tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82277831880283675722024-03-08T08:02:47.715-08:00Art News Entertainmentblogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-7807626067729001042012-10-24T10:39:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:39:49.900-07:00Great Places for Kids to Experience Art<div id="article-content"> <p>In recent years society has placed a great deal of focus on the value of art and art education. Parents who want to expose their children to art related activities can use this trend to their advantage. The number of places that offer artistic performances and exhibits are growing each year. Community events that focus on the arts are also often geared toward family fun and enjoyment. Many places that were previously considered more adult oriented like museums are beginning to plan events with children in mind. There are also many ways to experience art at little or no cost for those on a budget.</p><p>Finding free local concerts that are kid oriented can be as easy as picking up a local news publication. Most newspapers have an entertainment section with listings of all the local concerts and festivals. Some communities even offer free outdoor concerts during the warmer months. Music is a great way to expose children to art and other cultures and festivals can be fun for the whole family. These events sometimes offer more than just music and will feature things like face painting and craft booths. Checking out the local theatre is another option for parents looking for art related activities. There are many plays that are enjoyable for children. Going to the theatre is a good way for kids to learn about different aspects of art that are outside of the realm of visual arts. A good rule of thumb when planning trips to the theater is to take the age of the child into consideration. The theatre may not be the best place for a child who has a hard time sitting still or is still too young to understand the theme of a play.</p><p>Another great place to go is the local museum. Many museums offer exhibits that are child friendly and some have classes and workshops created especially for children. The museum is also a great place for older children to develop art appreciation and learn about the different types of visual art. Many museums also offer discounted entry fees for children and students. Some museums even offer days that have free entry for promotional purposes. Checking the entertainment section of the local newspaper or looking online is great way to find out about promotional events.</p><p>School is another place where children can learn about the arts. Many schools offer extra curricular art programs for students. More progressive schools may have art classes integrated into the general curriculum. Schools that do not offer art programs will at least have access to information about different youth groups in the area. Check into organizations that promote art related activities for children. There are a great deal of youth groups that have very low membership costs.</p><p>Bringing art into the home can be simple and low cost as well. Setting aside a couple of hours each week for art related projects is a good start. Making collages, playing with sidewalk chalk and coloring are all low cost ways to bring art into the home. Parents with more resources can arrange private art or music lessons for their kids. There are many places a parent can go to bring art into the life of their child. Using the resources available such as the Internet, schools and information in local publications is the first step in this direction.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-24925271701071156302012-10-24T10:38:00.003-07:002012-10-24T10:38:55.722-07:00Top Entertainment Magazines<div id="article-content"> <p>Photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's baby were sold to People magazine for $4.1 million recently. Yes. You read that correctly, $4.1 million. What is our fascination with celebrity? Is it the larger than life movie stars? Is it the glamorous lives they lead? How is it people can name every character from Grey's Anatomy but come up empty when asked to name their state senators?</p><p>It's because we are obsessed with celebrity. We need entertainment scoop and there isn't a shortage in finding it. The E! Network dedicates itself to nothing but entertainment. Searches result in countless pages on your inquired subject. There certainly isn't a shortage of magazines on it either. Supermarket stands sell them. Bookstores sell them. You can also subscribe to these magazines online. Websites such as Mags For Less offer a variety of entertainment magazines to choose from.</p><p>Here is a partial list and brief description of the top selling entertainment magazine subscriptions in the U.S.:</p><p></p><ul> <li> <strong><u>People Magazine</u></strong> - A weekly magazine focusing on celebrity and human interest stories. People Magazine is best known for its yearly special issue which names its "50 Most Beautiful People" and the "The Best and Worst Dressed" of the year. The magazine chooses to cover stories about the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Their mantra is to cover people and not issues.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>Entertainment Weekly</u></strong> - Entertainment Weekly's primary concentration is on entertainment media, targeting a more general audience, particularly young people and women. The magazine features celebrities on the cover and addresses topics such as TV ratings, movie grosses, production costs, concert ticket sales, ad budgets, and in-depth articles about scheduling, producers, etc.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>Premiere</u></strong> - Premiere Magazine is for the people out there who REALLY love movies. The magazine covers everything you want to know about movie watching and movie making. Some of the features include interviews, profiles, and behind the scene looks at soon to be released movies.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>National Enquirer </u></strong>- Find out what's going on the lives of the big starts and other Hollywood celebrities. Inquiring minds want to know. The National Enquirer prints all the gossip you can't get from your typical newspaper.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>Star Magazine</u></strong> - Every week Star Magazine covers the latest celebrity news from Hollywood to Buckingham Palace. Weekly features include horoscopes, puzzles, advice, and the latest celebrity fashion trends.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>Rolling Stone</u></strong> - Rolling Stone is THE music magazine of music magazines. It features cutting edge music reviews, in-depth interviews, provocative photos, and award-winning features. The magazine also covers political and social examinations of the world today and how these issues affect the reader.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>Vanity Fair</u></strong> -Vanity Fair focuses of literature, art, fashion, politics, and personality. It's devoted to readers who are interested in contemporary society and culture. Features include photo essays and interviews with leaders in the entertainment industry with book, film, and music reviews.<strong><u></u></strong> </li> <li> <strong><u>US Weekly</u></strong> - Gives a revealing insider's look at all the trends and personalities important to the entertainment </li> </ul><p></p><p>As you can see, <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.magsforless.com/cat_entertainment.cfm">entertainment magazines</a> are in no shortage. From the latest scoop on Tom Cruise to a behind the scenes feature on Peter Jackson's new movie, your appetite for celebrity can be quenched in the magazine of your choice.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-65301852969655212512012-10-24T10:36:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:36:10.229-07:005 Crazy Entertainment Applications for Your iPhone<div id="article-content"> <p>Apple's iPhone can always keep you entertained. There are plenty of applications in AppStore's entertainment category that can get you out of absolute boredom and can keep your mood up and running. Further, after Apple has finally raised the curtains from iPhone 5, this category is going to get heaped up with apps as people would be inclined to get more and more of them. In the meanwhile, if you're looking for some quirky apps that will keep the fun and amusement on for you, then here are five of them.</p><p><strong>FaceGoo Lite</strong>
If you love to make faces, then FaceGoo Lite is just your kind of application. In this app, you can pinch, stretch and twist your photos and make it as crazy and funny as possible. You can make your friends look silly, or you can contort the faces of your foes to make them look fat and idiotic. Upgrade to the full version of the app to save screenshots and upload those crazy funny faces on Facebook. You just need to choose picture from the Photo Library, and use your fingers to twist, punch and push the face.</p><p><strong>StumbleUpon!</strong>
This app is meant for those people who never get tired of exploring and discovering new things, and when it comes to exploring and discovering, then nothing can provide them more fun than this one. With just a tap on the "Stumble!" button, StumbleUpon! Presents you with heaps of photos, videos and interesting web pages on iPhone's touch screen. You can pick from 500 different interests, and it instantly recommends you with pages that have amazing stuffs. Also, your mobile account gets automatically synced with your web account; so now, you can start exploring anytime you want.</p><p><strong>Spray Can</strong>
Spray Can is bliss to all those people who love to show their artistic side in extraordinary ways. Download this app in your iPhone, and join the biggest art community on iOS that has approximately 5 million users. It has an extremely creative and easy-to-use paint mode and an online gallery where users can publish their arts and rate and comment on other users' tags. If your art is good enough, then you can build your own fan base and can become famous.</p><p><strong>SimSimi</strong>
This one came as good news to all those chatter boxes who love to keep themselves entertained with non-stop chatting and gossips. SimSimi is a cute, advanced chatting robot that can make amusing conversation to keep you away from boredom. To initiate the conversation, just start a talk session at the touch screen, and SimSimi instantly greets you. You can even teach new words to SimSimi and grow her vocabulary with your input. At first go, this may seem to be a kid's game, but as you get used to talking to the cute chatting robot, you'll find that it can amuse any person regardless of age.</p><p><strong>Ghost Radar®: CLASSIC</strong>
So, if you love to get entertained with spooky experiences, then Ghost Radar® can help you. This app has been designed to detect paranormal activity, and for this task, it has been equipped with various sensors. However, Ghost Radar® is different from other traditional paranormal equipment because it analyzes the sensors' readings only when it gets interesting patterns. It also has a voice to let you know when it detects interesting words.</p><p>All the five applications mentioned above are peculiar, but entertaining. The surprising thing is though AppStore provides users with lots of peculiar apps for fun and enjoyment, the fever of entertainment apps development for iPhone never seems to go. Well, one big reason for this might be that there are lots of people who have got crazier ideas for entertainment apps.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-79262895038663163482012-10-24T10:35:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:35:12.135-07:00Media & Entertainment Law - Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Data Protection - Public Body<div id="article-content"> <p>The cases of The British Broadcasting Corporation v Sugar and Another [2007] and R (on the application of) The British Broadcasting Corporation v The Information Tribunal and Others [2007] concerned the Freedom of Information Act 2000 - a number of pieces of legislation should be mentioned to assist in the interpretation of these cases.</p><p>The appellant in the case, the British Broadcasting Corporation (“BBC”), asked B to provide advice on the coverage by the BBC of Middle Eastern matters. During 2004, B, who was an experienced journalist, produced an internal written report on the subject. The report was placed for consideration by the journalism board of the BBC. Then, in 2005 a panel was appointed to provide an external independent review of BBC reporting of Middle East affairs. This second report was never published.</p><p>The respondent, S, wished to see the second report. He was of the opinion that he was entitled to see it under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the “2000 Act”). He therefore made a written request to the BBC, the response to which was that the report directly impacted on the BBC's reporting of crucial world events and so the 2000 Act did not apply to it. S was dissatisfied with that answer and so subsequently complained to the Information Commissioner.</p><p>The commissioner corresponded fairly extensively with S and, separately, with the BBC. In a detailed letter, the commissioner set out his provisional view that the report was held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, and that in such circumstances the BBC was not deemed a public authority under the 2000 Act in respect of S's request, and was therefore not obliged to release the contents of the report.</p><p>S did not wish to submit any further comments to the commissioner, who confirmed his final decision that the report was non-disclosable, and so informed S of his right to seek a judicial review of the decision. S appealed to the Information Tribunal on the grounds of the provisions in s.50 of the 2000 Act. The position of the commissioner and the BBC at the time was as follows:</p><p>§ That S had no right of appeal under s.50;</p><p>§ The commissioner had not served a decision notice which could be appealed against; and</p><p>§ That the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain such an appeal.</p><p>The tribunal was of the opinion that it did indeed have jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The commissioner discontinued the dispute as regards jurisdiction. The tribunal ruled that it did have jurisdiction to hear S's appeal and so proceeded to hear it. It held that at the time of S's request for a copy of the report, the report was held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature.</p><p>Subsequently, the BBC appealed on the jurisdiction decision and the journalism decision and, to meet any point that a lack of jurisdiction was asserted, the BBC sought to challenge the decisions of the tribunal by concurrent judicial review proceedings.</p><p>S, in due course, issued his own judicial review proceedings challenging the original decision of the commissioner. It was submitted that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain the purported appeal and that S's remedy had laid in seeking judicial review of the commissioner's original decision. In addition to this, it was submitted that despite the initial impression one otherwise could get from s.3(1) and Schedule 1 of the 2000 Act, s.7(1) showed that it was concerned with the application of Parts I to V to information, rather than purporting to define the circumstances in which a body was or was not to be treated as a 'public authority'.</p><p>§ Section 3 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:</p><p>(1) In this Act "public authority" means:</p><p>(a) subject to section 4(4), any body which, any other person who, or the holder of any office which:</p><p>(i) is listed in Schedule 1, or</p><p>(ii) is designated by order under section 5, or</p><p>(b) a publicly-owned company as defined by section 6.</p><p>(2) For the purposes of this Act, information is held by a public authority if:</p><p>(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person, or</p><p>(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.</p><p>§ Section 7 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:</p><p>(1) Where a public authority is listed in Schedule 1 only in relation to information of a specified description, nothing in Parts I to V of this Act applies to any other information held by the authority.</p><p>(2) An order under section 4(1) may, in adding an entry to Schedule 1, list the public authority only in relation to information of a specified description.</p><p>§ Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:</p><p>(1) Any person (“the Complainant”) may apply to the Commissioner for a decision whether, in any specified respect, a request for information made by the complainant to a public authority has been dealt with in accordance with the requirements of Part I.</p><p>(2) On receiving an application under this section, the Commissioner shall make a decision unless it appears to him:</p><p>(a) that the complainant has not exhausted any complaints procedure which is provided by the public authority in conformity with the code of practice under section 45,</p><p>(b) that there has been undue delay in making the application,</p><p>(c) that the application is frivolous or vexatious, or</p><p>(d) that the application has been withdrawn or abandoned.</p><p>(3) Where the Commissioner has received an application under this section, he shall either:</p><p>(a) notify the complainant that he has not made any decision under this section as a result of the application and of his grounds for not doing so, or</p><p>(b) serve notice of his decision (“Decision Notice”) on the complainant and the public authority.</p><p>§ Section 57 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:</p><p>(1) Where a decision notice has been served, the complainant or the public authority may appeal to the Tribunal against the notice.</p><p>(2) A public authority on which an information notice or an enforcement notice has been served by the Commissioner may appeal to the Tribunal against the notice.</p><p>(3) In relation to a decision notice or enforcement notice which relates:</p><p>(a) to information to which section 66 applies, and</p><p>(b) to a matter which by virtue of subsection (3) or (4) of that section falls to be determined by the responsible authority instead of the appropriate records authority, subsections (1) and (2) shall have effect as if the reference to the public authority were a reference to the public authority or the responsible authority.</p><p>In Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 a list of public bodies can be found. Most of those listed in Part VI of Schedule 1 are designated by name, however a few are not, and one such body is the BBC. The BBC's entry in Part VI of Schedule 1 reads:</p><p>‘The British Broadcasting Corporation, in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature'.</p><p>The appeal was allowed for the following reasons:</p><p>§ With regard to the requirements of Parts I to V of the 2000 Act, the BBC was deemed a public authority only in respect of information that it held otherwise than for purposes of journalism, art or literature. The applicable sections of the 2000 Act, in particular s.3(1) and s.7(1), taken with Schedule 1 were different. Those sections specify which bodies have to be treated as public authorities in respect of certain types of information. The sections do not state that the BBC was a public authority for all purposes under the 2000 Act in relation to all information held by them.</p><p>§ The structure of the 2000 Act is such as to preclude certain decisions of the commissioner from appeal to the tribunal. It could be discerned from the language and structure of the 2000 Act that any intent to appeal lay with the tribunal where it had been decided by the commissioner whether or not the requirements of Part I had been complied with by a public authority and where a decision notice had been served. If the commissioner had decided that the circumstances under s.7(1) to the 2000 Act subsisted, then there would be no decision notice under s.50(3)(b) which the commissioner could serve. As a consequence of this there could be nothing which could be appealed to the tribunal. The remedy was by way of proceedings for judicial review. By looking at the words of s.3, s.7 and Schedule 1 of the 2000 Act, the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal.</p><p>§ Whether a piece of information had been or had not been 'held for purposes other than journalism' ultimately involved a matter of judgment on the part of the commissioner by reference to the circumstances of each particular case. The re-affirmation of his decision had not been challengeable by way of judicial review. It was held that journalism extended to activity as well as product, and it extended to the process of collecting, analysing, editing and communicating news. The decision of the commissioner would have had the effect of establishing whether or not there had been jurisdiction to determine substantively on S's complaint and to therefore serve a decision notice.</p><p>In this case, it was held that the final decisions of the commissioner had not been challengeable by way of judicial review. The decision of the commissioner had been lawful, rational, and properly open to him. The decisions had simply been the commissioner restating and justifying, in the context of the appeal to the tribunal, the position that the he had earlier adopted in his decision letter. As a result, S's claim for judicial review failed and was subsequently dismissed.</p><p>If you require further information contact us at <a href="mailto:enquiries@rtcoopers.com">enquiries@rtcoopers.com</a></p><p>Visit [http://www.rtcoopers.com/practice_mediaentertainment.php;] <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.rtcoopers.com/practice_dataprotection.php">http://www.rtcoopers.com/practice_dataprotection.php</a></p><p>© RT COOPERS, 2007. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-78485973856974823772012-10-24T10:34:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:34:17.898-07:00MMA Wealth - How Anyone Can Cash in on the Mixed Martial Arts Craze<div id="article-content"> <p>Mixed Martial Arts, hands down is one of the fastest growing sports in history. Thanks to the technology of the internet, satellite TV and the slow demise of boxing, MMA has grown quicker than any sport. This sport has grown from a barbaric back alley style of fighting to a scientific and sharp, disciplined form of sports and entertainment.</p><p>Many politicians who tried to get the sport banned twenty years ago attend events in Las Vegas and other major venues. Since the sport has gone global and strengthened the rules, more people continue to flock to MMA events. Many fights are reminiscent of a Hollywood premier, with major celebrities, rock stars and a whose who of the entertainment world</p><p>Other than the fact the sport continues to grow despite the economic downturn there's still more good news about this fast growing craze. The sport is still in it's infancy. That's especially good news if you're looking for untapped ground-floor opportunities.</p><p>Imagine for a second if you started marketing before the NFL grew in popularity. Or think of the money you'd have now if you started marketing before the NBA blew up. How wealthy do you think you'd be now if you started marketing on the ground floor of Major League baseball or the PGA when they first started out? Are you getting the picture yet? If not take your pulse, because that's where Mixed Marital Arts is today - but even better. But don't take my word for it, do a simple search and you'll see how popular it is and how fast it's growing with no end in sight.</p><p>But what's even better news is you don't have to get hit, punched or kicked to make big money from MMA.</p><p>In fact, did you know more money is made from this sport in marketing and merchandising than fighting. Yes, almost 10 times as much, according to the MMA Association. Growing legions of rabid fans are devouring everything in sight, from t-shirts, videos, training manuals, e-books even hip hop videos, you name it.</p><p>Thanks to Mixed Martial Arts, many fighters have gone from virtual unknowns to household names overnight. Because of popular T.V shows like the Ultimate Fighter television reality series, the sport has taken off even faster. Fighters are no longer seen as barbaric, but as toned and conditioned athletes looking for a way to feed their families by excelling in the sport. The MMA has done an excellent job of reinventing itself and repackaging it's image, a text-book example for any company or industry to make note of.</p><p>What started as a passing fad in the minds of passive onlookers, Mixed Martial Arts continues to position itself for the long hall. The sport continues to gain momentum globally and seems have taken on a virus-like life of it's own. Those alert people who take the time to get their marketing foot in the door will have a bright financial future. This sport shines as one of the few recession proof businesses. This means many fortunes wait for discovery - if you get involved with the Mixed Martial Arts craze now. The key is finding your <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://thenicheman.com">niche market</a>.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-61323719200469685632012-10-24T10:33:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:33:12.470-07:00The Best Entertainment News and Releases of 2010<div id="article-content"> <p>2010 marked the end of the first decade of the 21st Century and brought with it some of the great entertainment news and releases.</p><p>Amongst the best from the music world was the news early on in the year that Hot Chip were releasing their eagerly awaited 4th album, One Life Stand. With a raft of good album reviews, it cemented their place at the heart of British alternative electro. The year also saw The Libertines reform for a reportedly lucrative performance at the Reading and Leeds festivals alongside Canadian legends Arcade Fire. The Strokes returned to form at The Isle of White festival with Paul McCartney, Indie Tracks grew a little bit bigger and a big push was put together to save the 100 Club.</p><p>In terms of album reviews, The Coral's Butterfly House was also a high scorer alongside the likes of Arcade Fire with Suburbs, Vampire Weekend's Contra and Broken Bells. However, it was MGMT's Congratulations that made the year great.</p><p>Film news included the planned reboot of the Spider-Man series, bringing a new twist on the storyline and a whole new cast. It was also announced that the long awaited Transformers 3 was going into production and that the title for the film was Dark Side of the Moon. There were also rumours that an Alan Partridge movie was back on the cards, but rumours like this have been circulating for a while.</p><p>The big film releases for the year were Kick-Ass, Toy Story 3 and Avatar, which proposed to take movie entertainment to a whole new level by reintroducing 3D popularity to cinema viewing.</p><p>Documentary follow up to Wonders of the Solar System, Wonders of the Universe, was the big TV news, as well as the release of the Alan Partidge Fosters Shorts online instead of on the television. 2010 also saw the return of Miranda to the BBC, as well as a short Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and a whole new Dr Who series with Matt Smith taking the lead role of The Doctor.</p><p>The big entertainment news in the gaming world in 2010 was the launch of Sony and Microsoft equivalents to the Nintendo Wii controllers. The Xbox Kinect and the PlayStation Move made it possible to play PS3 & Xbox 360 games with motion sensitivity controls. 2010 also saw the release of the groundbreaking Back to the Future computer game, which was released in monthly installments.</p><p>At the theatres, there was a raft of great shows that began in 2010, including Frankenstein at the National Theatre, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Bedlam, by Nell Leyshon, made history by becoming the first play written by a women to be performed at The Globe Theatre.</p><p>Finally, the art world provided some great additions to entertainment news, including Gabriel Orozco's exciting exhibition at the Tate Modern, Philippe Parreno's work at the Serpentine Gallery and the introduction of stunningly crafted elephants to the streets of London. If that wasn't enough, there was also controversy as the 2009 Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner was disqualified at the beginning of the year.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-50810751211905210302012-10-24T10:32:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:32:19.339-07:003D Street Art Is an Advertising Man's Dream<div id="article-content"> <p>3D Street Art has been around since the 16th century. Originally created by Italian Renaissance Madonarro's and Trompe l'eil painters from France, it has continued to be highly popular and it's magic has been captured by Wiley Admen in the twenty first century.</p><p>3D Street Art creates a 3D effect from a 2D picture when viewed through the lens of a camera. It's an exceptionally difficult type of art and only perfected today by a handful of artists including Julian Beever, Edgar Muller and the team of artists at Street Advertising Services in the UK. It's created by painting an object close to the lens compact and squashed and and objects far away are painted in a stretched out way, the effect is a trick on the eye and a mind blowing illusion of 3D depth. Over the last few years Ad Agencies have turned to the 3D pavement artists to create highly effective advertising and PR campaigns.</p><p><strong>So how does it work and why is it so effective?</strong></p><p>3D Street Art in Advertising works so brilliantly in two words: entertain and inform. Isn't that what the best adverts do? Entertain and inform and that's what 3D pavement art is so good at. When a consumer sees a piece of 3D street art, they recognise the image and shape etc of the content but it's only when they are advised to look through the lens of their mobile phone camera that the magic happens. There is always an 'aha' moment that the picture jumps into 3d in their eyes, which is what makes it so entertaining. The next stage in the process is the consumer asking, 'how does it work and what's this for?'. That's the opportunity for brand ambassadors to explain the 3d process and inform them of the brand's message.</p><p><strong>OK so 3D street art works great in an experiential campaign or live event, what are the other benefits?</strong></p><p>Not only is the consumer entertained and informed by the artwork, the next step is to interact with the picture. Encouraged by the artist and brand ambassadors, they walk on to the picture and have their photo taken with it. The photo is taken on the consumer's mobile phone and the photo is then uploaded to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to show their friends and family. The result? Start of a viral campaign.</p><p><strong>Are there any other ways 3D Street Art works for a brand?</strong></p><p>Probably the biggest benefit of using 3D in your advertising or PR campaign is free media coverage. Because the pictures work so well in photographs, press exposure is almost expected.</p><p><a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.streetadvertisingservices.com/3d-Street-Art-Advertising(1235522).htm">Street Advertising Services</a> 3D street art campaigns have been featured in all the national newspapers in the UK as well as regionals and also TV exposure on programs such as BBC news, Sky News and Blue Peter! They have some excellent case studies on how 3d street art can be used effectively in your next campaign.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-52995749309936240712012-10-24T10:31:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:31:26.622-07:00Entertainment Publicity and Integrated Market Jobs On The Rise <div id="article-content"> <p>Public Relations and Internet Marketing jobs are on the rise. It is a consumer revolution, where people get their news, information on demand, when ever and where ever they want it via social websites such as Facebook, MySpace or elsewhere Online.</p><p>The entertainment and advertising agencies are realizing there are billions of dollars to be had on the Internet. Broadcast news has made the switch, but not without challenges, and now the Writers Guild and TV and movie industry, and even high tech customers are switching to PR.</p><p>Each year I speak to the fall 2007 UCLA Entertainment Publicity class, Tuesday, October 23 at 8:00, Geology Building, room 3656. The class is endorsed by EPPS, the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 66 and it is taught by one of Hollywood's famed Entertainment Publicists Julian Myers. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to go into this business.</p><p>The course provides a practical approach to the current world of entertainment public relations with the latest guidance and blog-site opportunities from leaders in these areas. I usually present state-of-the-art PR techniques that have earned MAYO Communications "Best Media Placement", Best Education Campaign" and "Best Online Tactics" from Public Relations Society of America, LA Chapter. I will specifically reveal trade secrets, how to prepare for what I describe as a "sometimes cutthroat" business, and "dog-eat-dog" world. I'm amongst a list of Hollywood's 30 top entertainment publicity pros schedule to speak to the UCLA class this year, which makes this class even more valuable. There is nothing like hearing great advice from the president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to entertainment publicity pros who have been practicing for four or more decades.</p><p>At every university campus the best advice I leave students with: if they major in Information Technology they'll become a millionaire overnight, if they minor in it, they'll become rich in five years. Just about everything from broadcast news to "how to find or do whatever" is discovered Online. The news media has finally caught up with technology, but now consumers are sometimes even more knowledgeable, and expect more from information resources. There are more than 2,000 widgets Online, or what I describe as your life on a desktop, where you can obtain info on just about anything your heart desires thanks to Google.</p><p>In addition to the challenges of technology, budding entertainment PR and marketing pros are soon discovering that after they enter college they need a wider skill set. I recommend to anyone majoring public relations or marketing to also take business, photography, computer science and especially creative writing classes. It just makes you that much more valuable, and you can fit into more jobs available. There are lots of new media jobs today. The career opportunities and resources are endless. Only 10 years ago when students applied for jobs they had to request company information ahead of time. Now, students can surf the employer's website and read everything from annual reports to the mission and goals of the corporation. Sometimes they know more about the company than the person interviewing them.</p><p>I also recommend networking and finding a mentor before students graduate. When you graduate, you should decide where you want to live, take an entry level job in that city and just move there. Check in with your mentor as you make your moves up the career ladder, and listen to what they say, because your mentor can save you the heartache of making same mistakes we did.</p><p>For More about MAYO Communications visit <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.MayoCommunications.com">http://www.MayoCommunications.com</a> or <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.LAentertainmentPublicity.com">http://www.LAentertainmentPublicity.com</a> or contact Aida Mayo, MAYO Communications.</p><p>Mc Quade also writes a monthly column as the West Coast Bureau Chief of O'Dwyer PR News, <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.Odwyerpr.com">http://www.Odwyerpr.com</a>, NY.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-56924717412183374272012-10-24T10:30:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:30:33.487-07:00Entertainment News and the Critic<div id="article-content"> <p>Entertainment news publications and online editions have sections written by critics. These could be movie reviews for a film that has released at a theater near you. It could also be the music reviews for an album that is slowly climbing up the charts. Critics have been panned by artists for centuries. Many artists relegate critics to the sidelines with the strong belief that they have taken up criticism only because they have not been able to create art themselves. But that opinion is not free from fallacy. Critics do their job and that job has a purpose.</p><p>The primary job of the critic is to inculcate good taste among audiences and viewers. Entertainment news portals are their media. Because a large chunk of the people read these entertainment news sites, the critics can reach out to more people with their views and opinion about things. The movie reviews that they write tell the audience what they can expect from the movie. They tell you if the movie ticket is worth your money or not. I'm not saying that you accept their opinion as gospel truth, but when learned critics say something, they must have some reason for doing so.</p><p>In the field of music, critics have a special to play as well. Music reviews inform and educate listeners about the trends of modern music. Being a connoisseur in music and performing arts, the critic manages to pack in his knowledge about music when he writes music reviews. The opinion of the critic is important for music reviews because the critic is well-aware of the different genres of music, be it Eastern, Western, jazz, blues or reggae. The critic pours out his knowledge on the entertainment news pages. Readers of these columns can only benefit from the learned wisdom of the critic.</p><p>Critics hold a lot of sway over the business aspect of the entertainment industry. Viewers go to the theaters mainly on what the opinion of the movie reviews is. They generally tend to head to the theaters with a pre-conceived idea formed by the reading of the critic's opinion. The same happens in case of music reviews. Sales of albums feel the effect of a critic's analysis, and if the critic happens to be someone of repute or from a respected publication, the impact is deeper. Music reviews are also important links in understanding the flow and direction modern music is taking.</p><p>Having said all these, I'm not saying that the critic is always right in his assessment. There are numerous examples of movies trashed by critics in the movie reviews but they have gone on to become blockbusters. Some, which the critics hailed as cinematic masterpieces, didn't find an audience. The viewer or the listener, in case of music reviews, is the ultimate judge. Critics writing for entertainment news publications can only claim to be guides. They point out certain aspects and the viewer has to decide if he agrees with the sensibilities of the critic in those aspects.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-51511080838984698942012-10-24T10:29:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:29:40.882-07:00The Millionaire Dream' Series "Good News" Chapter Three<div id="article-content"> <p>Those of us that were old enough to watch black and white television between 1955 and 1960 watched 'The Millionaire.' CBS had a real winner! Every week, the-never-seen-on-camera, fabulously wealthy, John Beresford Tipton would dispatch his Executive Secretary, Michael Anthony, to give away one million dollars, tax free to someone that he had never met.</p><p>In Chapter one of 'The Millionaire Dream' Series (published into HOME::Arts-and-Entertainment) section of EzineArticles, I recounted how, in a very strange dream, I was taken to heaven. At the invitation of two who had formerly been the stars of 'The Millionaire,' 'The Master' allowed Michael Anthony and John Beresford Tipton to discuss many things with me.</p><p>(NASB) Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.</p><p>(NASB) 1 Peter 4:11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.</p><p>Dear reader, you might consider reading 'The Millionaire Dream 'Introduction' Chapters One and Two in order to be up to speed, before continuing to read this article, if you have not yet done so. As it is not possible to post a link here, you can search on this article bank site by name of the article and/or by author's name, Rascal Miles. 'The Millionaire Dream' articles are posted on my Jesus4You.ws website also.</p><p>After some exciting Chapter Two news for me, including information about the existence of a big brother, Randall, that I didn't know that I had, John, who had insisted that I call him by his first name, pressed on:</p><p>"Well Rascal, Michael and I have been observing you, more recently since you've answered 'The Lord's Call' to become 'An Apostle.' You are causing quite a stir down on Planet Earth. Your accepting 'Our Lord's Provision' to receive your healing, rather than endure the continued curse of MS (Multiple Sclerosis), was met with mixed feelings by many people with illness, and by other MSers too. You've a pretty mature grasp of scripture for a guy who was born deaf by design and has never been through the formal seminaries."</p><p>"I call many of those church cemeteries, Rascal. Thank God you were kept away," Michael Anthony chuckled. Those teach failed faith and fear religion, as you know." Both of my 'Gone-before-guides' stopped saying anything and looked at me as if expecting me to say something.</p><p>"I guess what surprises me most is that so many traditional churches deny the infallibility of God's Holy word," I said. Take 3rd John 1:2 for example, '(KJV) 3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.' How can teachers misunderstand what this so clearly says?"</p><p>John answered. Imagine if my namesake, John the Apostle, had said, "I wish most of all that you to be broke and sick, even as your real-heart gets more poor."</p><p>"The 'Prosperity Good News' that you are expounding, Rascal, is what John and I say is, 'Hard for ordinary people to believe. Realtors, insurance agents, and those who have enjoyed success with MLM get it. Yet those who have suffered a loss, or have a fearful friend who did, are themselves afraid'. 'Making a fortune selling website domains must be to good to be true,' or so their lying logical minds assure them."</p><p>"I often had a difficult time convincing our millionaires to be that the money was really for them," Michael Anthony continued, with a perplexed expression. "But not as much trouble as you have had. It is as though so many of your present day, earth-bound souls can't remember that Jesus said, '(KJV) John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly.'</p><p>"Perhaps, Michael, the people who most need the prosperity don't want to pay their taxes in Rascal's world? We gave our people their million dollars tax free."</p><p>"Only Oprah Winfrey could afford to do that today, John. The taxes now are 'Sky-High,' as out of their world as are we. Maybe, the taxes are even higher?"</p><p>"Oprah has been doing some fine things to help people with much of her earnings also Rascal. You might consider being a guest on her television show," John suggested.</p><p>I'd love to be one of Oprah's guests, John. It would take 'An Act Of God' to make that happen, however. Her guests are by invitation only."</p><p>Perhaps, Michael Anthony will ask an angel to whisper in the ear of someone who knows Oprah?</p><p>"Gosh, that would be great!" Enthused by the idea, I agreed. "That would be really working behind the scenes."</p><p>"Speaking of television, gentleman," Regis Philbin was doing a quiz show called 'Who wants To Be a Millionaire.' The contestants had to be pretty smart to win however. Not at all like 'The Millionaire' show million dollar recipients that you two had. Your millionaires only had to have problems.</p><p>(To be continued in "The Millionaire Dream' Series Chapter Four)</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-61888104867969125402012-10-24T10:28:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:28:40.332-07:00Hosting Your Entertainment Website<div id="article-content"> <p>People go online to get information nowadays; it is easy and fast. No matter if it is something to with sports, arts, news, travel or anything else, people just need to key in the words in the search engine and wait. It is the same with entertainment. There is an increase of hype with entertainment websites on the internet today. However, making a website related to this industry is not easy as you will need to tackle a lot of problems. The good thing is that many others have made the same mistakes before. So by looking at what they did wrong, you can avoid repeating it. This article will reveal a few tips to help you out.</p><p>The most important part of an entertainment website is the web design. Designing a website is not easy and if you do not have the talent, don't force it. It is the most important thing to have a successful website for this purpose. Having a so-so website is not going to make the cut because you will only be able to attract amateurs to your website. You will not be able to attract an endless stream of visitors if your site is not exciting and attracting. So, do use the tools that your hosting company provide to you. You can use professional blogging software or a website builder tool to create your site. These tools often come free with your hosting package.</p><p>However, one thing that you must make sure is that you website stays fast even though it is filled with a lot of graphics. Surfing speed is very important to determine how well your website performs against your competitors. Do not use graphics from other sources, keep it original to show that you are genuine and unique. On the other hand, you must keep a balance with your graphics because not every visitor that goes to your website is using a high speed internet broadband. Some might still be using a dial up line service.</p><p>In order to be easily found by internet users, you must build your website to be SEO friendly. Use popular keywords and phrases. Do a research on the statistics online and do not set your keywords based on your feel or instinct. Perform marketing campaigns with pay-per-click advertising. Many providers are offering $50-100 credit with the packages that they offer. So, make sure you make good use of it.</p><p>Be sure to have enough resources prepared as you will want to have countless visitors coming to your site. You won't want to have your website down due to insufficient bandwidth. So, select the right hosting service to prevent anything to go wrong.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-12600125024882976912012-10-24T10:27:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:27:47.173-07:00Caring For Vintage Retro Art Posters<div id="article-content"> <p>Vintage retro art posters continue to be popular items for collectors or casual art lovers. These art posters originally were created to inform the public about news, entertainment or to advertise products. Prices for these posters vary greatly depending on who the artist is, the condition and the rarity of the vintage poster. Popular posters for collectors include travel posters, retro advertising posters, Chinese propaganda posters and theatrical posters.</p><p>Of course you don't need to be a serious collector to enjoy vintage retro art posters. These art posters are visually appealing to most</p><p>people and are a great way of adding character and uniqueness to today's homes. They shouldn't be displayed only in art galleries and since they're available in many price ranges, there's no need to. So enjoy finding and owning art posters. In order to ensure you preserve and enjoy your posters for many years to come, you'll want to follow a few guidelines.</p><p>* When you do purchase a vintage retro art poster do consider having it professionally framed. These posters require special attention to framing in order to ensure preservation.</p><p>* Hang your vintage poster away from direct sunlight, as it will fade or change the colors in your print.</p><p>* Do not mount an art display light directly over your art poster. Use spotlights placed several feet away from the poster.</p><p>* Most collectibles prefer the same environment that people do, that being a space that is neither too cold, too hot, too wet or too dry. Try to avoid exposing your posters to extremes in temperatures.</p><p>* If you needed another reason to stop smoking here it is. Cigarette smoke and fireplace smoke will damage most art pieces. For regular dust, cleaning gently with a cloth is okay but never use detergents. Also for heavier dust or dirt accumulation, take your art poster to a profession art restorer.</p><p>* Don't forget children and pets. They don't have the same respect for vintage art as we do, so make sure your posters are not easily accessible to them. Heaven forbid Fido decides your vintage Guinness art poster makes a good chew snack.</p><p>I hope you enjoy collecting vintage retro art posters and stop buying mass produced, department store prints. Not only will you have a unique, beautiful piece of art but you'll also have a piece of history. Most retro art posters have an interesting background story. I encourage you to investigate the development or history of any posters you own. Enjoy your vintage retro art posters for its visual design and a look back at olden times gone by.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-75982197057193160102012-10-24T10:26:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:26:52.406-07:00Dish Network Has Entertainment Packages for Everyone<div id="article-content"> <p>Dish Network has a ton of different features that everyone from the casual television viewer to the full fledged HDTV aficionado will appreciate. Of course Dish Network also has options for everyone in between too.</p><p>The full full fledged HDTV aficionado will appreciate Dish Network's selection of High Definition Television entertainment packages. Even the entry level one, the Bronze Package, comes with twenty five High Definition channels, which is more than any of Dish Network's competitors can offer. It also comes with eighty standard definition channels. The Silver level has the same twenty five High Definition channels but adds another one hundred and twenty standard definition ones. The Gold Package adds National Geographic HD and another forty standard definition channels. And the Platinum Package adds Starz HDTV, Showtime HD, and HBO HD for a total of twenty nine High Definition channels and two hundred and forty standard definition ones. With a total of two hundred and sixty nine channels the Platinum Level HDTV entertainment package is Dish Network's largest plan.</p><p>The casual television viewer who just wants a few channels in order to stay informed and entertained at a fair price will appreciate Dish Family. Dish Family is Dish Network's economy plan which comes with forty channels including C-SPAN, Angel One, Animal Planet, the Hallmark Movie channels, Discovery Kids, and the Food Network.</p><p>Programming options for everyone between these two extremes consists of America's Top Entertainment Packages, which include versions with sixty channels, one hundred and twenty channels, and one hundred and eighty channels. These plans include great channels like TeleFutura, The Movie Channels Extra, seven different Encore movie channel, the Independent Film Channel, the FOX Movie Channel, Turner Classic Movies, CNN, Headline News, CNBC and CNBC World, Comedy Central, a slew of Discovery Channels, The Science Channel, The Learning Channel, National Geographic, Nick at Nite and Nickelodeon, Nick Toons, Toon Disney, The Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Arts & Entertainment, E! Entertainment, Country Music Television, Great American Country, MTV and MTV2, VH1 and VH1 Classic, all of the shopping channels, TNT, USA Network, TBS, TBN, FX, Fuse, and many more.</p><p>If you need more than one hundred and eighty channels, consider America's Everything Pak, which has everything form the America's Top Entertainment Packages listed above plus four movie packages. The movie packages from HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Cinemax include channels like Starz Theater, Starz Cinema, Action Max, HBO Signature, Showtime Beyond, and FLIX.</p><p>Dish Network also delivers bilingual programing through Dish Latino Packages. Dish Latino Basic has thirty channels of Spanish language programming including TV Chile, HTV, Univision, TV Azteca, mun2, Telehit, TV Espanola Internacional, De Pelicula Clasico, MTV Espanol, Fox Sports Espanol, and more. Dish Latino Dos adds eighty nine channels in English onto the thirty in Spanish. Latino Max has the same thirty Spanish channels plus one hundred thirty English ones. DishNetwork's Latino Everything Pak has the same programming as Dish Latino Max, but with the addition of the same movie packages that top off America's Everything Pak.</p><p>Dish Network also has plenty of additional programming to customize any entertainment package. Dish Network's additional programming includes seasonal sports subscriptions like NHL On the Ice, MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, and ESPN Game Day. Regional sports networks are also a great choice for hard core sports fans. DishNetwork also offers more international programming in nineteen languages including Chinese with Great Wall TV, Armenian, Hebrew, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Korean, Japanese, and Urdu. Local channels can be added to help you keep up with what's going on in your community, and SIRIUS satellite radio is a great choice for talk and music when you're doing something that keeps your eyes off the television screen.</p><p>Whatever your entertainment needs are, Dish Network will be their to meet them with it's great programming options.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-17224477486489940322012-10-24T10:25:00.002-07:002012-10-24T10:25:58.079-07:00Girl Fight - Turkish News-Columnist Arman Takes The Gloves Off Against Entertainment Queen Avsar<div id="article-content"> <p>We mentioned back in May that Turkish beauty and entertainment queen Hülya Avsar has had her detractors. But it wasn't until recently that they began lining up against her in such numbers. And they don't mind playing rough either.</p><p>For instance, the well-respected (and usually liberal-minded) female newspaper columnist Ayse Arman led off her anti-Avsar attack in late September saying, "I don't descend to Hülya Avsar's low class!"</p><p>That remark came after a series of exchanges between columnist Arman and the loose-lipped entertainer that began when Avsar made the politically charged statement that, "Turks who want to create a separate state should go ahead and do so. Let them live the way they want to live. For example, if Kurds want to establish a Kurdish state... it's similar to Turkey's desire to join the European Union."</p><p>When she heard Avsar's remark, Arman riposted, "There are some people in show-business whose mouth-zipper is broken!"</p><p>Arman added, "Avsar should stick to what she's good at...beauty, acting, singing, entertaining -- and being cute. But when it comes to political subjects, especially heavy political issues...then I say, 'Hülya... Keep away, woman!'"</p><p>These words naturally upset Ms. Avsar, and she came back with a salvo of her own. "Ayse Arman writes too much about sex in her newspaper column. She's got lovemaking, and such, on the brain. Well, she also practices what she preaches. She enticed the husband of a woman-friend of mine -- and broke up the couple's marriage. If I enter politics, I'll appoint Arman as the 'Minister Responsible for Breaking Up Happy Marriages'."</p><p>And in Arman's news-column the next day entitled, "Look At This Nasty Talk" Ms. Arman retorted, "I've learned moral lessons from almost everyone I know -- at one time or another. The one exception is Hülya Avsar...who, with a personal history like hers, has nothing to teach me or anyone else -- in the morals department."</p><p>Arman concluded..."I suppose dear readers, that you're expecting me to fire back at Ms. Avsar, aren't you...? Well, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint...and leave her talking to herself in the gutter where she belongs!"</p><p><i>And it's not just Newspaper Columnists who've been having a field day with Ms. Avsar lately. Her peers in the entertainment-business too are joining ranks against her...</i></p><p>Part 3 -- Hülya Avsar Becomes Gossip-Fodder For TV Talks Shows</p><p><i>Click following to access a fully illustrated HTML version of <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.practicalturkish.com/arts-and-entertainment--006-10-24.html"><u><b>Girl Fight !!</b></u></a></i></p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-73493361450364077012012-10-24T10:24:00.003-07:002012-10-24T10:24:53.381-07:00Entertainment in the 19th Century UK<div id="article-content"> <p>In the aftermath of the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Roman, Chinese and Mughal empires, the 19th Century was typified by the growth in the influence of Britain and the United States on the world stage. Not least of all was their influence on entertainment.</p><p>Perhaps the biggest, and longest lasting influence is the massive impact of British writers on the literature world. The 19th Century was a hot bed for classics. Charles Dickens lived and worked throughout the middle period of the 19th Century on classic fiction like Oliver Twist (1937-1939), A Tale of Two Cities (1851) and Great Expectations (1861).</p><p>It wasn't just Dickens that was active during the century; Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes for the first time, the Bronte's brought us Jayne Eyre, Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights and Rudyard Kipling gave us Young Mowgli. There were also sinister twists in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1818), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891) and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).</p><p>In music, it was the European composers that let the way in the wake of the might of Beethoven and Back from the previous century. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918) were prolific composers throughout the latter half of the century. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky produced Swan Lake (1876), The Nutcracker (1892) and the 1812 Overture (1880). Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) developed his operatic masterpieces La Traviata (1853) and Rigoletto (1851). Frediric Francois Chopin (1810-1849) and Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) were also big proponents in establishing the credentials of classical music in the 19th Century.</p><p>Famous plays that hit the entertainment news of the time include Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest (1895) and George Bernard Shaw's Candita (1894). Anton Checkov's The Seagull was also written in the 19th Century. It originally led to him renouncing theatre due to the bad reception it provoked in 1896, however, it's revival in 1898 was met with critical acclaim. It's no great surprise that a lot of the great works of theatre originated in the latter years of the 19th Century, as this was the formative years of the Belle poque.</p><p>The era also saw the initial development of moving pictures as a form of entertainment. Although, they did not gain real prominence until the early 20th Century, so it's fair to say that the 19th Century was largely untouched by film as a medium for entertainment.</p><p>However, what was big throughout the 19th Century was the show. Figures like Buffalo Bill established successful shows that travelled throughout the United States and Europe.</p><p>The 19th Century also gave the world an abundance of artists, although, some of them were not recognised until the 20th Century. Vincent Van Gogh, for example, died in relative obscurity, only to be considered one of history's greatest painters posthumously. A similar story can be seen in the works of William Blake. However, there were a great many artists that rose to prominence in the 19th Century, including Paul Czanne, John Constable, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Joseph Turner and Whistler.</p><p>The 19th Century was forged under the might of the British Empire and the industrial revolution, giving rise to a wealth of artistic creativity in the arts and entertainment world. With the abolition of slavery and the rise in socialism as an intellectual paradigm, the masses were starting to be considered more highly, however, the reality is that entertainment in terms of popular music, theatre, art and literature were predominantly the domains of the rich during the 19th Century. Although, the technological and economical advances that began in the late 19th Century, retrospectively called the Belle Epoch, paved the way for the arts and entertainment to have more of a mass audience in the 20th Century.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-6709987458646348632012-10-24T10:24:00.000-07:002012-10-24T10:24:00.030-07:00Arts and Entertainment News from Hollywood North<div id="article-content"> <p>Boys Come... Boy's Co.</p><p>"John Lennon & Yoko Ono Bed-In for Peace"</p><p>Ask any girl. Those rules were bent Friday night when I happened upon old flame David Goldman still going strong at his Boy's Co exclusive opening of "All We Are Saying" - a fashionable evening featuring the original photographs of "John Lennon & Yoko Ono's Bed-In for Peace" by the late photojournalist Gerry Deiter.</p><p>These extraordinary photographs, providing the backdrop for the theme of the evening, were on display through the sagacity of the Elliott Louis Gallery's owner Ted Lederer - who single-handedly dragged them out of Deiter's vault for a first-time showing on May 26, 2004 - thirty-five years after John Lennon and Yoko Ono went to bed in a suite in Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and invited the entire world to join them in seeking an alternative to violence and war in solving global political and social problems.</p><p>May 26, 1969. That month the battle of Dong Ap Bia, a.k.a. Hamburger Hill was exploding in the Vietnam War. Race riots occurred in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. French Foreign Legion paratroopers landed in Kolwezi, Zaire, to rescue Europeans caught in the middle of a civil war. U.S. National Guard helicopters sprayed skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California. It was two years after the Summer of Love.</p><p>John and Yoko were in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Early in the Bed-In, a reporter asked John what he was trying to do. John said, "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Putting sounds to the thought, he rented an 8-track tape machine from a local music store and, on May 31 while in bed, recorded the first solo by a single Beatle," Give Peace a Chance", - the recording was attended by dozens of journalists and various celebrities, including Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory and Canada's Tommy Smothers.</p><p>Gerry Deiter was there for the entire eight days. He was assigned to photograph the Bed-In for Peace by Life Magazine but Life never ran the feature. Ironically, it fell victim to a bigger story - the death of Ho Chi Minh, leader of North Vietnam.</p><p>Deiter kept the negatives and transparencies locked away for more than 30 years. He had been living aboard a classic wooden motor yacht cruising the wilderness of the British Columbia coast photographing and writing when Ted Lederer, with the help of family and friends, prevailed on him to bring this archive to life and offer the work to the public at the Elliott Louis Gallery in 2004. This amazing work offers up 25 images in colour and black and white that celebrate John and Yoko's example of peace and love.</p><p>What brought the Boy's Co show together were Goldman and Lederer meeting up on the field where their sons play soccer. It was a confluence that allowed for a new generation to have a special glimpse of an older one.</p><p>Disenchanted fan, Mark David Chapman, murdered Lennon on December 8, 1980. The world is still at war. This retrospective clearly speaks to Lennon's prescience.</p><p>Good on Deiter, Goldman and Lederer for keeping his mission in our faces.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-212892792888944582012-10-24T10:23:00.000-07:002012-10-24T10:23:05.828-07:00Impact of Technology On The Field of Arts And Entertainment<div id="article-content"> <p>Nearly everyone enjoys the different types of entertainment, and some people enjoy even more being entertainers. They want to become actors, comedians, dancers, singers. We used to go inside theatres after a hard day's work to relax and see our favorite plays. But only in the last hundred years have we been able to record sound and pictures and to broadcast them through air. These improvements have brought fun and entertainment to every corner of the world and into most of our homes.</p><p>Technology has indeed made it possible for us to see entertainment in a new light. For one, technology has made it also possible for us to store our memories. Actors and singers long dead seem to come to life again every time their films or records are played. We can store a seemingly countless number of these records and films in CDs, hard drives and other storing devices like our computer. This makes it possible for us to entertain ourselves almost anywhere- at home, at the office, at the park, the bus; as long as we bring our devices with us. One can actually live without TV these days as long as one has a computer device and internet connection.</p><p>The world of entertainment has grown tremendously, and it can teach us as well as entertain us. Today, broadcasting is the most important form of popular entertainment. But now it is challenged by still newer inventions. Video playback and recording equipments make it possible for home viewers to buy or record their favorite shows. Many classic movies are already available for home viewing. This new equipment may encourage many viewers to spend fewer hours watching network offerings of situation comedies and action dramas. And now, we can record, transfer, and produce our own videos using cellular phones.</p><p>At the same time, the internet has revolutionized viewing habits in another way. The internet provides information on a lot of sources for movies, music, and other forms of entertainment. With internet connection, people can bring programs directly into their computer by doing downloads and many of these downloads are offered for free. Not only does it provide entertainment but we can even do some transactions like when you want to buy stun guns online.</p><p>The internet offer entertainment on almost all particular interests- music, news, and special information such as stock markets, weather, and social networking. These sources are made available to us faster than ever, as fast as the stun gun effects. We can update on news even before they get broadcasted on TV through the different websites on the internet.</p><p>Never in recorded history have Entertainment and arts been so important in the lives of so many people. Modern inventions such as the internet have put nearly every person within reach of music and drama all day, every day, at home, and away from home. The internet has also made it possible for people not just become viewers but also the performers themselves as they are able to upload their own videos on different sites. The future of entertainment and arts is taking shape through technology and the people themselves.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-5150950785592793892012-09-20T10:37:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:48.974-07:006 Simple Steps For Success in the Martial Arts Business<div id="article-content"> <p>In this article I'm going to facilitate one of those "Aha" moments for you! When ever you simplify anything you tend to have one of those moments. A lot of the times you ask yourself- "Why have I been doing things the hard way all this time?" So read on if want to make things a little simpler....</p><p>I would think it'd be a safe bet to assume that all professional martial artists want to make more money. If you don't; you are either lying, or, you are already independently wealthy? If the later were true you would not be reading this article! So let's get the money thing out of the way quickly for those reading that have some mental block about making very, very good money as a professional martial artists! Notice I say "professional martial artist" and not "school owner." Yes, I believe that instructors and program directors, who are responsible for results and at the school everyday should make very good money if they produce! Ok, now let's simplify...</p><p>Simple step number one of any professional martial-school is to teach high quality, high content, entertaining and educational classes that match exactly what their target market demands and wants! I don't care if you are teaching only kids or you are getting fighters ready for the UFC. You need to give them what they want! But before you do this you need to establish an identity...</p><p>Simple step number two is who! Who do you want to teach? The word 'who' is the most important word in marketing. If you don't know who you want to teach or you are too fuzzy about it then your school will have no identity. Who would you rather deal with the generalist or the specialist?</p><p>Please decide who you want to teach! Then go after them with all of your resources! Be sure they exist before you commit too many resources to them! This leads us to...</p><p>Simple step number three- You need to cost effectively market your school using "direct response marketing." There are two kinds of marketing- Brand building and Direct Response. You can only brand build if your school is bringing in more than one billion dollars per year! Meaning...</p><p>You can't fly your school's logo next to the Good Year Blimp hoping that when people think of lessons they think of you. Every activity you do and every piece of marketing you pay for must be measurable very quickly. At the very least it should help you get more information about the person you're marketing to. That is what Direct Response marketing is, that's it! Now here's the good news...</p><p>You can easily apply direct response marketing to everything you do (paid or un-paid). Let's quickly define paid as direct mail, space ads, fliers, etc. Let's define un-paid as demos, b-day parties and things like that.</p><p>Here's a couple examples from the "un-paid" department...If we do an outreach program and teach somewhere in the community we have a simple way to get the participants back to our school. If there is a birthday party at our school a percentage of the guests will be back at the school the following week because we offer them the opportunity in a way that makes it simple and easy to comeback.</p><p>If we send out a mail piece, do a space ad or put a website it's gonna have a strong offer and a deadline to respond! After cost effectively marketing your school you can now move to simple step number 4...</p><p>Simple step number four- You've got to have a low pressure, simple way to convert all of the leads you get from your marketing efforts. If you don't, all of your time an money has gone to waste!</p><p>Here's the truth...Anyone can enroll students; it does not take a lot of sales skills. It does take some sales skills though, don't ever forget that! But it's really about following a proven script and process! Here's the good news too, a good process will work regardless of how much you charge for you lessons. And real quick, you should be charging at least $149 per month! Ok, we've got two more steps to go...</p><p>Simple step number six- Have a simple low pressure way to elevate your students' commitment and tuition levels early on in their training. This is easier than you think and is really predicated on following rule number 1 "Give them what they want!"</p><p>If you deliver what you promised and more it is really easy to get someone to commit for the long term. Of course there are a few details that go beyond the scope of this article but you get the idea!</p><p>Simple step number six- Build an iron cage around your students then repeat steps 1 - 5! Get to know your people, make sure they know how much you care about them and get involved in their lives. Make them feel special and give them recognition at every opportunity you get. Be sure you are adding an entertainment component to your program! There are numerous ways to systemize and do this too. Follow these steps and your martial arts career will be very rewarding and productive!</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-24965007053339947852012-09-19T10:38:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:40.502-07:00Art Paintings From Your Photo<div id="article-content"> <p>The market for Chinese contemporary art has developed at a feverish pace, becoming the single fastest-growing segment of the international art market. Since 2004, prices for works by Chinese contemporary artists have increased by 2,000 percent or more, with paintings that once sold for under $50,000 now bringing sums above $1 million. Nowhere has this boom been felt more appreciably than in China, where it has spawned massive gallery districts, 1,600 auction houses, and the first generation of Chinese contemporary-art collectors.</p><p>This craze for Chinese contemporary art has also given rise to a wave of criticism. There are charges that Chinese collectors are using mainland auction houses to boost prices and engage in widespread speculation, just as if they were trading in stocks or real estate. Western collectors are also being accused of speculation, by artists who say they buy works cheap and then sell them for ten times the original prices-and sometimes more.</p><p>Those who entered this market in the past three years found Chinese contemporary art to be a surefire bet as prices doubled with each sale. Sotheby's first New York sale of Asian contemporary art, dominated by Chinese artists, brought a total of $13 million in March 2006; the same sale this past March garnered $23 million, and Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of Chinese contemporary art in April totaled nearly $34 million. Christie's Hong Kong has had sales of Asian contemporary art since 2004. Its 2005 sales total of $11 million was dwarfed by the $40.7 million total from a single evening sale in May of this year.</p><p>These figures, impressive as they are, do not begin to convey the astounding success at auction of a handful of Chinese artists: Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, Cai Guo-Qiang, Liu Xiaodong, and Liu Ye. The leader this year was Zeng Fanzhi, whose Mask Series No. 6 (1996) sold for $9.6 million, a record for Chinese contemporary art, at Christie's Hong Kong in May.</p><p>Zhang Xiaogang, who paints large, morose faces reminiscent of family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has seen his record rise from $76,000 in 2003, when his oil paintings first appeared at Christie's Hong Kong, to $2.3 million in November 2006, to $6.1 million in April of this year.</p><p>Gunpowder drawings by Cai Guo-Qiang, who was recently given a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, sold for well below $500,000 in 2006; a suite of 14 works brought $9.5 million last November.</p><p>According to the Art Price Index, Chinese artists took 35 of the top 100 prices for living contemporary artists at auction last year, rivaling Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and a host of Western artists.</p><p>"Everybody is looking to the East and to China, and the art market isn't any different," says Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby's Asia. "Notwithstanding the subprime crisis in the U.S. or the fact that some of the other financial markets seem jittery, the overall business community still has great faith in China, bolstered by the Olympics and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010."</p><p>There are indications, however, that the international market for Chinese art is beginning to slow. At Sotheby's Asian contemporary-art sale in March, 20 percent of the lots offered found no buyers, and even works by top record-setters such as Zhang Xiaogang barely made their low estimates. "The market is getting mature, so we can't sell everything anymore," says Xiaoming Zhang, Chinese contemporary-art specialist at Sotheby's New York. "The collectors have become really smart and only concentrate on certain artists, certain periods, certain material."</p><p>For their part, Western galleries are eagerly pursuing Chinese artists, many of whom were unknown just a few years ago. Zeng Fanzhi, for example, has been signed by Acquavella Galleries in New York, in a two-year deal that exceeds $20 million, according to a Beijing gallerist close to the negotiations; William Acquavella declined to comment. Zhang Xiaogang and Zhang Huan have joined PaceWildenstein, and Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaodong showed with Mary Boone last spring. Almost every major New York gallery has recently signed on a Chinese artist: Yan Pei Ming at David Zwirner, Xu Zhen at James Cohan, Huang Yong Ping at Gladstone, Yang Fudong at Marian Goodman, Liu Ye at Sperone Westwater. Their works are entering private and public collections that until now have not shown any particular interest in Asian contemporary art.</p><p>"The market hasn't behaved as I anticipated," says New York dealer Max Protetch, who has been representing artists from China since 1996. "We all anticipated that the Chinese artists would go through the same critical process that happens with art anywhere else in the world. I assumed that some artists would fall by the wayside, which has not been true. They all have become elevated. It seems like an uncritical market."</p><p>One of the key artists buoyed by this success is Zeng Fanzhi, who is best known for his "Mask" series. Five years ago his works sold for under $50,000. Today he commands prices on the primary market closer to $1 million, with major collectors Charles Saatchi and Jose Mugrabi among his fans. Now preparing for his first solo show at Acquavella in December, he is considered one of the more serious artists on the Beijing scene because he works alone, without the horde of assistants found in most other artists' studios in China. Still, his lifestyle is typical of that of his equally successful peers. When asked if he owns a mammoth black Hummer parked outside his studio, he answers, "No, that's an ugly car. I have a G5 Benz."</p><p>This success has blossomed under the watchful eye of the Chinese government. Movies, television, and news organizations are strictly censored, but on the whole, the visual arts are not. Despite sporadic incidents of exhibitions being closed or customs officials seizing artworks, by and large the government has supported the growth of an art market and has not interfered with private activity. In the 798 gallery district in Beijing, a Bauhaus-style former munitions complex that has been transformed into the capital's hottest art center, with more than 150 galleries, one finds works addressing poverty and other social problems, official corruption, and new sexual mores. The icons of the former China-happy workers and peasants and heroic soldiers raising the red banner-are treated with irony, if at all, by the artists whose works are on view in these galleries, which are private venues generally not under the strict control of the Ministry of Culture.</p><p>On the eve of the Olympics, however, the government asked one gallery to postpone an exhibition until after the games. Considered unsuitable was "Touch," a show by Ma Baozhong at the Xin Beijing Gallery of 15 paintings depicting important moments in Chinese history, including one based on a photograph showing Mao Zedong with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama in 1954.</p><p>The Beijing municipality spent enormous funds to renovate the 798 district before the Olympics, putting in new cobblestone streets and lining its main thoroughfare with cafés. Shanghai, which has benefited less from government support, now boasts at least 100 galleries. Local governments throughout the country are establishing SoHo-style gallery districts to boost tourism.</p><p>One person who seems confident about the future of the Chinese market is Arne Glimcher, founder and president of PaceWildenstein, who opened a branch of his gallery in Beijing in August. Located in a 22,000-square-foot cement space with soaring ceilings, redesigned at a cost of $20 million by architect Richard Gluckman, the gallery is in the center of the 798 district. "We are committed to the art, and we wanted to open a gallery where our artists are," says Glimcher. Adding that he normally eschews the "McGallery" trend of setting up satellite spaces around the world, Glimcher insists that it was necessary to establish a branch in Beijing because there is "no local gallery of our caliber" with which Pace could partner. He has, however, recruited Leng Lin, founder of Beijing Commune, another gallery operating in 798, to be his director.</p><p>Another Western dealer who has taken the China plunge is Arthur Solway, who recently opened a branch of James Cohan in Shanghai. "I started coming to China five years ago, and I was fascinated by the energy," says Solway, who wanted to introduce gallery artists like Bill Viola, Wim Wenders, and Roxy Paine to Asia but, like Glimcher, could not find a public museum or private gallery that he considered professionally qualified to handle such exhibitions. James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is located on the ground floor of a 1936 Art Deco structure in the French Concession, a particularly picturesque section of the city. The building was once occupied by the military, and red Chinese characters over the front door still exhort, "Let the spirit of Mao Zedong flourish for 10,000 years."</p><p>"From 1966 to 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, people had nothing, but now there are spas in Shanghai and people drinking cappuccinos and buying Rolex watches-it's an amazing phenomenon," says Solway, who believes it is only a matter of time before these same newly affluent consumers begin to collect contemporary art.</p><p>Chinese collectors-or the hope that there will be Chinese collectors-are the key draw luring these galleries to Beijing. As recently as two years ago, few could name even a single Chinese collector of contemporary art. It was a truism that the Chinese preferred to spend their money acquiring antiquities and classical works. Since then several well-known mainland collectors have emerged on the scene.</p><p>Most visible is Guan Yi, the suave, well-dressed heir to a chemical-engineering fortune, who has assembled a museum-quality collection of more than 500 works. A major lender to the Huang Yong Ping retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2005, he regularly entertains museum trustees from all over the world, who make the pilgrimage to his warehouse on the outskirts of Beijing. Now he is building his own museum.</p><p>Another noted figure is Zhang Lan, head of the South Beauty chain of Szechuan-style restaurants throughout China; she also has assembled an enviable collection and displays pieces from it in her chic establishments. The film actress Zhang Ziyi is representative of a new class of collectors from the entertainment industry, while Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, chairman and CEO of the mammoth SOHO China real estate empire, have commissioned projects for their upscale residential properties.</p><p>Two collectors who are cheerleaders for the Beijing art scene are Yang Bin, an automobile-franchise mogul, and Zhang Rui, a telecommunications executive who is also the backer of Beijing Art Now Gallery, which took part in Art Basel in June, one of the first Beijing galleries to appear at the fair. These two do more than collect art. They have hosted dinners for potential collectors, organized tours to Art Basel Miami Beach, and brought friends with them to sales in London and New York. Zhang Rui, who owns more than 500 works, has lent art to international exhibitions, most notably the installation Tomorrow, which features four "dead Beatles" mannequins floating facedown, created by artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu for the 2006 Liverpool Biennial, which rejected it.</p><p>Zhang is now building an art hotel, featuring specially commissioned works and artist-designed rooms, outside the Workers' Stadium in the center of Beijing. "I am trying to think of ways of changing my private collection into a public collection," Zhang explained to ARTnews through a translator. It isn't financially advantageous to do this in China, as no tax benefits accrue from donations to museums or other nonprofit institutions.</p><p>Zhang Rui represents the handful of Chinese collectors who are public about their activities and are building noteworthy collections. Far more typical of buying activity in China is the rampant speculation taking place in the mainland auction houses. There are 1,600 registered auctioneers, and their sales attract hundreds of bidders. Chinese buyers are more comfortable with auction houses, which have been in business since 1994, than with galleries, which weren't licensed to operate by the government until the late 1990s.</p><p>These auction houses run by their own rules, generating what sometimes seems like a "wild, wild East" atmosphere. It is, for example, fairly common for a house to get consignments directly from artists, who then use the sales to establish prices for their works on the primary market. More often, now that China has hundreds of galleries, dealers come to a sale with buyers in tow, publicly bidding up works to establish "record prices" and advertise their artists. This kind of bidding ring would be considered illegal in the United States, but in China it is viewed as a savvy business practice. There is little regulation of auction houses and few developed legal norms in the field, so that even when buyers have grievances-with fakes and forgeries, for example-they do not feel they can resort to the law. Bidding is a social as well as a business activity, and buyers are happy to flaunt their status by paying record prices or quickly flipping artworks, not only for profit but so they can boast of their short-term gains.</p><p>As the domestic market for contemporary art matures, however, many of these practices are coming into question. "Two years ago it was more necessary for me to bring my artists to auction," says Fang Fang, owner of Star Gallery in Beijing, which specializes in young emerging artists such as Chen Ke and Gao Yu. "Now that the gallery market has increased, I find it is better to keep my artists out of the auction rooms, and there is much less reason to sell there."</p><p>Two mainland firms, Beijing Poly International Auction Company, and China Guardian Auctions Company, dominate the field of contemporary Chinese art. Their combined 2007 total of more than $200 million in sales represented nearly two-thirds of all auction sales in this category in mainland China for the year. Last spring Guardian achieved $142 million in sales of classical artworks, furniture, ceramics, silver, and coins, and $40 million in sales of contemporary material. The latter figure included the $8.2 million fetched by Liu Xiaodong's Hotbed No. 1, a record for a painting sold on the mainland. In a similar range of sales last spring, Poly sold $130 million worth of works, including $27 million in a single evening contemporary-art sale. (These figures represent a slight decline for the year because both houses held benefit sales for Szechuan earthquake victims, raising more than $20 million to support relief efforts.)</p><p>Poly and Guardian reflect two vastly different perspectives on the domestic market in Chinese contemporary art. Guardian is the oldest and most respected auction house in China, founded in 1993 by Wang Yannan, daughter of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who was placed under house arrest after opposing the government's use of force against demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989. If Poly is known for its vast resources and willingness to make deals to nab consignments, Guardian is known for its respected specialists and long-term client relationships. For example, when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, decided to sell 20 pieces of Qing dynasty porcelain in mainland China, it consigned the collection to Guardian.</p><p>The atmosphere of a sale at Poly or Guardian is surprisingly similar to that in the salerooms of Christie's or Sotheby's. The catalogues are identical in design, and the bidding proceeds in an orderly, even sedate, fashion, despite the crowds of spectators in the room.</p><p>"From our beginning, we studied what the principles of an auction house should be, and we stick to these principles," says Guardian president Wang. She also serves on the board of the new nationwide auctioneers' association, which hopes to enforce regulations on the auction market.</p><p>Poly is an enterprise within the China Poly Group Corporation, a $30 billion conglomerate that is the privatized branch of the People's Liberation Army. Established initially to repatriate artworks and antiquities, Poly has spent $100 million buying objects such as the bronze animal heads from a water-clock fountain that were looted from Beijing's Summer Palace by British and French troops in 1860; the pieces later turned up in the West. The repatriated objects are showcased in the Poly Art Museum in the sparkling New Beijing Poly Plaza, a glass-enclosed tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.</p><p>The more freewheeling Poly is known for practices such as putting up for auction works from its own collection or having consignors guarantee that they will bring buyers to the sale to meet low estimates. Still, even here there are signs that the market is maturing and has become too expensive for casual speculators. "These collectors that you are talking about are actually quite small collectors," explains Zhao Xu, senior consultant at Poly. "They bought for several years at very affordable prices, but now that prices are skyrocketing, the only way they can afford to buy is to sell. The collectors that I know already come from a high social status, and they can afford to buy pieces worth $1 million or $2 million and are looking for the best works, the masterpieces, to add to their collections."</p><p>When asked if Poly follows the rules of the Western auction houses, Zhao sharply retorts, "Sometimes even Sotheby's doesn't follow the rules." Or as Gong Jisui, an art-market specialist who is a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, says, "The Chinese learned this game of speculation from the Westerners who played it first."</p><p>The incident to which both men are referring is the sale of the Estella Collection at Sotheby's Hong Kong on April 9 of this year. The event reaped $18 million for 108 works. (An additional 80 works will be up for sale this month at Sotheby's New York.) The collection was put together from 2003 to 2006 by New York dealer Michael Goedhuis for a group of investors that included Sacha Lainovic, a director of Weight Watchers International, and Raymond Debbane, CEO of the Invus Group, a private equity firm.</p><p>Last year the collection of approximately 200 works was sold to William Acquavella, who consigned it to Sotheby's. Auction house officials will not discuss financial details, but Sotheby's had a stake in the collection. After the sale it was widely reported that many of the artists were angered by the auction because, they said, they had sold their works to Goedhuis at discount prices in exchange for promises that the collection would remain together for public display.</p><p>"The idea was to keep the collection intact and to see it safely into some institution," says Goedhuis, who denies that any promises were made. "The ideal situation was to see it with an institution in China, because there is no such collection." The collection was published in a book, China Onward, with an essay by leading China expert Britta Erickson, and it was exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem shortly before the sale. According to Goedhuis, because of the rapid rise in prices, the investors chose to sell the collection with hopes that it would not be broken up.</p><p>"Since the museums in China aren't mature enough nor are they rich enough to do an acquisition like this, my hope was that Steve Wynn would do so for his sophisticated casino complex in Macao," Goedhuis says. He turned to Acquavella because, he says, he believed the dealer would bring the collection to Wynn; Acquavella paid a reported $25 million. Acquavella director Michael Findlay laughs at the suggestion that there was any indication that the collection would go to Wynn. "I think this whole thing is surrounded by so much rumor and speculation," he says. "We bought a group of paintings, and we sold a group of paintings, and that's the whole story."</p><p>According to Maarten ten Holder, Sotheby's managing director for North and South America, the firm received inquiries before the sale from several artists in the collection, wondering why the works were to be auctioned. There is disagreement about whether Goedhuis made firm promises to keep the collection together or merely made a sales pitch to artists that inclusion in the collection would enhance their reputations. Yue Minjun, who had two works in the sale, says no promises were made. And Goedhuis bought Zeng Fanzhi's Chairman Mao with Us from Hanart T Z Gallery in 2005 for the asking price, $30,000, no discount given. It sold for $1.18 million.</p><p>"You have to understand that there was no market for this work when I was buying," says Howard Farber, whose collection brought $20 million at Phillips de Pury & Company in London last October. Farber assembled 100 choice works by assiduously visiting artists' studios in Beijing in the late 1980s, accompanied by the Beijing-based critic Karen Smith, a leading author and curator in this field. A work for which he paid $25,000 in 1996, Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism: Coca-Cola, was sold at Phillips de Pury for $1.6 million. The buyer was Farber's son-in-law, Larry Warsh, who bid on several works at the sale, according to newspaper accounts. "I really didn't actually know I was going to buy the Wang Guangyi until that moment," says Warsh. "Howard has his collection, and it's not my collection, and there were many pieces I wanted from that collection that I would have wanted to buy but couldn't afford."</p><p>Many Beijing artists had agreements with Warsh to produce work for his collection and his art advisory business, which began in 2004, inspired by Farber's example in the field. "I was enamored by China, and then I was enamored by the art of China as I learned about important artists," says Warsh. "But what really hit me first was how the pricing did not make sense to me at all-everything was out of whack."</p><p>Warsh, who amassed a collection of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf in the late 1980s, was the publisher of the now-defunct Museums Magazine, which he sold to LTB Media in 2004. He stated at one point that his collection totaled more than 1,200 works; now, he says, he owns approximately 400 paintings and photographs. Part of his collection is managed by his new business venture, AW Asia, which has a gallery in Chelsea and intends to assemble collections of Chinese contemporary art for museums and major private collectors. The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently acquired 23 photographs from AW Asia.</p><p>With Farber and Warsh circulating in Beijing for a variety of purposes, it was easy for Chinese artists to become confused about who was buying for whom and for what purpose. In recent interviews, several artists-most notably Zhang Xiaogang, who had an agreement with Warsh-pointed to him as an example of a speculator.</p><p>Warsh replies, "While some artists are not so pleased with their decision to have sold quantities of artwork at what was then their current values not so long ago, there are many artists who are not resentful and actually pleased that someone has taken an interest in their work."</p><p>New York dealer Jack Tilton, who has worked with Chinese artists since 1999, says, "All of these artists are hoping that their work finds good homes rather than getting churned in the commercial market. But they have also played a part in this market, embracing capitalism more than we have, in funny ways. They are not naive about any of this stuff."</p><p>When asked about the artists' reactions to the sale of his collection, Farber was flabbergasted: "So what? Now I am the bad guy. That pisses me off!"</p><p>A number of major collectors of Chinese contemporary art who have been in the field for some time are holding on to their collections. Uli Sigg, Swiss ambassador to China, Mongolia, and North Korea from 1995 to 1998, has built a collection of key works that he has toured in the exhibition "Mahjong" to museums throughout Europe and, most recently, the University of California's Berkeley Art Museum (September 10-January 4). Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens have used their resources to establish the first nonprofit contemporary-art center in Beijing, where they are currently exhibiting their historic collection. So far, collector Charles Saatchi has been hanging on to his purchases in preparation for opening his new gallery in London on the 9th of next month with a show of Chinese contemporary art; he has also launched a Chinese-language Web site on which mainland artists can post their works.</p><p>In comparison with Western buying, mainland Chinese participation pales. Though there are many rumors about the power of the new Chinese buyers, their presence has not been felt in the major auction houses, where most of the records are being set. "Hong Kong right now covers the global buyers, especially those from across Asia," says Eric Chang, Christie's international director of Asian contemporary art. "I am not really seeing mainland Chinese buyers-less than 10 percent-a drop from around 12 percent." Dealers in China also have seen few mainland collectors among their regular clients. "I don't know yet about collectors," says New York dealer Christophe Mao of Chambers Fine Art, which recently opened a branch in Beijing.</p><p>Despite the current shortage of mainland art collectors, China is emerging as a major art center, having become a hub for buyers from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, and for overseas Chinese from all over the world. Reflecting this diversity is the wide range of foreign dealers among the 300 galleries in Beijing, including Continua from Italy, Urs Meile from Switzerland, Arario and PKM from South Korea, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects from Japan, and Tang from Indonesia.</p><p>"In Beijing it's getting increasingly difficult to talk about the Chinese market as a separate entity from the broader Asian art market or the international art market," says Meg Maggio, an American who came to China in 1988 and ran one of the first galleries in the country, CourtYard, in Beijing, from 1998 to 2006. Now she has her own gallery, Pékin Fine Arts, where she represents an international stable of artists. "How do you describe the market for a Korean artist showing in China or a Chinese artist living in New York?" she asks, noting that her business can come from South Korean collectors visiting Beijing or European companies doing business in China.</p><p>One factor in China's development as a center for contemporary art is the proliferation of art fairs. Beijing has two, the China International Gallery Exposition and Art Beijing; Shanghai has the newly created ShContemporary, now in its second year; and Hong Kong just launched ART HK. CIGE director Wang Yihan says her fair attracted 40,000 visitors this year, while the more high-toned ShContemporary brought in 25,000 and ART HK 08 had 19,000. These numbers may seem small in comparison with the 60,000 who crowd Art Basel, but dealers believe that the fairs in Asia are worthwhile because they attract new buyers and make Asian collectors feel more comfortable about acquiring art from galleries.</p><p>"Anywhere else, a fair is just a fair," says Lorenz Helbling of ShanghART, one of the oldest galleries in China and a participant in Art Basel. "But in Shanghai a fair feels like so much more because only there can it make an impact on several million people." He is referring not only to attendance but to the intensive publicity and official recognition given to ShContemporary in its inaugural year.</p><p>Just a few years ago it would have been impossible to try to sell contemporary art to Asian buyers, let alone mainland Chinese collectors, in the public forum of an art fair. Now, with the astounding success of Chinese contemporary art, collectors from across the region-and more than a few from the United States and Europe-are targeting China as a destination. According to Nick Simunovic, who has opened an office and showroom for Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, it is only a matter of time before these regional buyers turn their attention to Western contemporary art.</p><p>"My sense is that wherever you have tremendous wealth creation, the collecting cycle goes through three phases," he says. "First, people collect their cultural patrimony, and then they collect their own contemporary art. I think the final stage is when they gain a more globalized contemporary-art approach."</p><p>Gagosian first considered opening an office in Shanghai but encountered obstacles to doing business on the mainland. The most formidable of these is a 34 percent luxury tax on art, which foreign galleries that participated in ShContemporary found difficult to avoid. Hong Kong, by comparison, is a duty-free zone. And Simunovic found that even Jeff Koons was a tough sell in Shanghai, whereas Hong Kong offers more possibilities for Western contemporary art. Just a year ago Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau paid $72 million for Andy Warhol's Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I). In May Christie's brought a Warhol portrait of Mao, valued at $120 million and for sale privately, for viewing in Hong Kong. (At press time it had not yet been sold.)</p><p>"Sure, China is hot, but that's just the peak of the iceberg," says Lorenzo Rudolf, former director of Art Basel and cofounder of ShContemporary. "This is not just about a group of Chinese painters. It's about a growing market going on in this continent."</p><p>With the sheer abundance of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs in China, the larger art world is recognizing the power of the Asian market. Standing in an auction house in New York or London watching paintings by Chinese artists sell for millions, one can grouse about this boom and hint that it will turn out to be a bubble. But strolling in a bustling gallery district in Beijing, with students and tourists crowding the cafés and boutiques and filling the huge art showrooms, few would predict a downturn in the near future.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-17625487975898561952012-09-11T10:40:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:32.020-07:00Presenting - Sheila Blinoff and Carole Stimmell From the Beach Metro News - A Centre of Information<div id="article-content"> <p>One of the central organizations in the Beach is Beach Metro Community News, a non-profit, non-partisan community newspaper founded in 1972 that is distributed throughout major portions of East Toronto. The newspaper is available throughout the entire delivery area at various merchants and public access points, and more than 23,000 families receive the newspaper delivered to their front door for free.</p><p>My request for an interview was graciously answered by Sheila Blinoff, the General Manager, and Carole Stimmell, the Editor for the Beach Metro News. We sat down around a big table in their premises near the intersection of Gerrard and Main Streets. Sheila explained that the Beach Metro Community News originally started in 1972 when a group of volunteers got together to fight the Scarborough Expressway that was supposed to cut a swath through all of East Toronto. This issue galvanized the entire neighbourhood, and a group of volunteers started publishing a free newspaper from the offices of the East City YMCA at 907 Kingston Road.</p><p>The community had come together to rally against the construction of the Scarborough Expressway, and their collective efforts were successful. The dreaded construction of a major highway that would have destroyed over 750 homes between Coxwell and Victoria Park was averted. Today the Beach Metro Community News is a non-partisan paper that does not feature editorials. A copy of the paper goes to almost every business and residence in an area that extends from Lake Ontario to a few streets north of Danforth Avenue, and from Coxwell Avenue in the west to Midland Avenue in the East.</p><p>Of the 30,000 papers delivered, 7000 are delivered to libraries, churches and other public institutions while the rest goes out to private homes. An extensive network of about 400 volunteers looks after free delivery, with each volunteer donating their time and effort. Every second Tuesday just after publication a team of about 30 volunteer captains receives dozens of bundles of newspaper which they then distribute among their individual neighbourhood volunteers who in turn take the paper and deliver it street to street, house to house.</p><p>The volunteer stories are amazing. Sheila and Carole recounted so many fascinating tales of individuals who dedicate their spare time towards delivering the community news. The oldest of these volunteers is 96 years old and enjoys the opportunity to interact with neighbours and make a connection. Another delivery volunteer had a baby in the morning, and the same afternoon she delivered the Beach Metro Community News, just as she would any other second Tuesday. Another female delivery volunteer requested to get her papers early on Tuesday since she was going to have a Cesarean delivery the very next day on Wednesday. An elderly man once called in and said he would not be able to deliver the paper this time since his wife had just died, but he promised to be there to deliver the next edition of the Beach Metro Community News.</p><p>Sheila added that her co-workers and the volunteer carriers not only help with the production and distribution of the paper, they are also her eyes and ears in the community, resulting in a network of hundreds of volunteer news gatherers. Carole summed it up by saying that "not a leaf falls in the Beach without us knowing about it".</p><p>I needed to find out more about these two women who are the driving force behind the Beach Metro Community News and asked them to tell me more about their own personal history and connection to the Beach. Carole admitted that she is a relative newcomer to the Beach as well as to the Beach Metro Community News: she has lived and worked here for "only" eleven years. Originally from Wisconsin, Carole Stimmell moved to Toronto in order to complete a Ph.D. in archeology at the University of Toronto. She and her husband had met at the Washington Post where Carole was completing an internship, and they decided to jointly move to Toronto to complete their postgraduate studies. Carole's husband studied communications with Marshall McLuhan, the famous Canadian educator, philosopher and scholar who coined the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village".</p><p>Carole's first impressions of Canada were that it is vastly different from the United States: Canadians are more accepting, more reticent to judge as compared to the more dogmatic and aggressive stance of people in the United States. She added that Canada's liberal outlook suits her personally very well, and it would be hard for her to move back to her birth country.</p><p>After completing her doctorate Carole worked on archeology projects for 20 years; these assignments took her to Japan, the Arctic and the United States. Her archeology projects in Toronto included digs at Trinity Bellwoods Park, in Leslieville and at the Ashbridges House, the original homestead of the Ashbridges family who had come from Pennsylvania and become the first settlers in Toronto's Beach neighbourhood. For several years Carole was also the editor of the Canadian Journal of Archeology.</p><p>Her connection with the Beach Metro Community News came about because she was originally a volunteer carrier for the paper. When the long-term editor of the paper retired, a new editor came in and started taking the paper into a tabloid-like direction with a strong focus on crime and negative news. Carole and many others did not like this new slant and felt that the Beach Metro Community News was about positive news stories and an emphasis on the good things that were going on in the community. This editor did not last long, and Carole threw her hat in the ring for this position. In the process she beat out 50 other candidates and succeeded in getting the job because she understood what the paper was all about.</p><p>Today Carole still has an interest in history; she was vice chair of the Toronto Historic Board, and she now sits on the board of the Ontario Archeology Society. She also has an extensive collection of historic post cards of the Beach; these photos are sometimes featured under the heading of "Deja Views" in the Beach Metro Community News, juxtaposing historic streetscapes with a current photo of the same location.</p><p>Sheila Blinoff came to Toronto from Great Britain in the 1960s and married into a German-Canadian family. She and her husband moved to Balsam Avenue in 1969, making her a bona fide Beach resident for almost 40 years. In 1971 Sheila had her first child, and when the Beach Metro Community News started in 1972 Sheila connected with the paper since they were in need of a volunteer typist. Sheila offered her services and also started helping with the volunteer delivery of the paper. Several months into her assignment, the paper received three local program grants that enabled them to hire three people for six month. Sheila figured she could do the job and beat out 30 people who had applied.</p><p>Around that time Sheila had her second child; the grant meanwhile had run out of money. Sheila continued working on the paper for six months from home without pay. Finally a fundraiser generated $7000 which enabled the paper to pay two staff members - Sheila, and Joan Latimer who was the editor for 22 years. Advertisers came on board, and the Beach Metro Community News finally had a viable economic base. Several more employees were hired over the years.</p><p>In the early years the entire production of the paper was a community affair. Several interested neigbours would come together and jointly handle the manual cut and paste layout of the paper. They would also decide which stories should go into the paper, and opinions would often diverge widely. Sheila concedes that trying to reconcile these viewpoints was often tough going.</p><p>Several years into the publication the name was changed from the original name "Ward 9 News" to "Beach Metro Community News". The official administrative name of the Beach neighbourhood had changed from Ward 9 to Ward 32, so the original name of the newspaper was no longer applicable. For Sheila and many other "oldtimers", however, this publication will always be the "Ward 9 News".</p><p>With years passing by the paper became more professional, and specialized employees were hired to take over advertising sales, accounting, photography, and news and entertainment reporting. Since the 1980s the organization has been doing its own typesetting. Sheila's eyes light up when she says that she has met so many wonderful people through her work with the Beach Metro Community News; she adds that she has truly seen "the good side of human nature".</p><p>One of her favourite experiences has been her opportunity to participate in the selection committee of a contest to name five streets in a new housing development that went in on the former Woodbine Race Track premises, just west of Woodbine Avenue and Queen Street. The new street names were to have a local or historical connection with the area. As the secretary of the contest committee, Sheila had the best job of all, inputting all 660 suggestions into the computer and then verifying the accuracy of the historical background of the submitted names. Sheila chose the name "Sarah Ashbridge" in honour of the Quaker widow and United Empire Loyalist from Philadelphia who settled in the Beach in 1793 and obtained a Crown land grant in 1799 for a farm. "Northern Dancer" honoured all the horses that ever raced at the Woodbine Race Track. "Boardwalk Avenue" was chosen for the area's proximity to the famous East Toronto waterfront promenade.</p><p>Both Carole and Sheila love their neighbourhood, and they proudly told me that Queen Street East in the Beach was chosen the Best Main Street in Ontario by TV Ontario. One of the judges summarized it like this: "The Beach is an all-round winner. A fantastic inner-city neighbourhood with a great retail market, a great place to visit and a fabulous festival", referring to the Toronto International Beaches Jazz Festival, one of Toronto's largest music and entertainment events.</p><p>The importance and influence of the Beach Metro Community News cannot be understated. After all, the individuals running the paper had a major hand in stopping the Scarborough Expressway. Extensive coverage of dredging in Lake Ontario at the foot of Beech Avenue also resulted in an outcry in the community, and the government cancelled the project. Coverage of the Ashbridges Bay Incinerator also mobilized many concerned citizens in the neighbourhood, and their collective action resulted in the closure of the unwanted incineration facility. Stories of important local issues are kept in the public eye, and the community starts rallying around these issues.</p><p>What makes this neighbourhood really special are the people and organizations that donate so much of their time to the community. Sheila and Carole recounted a multitude of community initiatives that illustrate that the spirit of charity and neighbourly assistance is strong in the Beach. One example includes a major fire a few years ago at the eastern end of Queen Street where two people died and several others were rendered homeless. Several fundraisers were held for the affected families, and money was raised to help them pay for their first month's rent and furniture in their new apartments.</p><p>When the big Indian Ocean Tsunami struck in 2005, Centre 55 immediately set up a fund to collect money for the victims and thousands of dollars were sent to the affected areas. The local Balmy Beach Club raised money for school computer labs when the government cut back its educational budget. Together with strong parent volunteers at each school in the area, initiatives like these make a huge difference in the community.</p><p>In the Beach community spirit manifests itself in many different ways. The annual "Carolling in the Park Event'", held at the local Glen Stewart Ravine, attracts more than 2000 people for a holiday sing-along. Flashlights and candles in the ravine create a magical atmosphere and an event that the community loves.</p><p>Carole adds that there are so many interesting people in the Beach; a collection of media people, artists, actors, entrepreneurs and other eclectic people provide a lot of fodder for interesting and inspiring stories. Sheila mentions the example of a local man who owns the world's largest typewriter collection. Another young man from the community, a gifted musician, had attended the Julliard Music School in New York City and recently debuted in a big concert at Carnegie Hall. The Beach Guild of Fine Arts is a large group of artists who hold shows twice a year. Musicians, actors, painters and artists of all kinds are well represented throughout the Beach community and provide many story opportunities throughout the year.</p><p>The philosophy of the Beach Metro Community News is to provide news of interest to local residents and businesses. All revenue comes from advertising, which is kept affordable so that local merchants and tradespeople remain able to advertise their products and services. Sheila and Carole are selective as to which advertisements they accept, and sometimes advertisers have to wait to get into the paper.</p><p>One of the key community initiatives of the Beach Metro Community News is the "Citizen of the Year" award which is a joint initiative with Community Centre 55 and the Beaches Lions Club to honour volunteers who have made a significant difference in the community over a number of years. The Citizen of the Year is honoured with a plaque on the Beach Walk of Fame in the Community Garden in Woodbine Park. They also get a special space in the Beaches Lions' Easter Parade. People such as Gene Domagala, Glenn Cochrane, Arie Nerman and Marie Perrotta have all been honoured with this exclusive distinction.</p><p>But not only does the Beach Metro Community News bestow awards upon others; its contribution to the community has also been noticed and gotten recognition. In 2002 Sheila and Carole were themselves honoured with the Queen's Jubilee Medal as part of Queen Elizabeth's 50 year anniversary as the Queen. At this occasion every Canadian riding awarded medals to its top volunteers and community builders, and Sheila and Carole were honoured together with other prominent Beachers.</p><p>As a non-profit organization, the Beach Metro Community News donates some of its excess revenues right back into the community. In 2006 the organization donated more than $14,000 to a wide range of organizations, including the Arthritis Society, the Beaches Easter Parade, the Churches by the Bluffs Food Bank, the Share-A-Christmas Program run by Community Centre 55, the Glen Rhodes Food Bank, Malvern High School Scholarships, the Pegasus Community Project, Senior Link, the Toronto East General Hospital Foundation, the Woodgreen Red Door Shelter for Women and many more.</p><p>The Beach Metro Community News not only covers the local news, it also makes news: as a volunteer organization that acts as the virtual glue of the community, as a champion of important neighbourhood causes, as an organization who identifies and honours volunteers who make the community work, and as a significant donor that contributes much-needed funding to important neighbourhood organizations.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-36791786851778826272012-09-06T10:41:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:26.589-07:00Louis Wain 1860-1939 - Life Story and His Funny Cats and Dogs Art<div id="article-content"> <p>With reference to his family he had 5 younger sisters and his father worked as a textile salesman and his mother designed Church fabrics and carpets.</p><p>Louis Wain studied and trained at The West London School of Art ( 1877- 1880 ) and remained as an assistant teacher until he left in 1882. The strange thing about Louis Wain was he could draw with his left hand but he signed his pictures with his right hand.</p><p>After his Father's death in 1880 he had to support his mother and five younger sisters and soon after, his sick wife Emily Richardson ( His youngest sister's governess ) whom he had married in 1881. Shortly after he married her she contracted Breast cancer. He brought Emily a Kitten which they called Peter and to entertain her he started drawing Peter in humorous situations and poses. To help to support his family he became a freelance artist (initially influenced by Caldecott and May) and in 1882 he joined the staff of The illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. He began to make his name with Dog drawings at various Dog Shows including the early British National Dog show at Crystal Palace in 1882 ( which later became known as Crufts ). During this time his wife encouraged him to send some of the humorous cat pictures of Peter to various Magazines and Newspapers which started to make his reputation here in Britain and in America and where his humorous cat pictures were seen in Comics, newspapers and magazines.</p><p>In 1884 he was commissioned to produce his funny cat pictures in the Christmas edition of the illustrated London news. These pictures were so successful that his life would never be the same again. Alas, this was tinged with sadness as his wife died shortly afterwards, but knowing that Louis Wain had become a great success.</p><p>In the period from 1880's up to the start of the first world war he ruled supreme in cat and animal humor especially the 'Louis Wain Cat' which was recognized worldwide. The Louis Wain cats appeared in Art Prints, Comics, Newspapers, Books, Magazines, Post Cards and Annuals. The Wain cats are to be found in every human activity - from playing golf and other sports, digging up roads, Playing music, Ascot fashions, Driving cats plus lots more.</p><p>In 1886 he joined the staff of The Illustrated London News. He was the first illustrator to work consistently within the convention of depicting clothed and standing animals. His anthropomorphic vision of the world soon brought him fame and as a result he was elected President of the British National Cat Club in 1891.</p><p>In 1904 Louis Wain wrote a book entitled 'In Animal land with Louis Wain' which was a great success. During 1907 he invested all his savings into various Ceramic's with pictures based on his funny cats and sent most of them to America. Alas, while crossing the Atlantic the ship capsized and all Louis Wain ceramics went to the bottom of the sea. Due to this misfortune Louis Wain went bankrupt and decided to a temporary move to the United States. He produced strip cartoons for the New York American ( 1907-1910 ) and many other American comics, newspapers and magazines.</p><p>In 1910 he returned to England and over the next few years he continued to produce books and supply pictures to various comics, newspapers and magazines.</p><p>He continued drawing fanciful cats for various newspapers and comics near the end of the first world war. During this time in 1917 he was thinking of experimenting in animation and the film was to be called 'Pussyfoot'. Alas, he decided not to pursue this project and so the world lost the chance of a genius of comic cat art moving into animation. This year was a turning point in the history of Louis Wain's cats. His sister Caroline died and he fell off an Omnibus and hit his head.</p><p>After he recovered from these set backs his cats became more frenzied, surreal, jagged and pointy. During 1917 he was also diagnosed as a schizophrenic which alas, stayed with him for the rest of his life. During the onset of his disease at 57, Wain continued to Paint, Draw and Sketch cats.</p><p>In 1924 due to the economic climate and the slow recovery of GB after WW1 Louis Wain Art became less popular and he fell into poverty when his mental health deteriorated and finally his family had him certified Insane and he was committed to a pauper ward at Springfield Hospital ( Previously Surrey County Asylum ) at Tooting, London. During 1925 he was discovered by a visitor to the hospital painting his funny cat pictures. The visitor exclaimed that the artist pictures reminded him of Louis Wain's famous cats. Imagine his surprise when the Artist turned to the visitor and exclaimed he was indeed Louis Wain. After the visitor told the world of Louis Wain's hospitalization, his admirers started a campaign which included prime minister Ramsey Macdonald, HG Wells and King George who helped set up a foundation which was set up to enable Wain to spend the last few years of his life in comfort in private asylums including Bethlehem Hospital in a private room where his treatment continued. Some time in the late 1920's he was sent to Saint James Fields, Southwark where he continued to paint and draw his cats. In 1930 he was transferred to Napsbury Hospital near Saint Albans where he continued to paint and sketch until the end of his days. Exhibitions of his work were held in London in 1931 and 1937. On 4th. July Louis Wain died at Napsbury hospital. He is buried at Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Harrow Road, London NW10 ( next to Kensal Green Cemetery, London ) in the same burial plot as his 5 sisters and parents.</p><p>One of the famous quotes during his lifetime was by HG Wells who said 'He invented a cat style, a cat society and a whole cat world'.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-38740412916473646452012-08-22T10:42:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:19.832-07:00Mixed Martial Arts - What Is It?<div id="article-content"> <p>For many centuries, men and some women, from around the world, have learned time honored martial arts, such a tae kwon do and jiu jitsu. These sporting and fighting disciplines teach young athletes about training, concentration, force, mental power, speed, agility, balance, and many other important lessons in life! The blockbuster movie of the 1980's The Karate Kid, was of course, just Hollywood, but it did show some truth, in that; young Daniel was mentored by a Karate expert who had learned what was passed down for generations by his family!</p><p>When you combine some mixed martial arts, and throw in some wrestling and boxing... NOW you are talking exciting, keeps-you-on-the-edge-of-your seat competition! Located in the beautiful state of Hawaii, is a fabulous school that teaches boys and men of all ages, about this exciting fighting technique, which is truly a sport that continues to grow in popularity and always has exciting new developments. Since the inception in 1993 of the UFC, Mixed Martial Arts have made their mark and have continued to gain more fans and more participants!</p><p>The sport has grown to gigantic proportions, and for good reason; it attracts some of the biggest, toughest fighters from around the world, and creates an incredibly exciting and entertaining sport to watch. In fact, the current exciting news is that B.J. Penn is headed to Philadelphia for the upcoming UFC 101 which will be an amazing event.</p><p>All of the latest MMA and UFC news ticket to the exciting sport is out there everywhere! You see it on TV and news everyweek more and more. For those who live in Hawaii, you can now get way more information about this cutting edge school that teaches the exciting and physically demanding sport of MMA, and it will transform you or your youngster into a lean, mean, fighting machine!</p><p>There are many schools around nation wide. You can just about find a school practically anywhere you live. Not just MMA fighting but you can find karate, tae kwon do, judo, MMA, muay thai, escrima, kendo, even sumo depending on where you live. you can pretty much just lok in the phone book and find a place to train.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-4165846519207641112012-08-16T10:43:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:16.022-07:00The Art of How to Make a Conversation<div id="article-content"> <p>If you are timid, shy and self conscious and have difficulty talking to strangers. This little mini course in how to make a conversation can help you tremendously.</p><p>We can call it the <strong>CONVERSATION ALPHABET</strong>, or <strong>CONVERSATION-STIMULATOR</strong></p><p>Here are the 10 topics suggested by the 9 letters of the word "WONDERFUL". All the letters in that word represents topics for you to talk about.</p><p>Here we go!</p><p><strong>W for WEATHER</strong> Without question this topic starts more conversations than any other, with both friends and strangers. It's the easiest to slip into and slip out of. It's non controversial - can't offend anyone or start an argument. True, it isn't an interesting topic and can't continue for a full conversation, but it isn't intended to. It's a mere entering wedge, an ice breaker to tell others you want to be friendly and break the silence. It usually leads to other topics -to something more interesting. But if it doesn't strike a spark, glide over to</p><p><strong>O for occupation or work.</strong> Most people feel more at home talking about their work than any other subject. They know more about it than about other subjects. They can talk with confidence since they know more about it than most others know. They spend more time at work than any other activity. It's a great contact maker. Knowing what kind of work a person does tells more about him than anything else except possibly his age. It usually suggests other topics. But if no spark, switch to</p><p><strong>N for News</strong>. Everybody is interested in news - local, state, national and world. The radio, TV's, and newspapers have made all of us news conscious. Hardly a day passes but some bit of news makes us want to share it with anyone we meet, friend or stranger alike. But if still no spark go to</p><p>D for Dining. Everybody is interested in dining or eating, both at home and out. Many long and interesting conversations are held on this topic alone.</p><p><strong>This letter, D, also suggests DRIVING</strong>. Almost everybody drives today. Millions of conversations are held on the subject of driving - accidents, traffic conditions, highways, transportation and dozens of other incidents associated with driving. Makes of cars alone are a topic that keep many folks busy for hours.</p><p><strong>E for ENTERTAINING</strong> This includes all forms of recreation, movies, theatres, sports, games, vacations, fishing, hobbies, etc.</p><p><strong>R for RADIO & TV</strong> In the last 24 hours everyone has heard something over the radio or TV that's interesting. Unless an item interests a certain number of people it doesn't get on the radio or TV. Many whole conversations are based on items heard on the radio or TV. <strong>F for FAMILY</strong> The Reader's Digest poll showed the subject of Family ranked third in interest among its readers. This suggests parents, children, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, etc.</p><p><strong>U for Uplift</strong> This one differs from the other nine in that it communicates without spoken words. By some mental law, so far not clearly understood, we usually instinctively "feel" what others are thinking about us. So, when in the presence of another think to yourself: "l <em>wish you well. I think you're WONDERFUL. I'd like to know you better." </em> This silent message will communicate itself to that person. How? I don't know - nor do the para-psychologists who are making it a life study like Dr. Rhine of Duke and the experts in Moscow and London. And more often than not, this silent message on our part will suggest something to say in line with our uplifting thoughts.</p><p><strong>L for LOCATION</strong> Where do you live or work? Where does your listener live or work? Where have you been -Florida, California, Europe, the mountains, the shore? How do you prefer to travel - plane, train, ship, auto, bus; Endless fodder for conversation.</p><p>Let this CONVERSATION ALPHABET <strong>WONDERFUL</strong> be your standby.
<strong>W</strong> Weather
<strong>O</strong> Occupation
<strong>N</strong> News
<strong>D </strong>Dining
<strong>D</strong> Driving
<strong>E</strong> Entertainment
<strong>R</strong> Radio and TV
<strong>F</strong> FAMILY
<strong>U</strong> UPLIFT
<strong>L</strong> LOCATION places, travel</p><p>Once you have mastered it - memorized it so thoroughly that you can repeat the 10 words in one and a half seconds, You'll never again be at a loss for something to say to friends or strangers You will probably go out looking for people to talk to.</p><p>10 words in one and a half seconds,</p><p>You'll never again be at a loss for something to say to friends or strangers</p><p>You will probably go out looking for people to talk to.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-91275838878748352672012-08-15T10:44:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:11.389-07:00News Writing - What Reporters Need to Know<div id="article-content"> <p>News writing is the process of harnessing the materials that have been gathered in a logical, accurate, concise, coherent and readable manner.</p><p>Before a reporter writes news, it is expected that he or she go through a process known as news gathering. This will enable him or her gather the raw materials that make up the news. The reporter will however be familiar with the various beats that may be assigned to him or her such as the Judiciary, the State or National Assembly, the State House, Police Station, and so on.</p><p>News materials are gathered from government activities, economic matters, social and political policies which are straightforward in nature and are classified as hard news, since the reporter is obligated to report the event exactly as they happened. Also in the straightforward news stories, there are the soft news and the human interest news stories.</p><p>These include the news stories that give room for leisure and entertainment. They are concerned with stories on the lighter side of life such as social functions which include celebrations, commissioning of projects, marriages, funerals, and other forms of ceremonies.</p><p>The human interest stories deal with stories that either entertain or bring about sadness or happiness. These are stories that are meant to arouse the feelings of the viewer. These stories are normally accounts of people or organization's achievements, air crashes or hijacks, adventures, disasters, marriages, intriguing reports, and so on.</p><p>Since news stories are stories which are either expected or unexpected, the reporter is expected to equally make news from investigative stories, interpretative stories, in-depth stories and interviews. It is incumbent on every reporter to help the general public understand the storyline of a report especially in the case of budget speech which carries a lot of figures and statistics. It is the work of a reporter to breakdown the figures for easy understanding and digestion of the general public.</p><p>In interviews, it should be noted that getting information from people concerning specific events or issues is very hard. In that case, the reporter or interviewer should be able to employ techniques that would enable him or her to succeed in this area. It is very important that you know your interviewee before hand; find out certain facts about him that would help set you on a good footing. It would be necessary if you could go through some literature about him, and carry with you not just a mental but listed number of questions to be asked.</p><p>The points a reporter jots down in the cause of doing his or her job are the materials that make up his or her news stories. The exercise is what is known as news gathering. It precedes news writing. A reporter who wants to succeed in the art of news writing must be hardworking, intelligent enough to put to good use available materials and write them while the news is still fresh in the mind.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8227783188028367572.post-505915424294851552012-08-07T10:45:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:56:07.021-07:00Can You Design Kids Art Crafts Patterns For Money<div id="article-content"> <p>If you sell your arts and crafts patterns successfully you can take a pride in the millions of copies that have been made up around the world.</p><p>And the money isn't bad either.</p><p>How much could you earn if you made up one of your designs and sold it? Enough to pay for the materials?</p><p>Now for the bad news</p><p>* You have to learn all the basics and work advanced patterns too before you can start.</p><p>* Designing is an art. Does every artist make money? No.</p><p>* Copyright problems can bankrupt you.</p><p>What does the public want? That's the big important question. If you are in an arts and crafts club you might be able to find out from other members what patterns they would like.</p><p>But club members can only see the demand for one craft at a time. What if they are all into china decorating, and there is a sudden world-wide demand for Mexican spray paint art? You can teach yourself the new art, then start creating patterns and books for it.</p><p>Join arts and crafts forums on the Internet and write down all the questions that people ask. That way you can soon decide what patterns would be popular. Where there is a big demand and people are queueing for your patterns you don't need salesmanship.</p><p>If you find something that is in enormous demand, does this demand mean that you can sell your designs? Unfortunately no. Artistic things either click with the public or they don't . Most of the time there is no logical explanation. You either like something or you don't.</p><p>Copyright Problems With Popular Items</p><p>If you design a jumper with a photograph of Harry Potter knitted into it, you are likely to have legal charges of breach of copyright before you can draw your breath. If you photograph the actors (not dressed as the characters) you can use them in the designs - but they will no longer be popular.</p><p>There are things you can do to take advantage of recent news. Some of them are decidedly inartistic, but could make some money for you. For instance - I visited a bomb-site in Iraq and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. It's a revolting idea but it might sell.</p><p>If you are really expert you might be able to make designs suitable for kids arts crafts. These have to be the simplest designs of them all, and they also have to convince the parents that they are simple enough and pleasing enough to entertain their children. Knitting, quilting, and jewelry are very popular crafts for children.</p><p>You can even prepare designs for recycling. For instance if you have a long-haired wooly dog, you can collect the hair for several years, then wash it and tease out the tangles. Then you can make up a garment without spinning the hair first. It won't work with a long-haired hairy dog, because the hairs don't bind together into thread, but wool is great.</p><p>You can come up with recycling designs for the garden, using old margarine containers or soft-drink bottles etc.</p><p>You don't have to give your work away. Look on eBay to find out what people are buying.</p><p>You'll probably decide that most craftwork sells for less than it costs to produce, but it doesn't have to be that way. What you want to do is discover what is in big demand, and then learn how to direct that demand towards your patterns for hobbies crafts.</p> </div>blogfosrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07504589748377667116noreply@blogger.com