold out? "I think I've got very close. There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank." Was he taking the mick out of the art market? "No. You can take the piss out of art, but I don't think you can take the piss out of the art market. All markets are serious."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Right now, we have this vision of the publisher as a monolithic service entity that proves everything from typesetting and printing to distribution to sales support, marketing and PR. But there's no reason it has to do all those things in one go. Or even the basic ones - like providing its products to retail outlets."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"It's always a pleasure to discover a formally gorgeous, subtly expressive typeface while walking along a street or leafing through a magazine. But that joy is swiftly obliterated by the sight of a typographic howler. It's like having a heightened sense of smell. You spend much more of your time wincing at noxious stinks, than reveling in delightful aromas."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"This trend isn't just exhausted, it feels like a cruel perversion of a concert's real-time magic. Live music might be the last bastion of unpredictability in today's hypercurated mediascape: a fleeting opportunity to experience something unfiltered, spontaneous and really real. Instead, we're paying to see our greatest living, breathing, sweating, bleeding rock stars behave like iPods. And with no "shuffle" function!"...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"At a time when record labels and, to a lesser extent, music publishers, find themselves in the midst of an unprecedented contraction, the last thing they need is to start losing valuable copyrights to '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s music, much of which still sells as well or better than more recently released fare. Nonetheless, the wheels are already in motion."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"A high school librarian in Phoenix says a former student at the school returned two overdue books checked out 51 years ago along with a $1,000 money order to cover the fines."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as next week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"The slick cop drama Flashpoint was the big winner at Saturday's Gemini Awards as it snagged three of the night's top honours in Canadian television, including best drama."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Not everyone at the fenced-in future site of the Barnes, which has been in Lower Merion for more than 80 years, was pleased with the event. About 20 protesters stood on the Parkway and at the site entrance hoisting signs in opposition."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical