Art

Austin's Paramount Theater just received a $1 million grant, the largest donation in its 92-year history. /// According to recently released figures, last month's "Art from the Streets" art show raised over $90,000 for Austin's homeless. This represents the largest annual amount raised since the show's founding in 1991.

Film

Negotiations between the Writers' Guild of America and Hollywood studios broke down last Friday - some say for good - as the studios decidedly took the "hardball" stance and walked away from the table. Patrick Goldstein from the L.A. Times provides an interesting analysis of what's likely to come from all of this and predicts what this calamity could mean for the future of Hollywood. /// It's already being rumored that several popular TV sitcoms will be forced to cancel soon as a result of the WGA/Studios face-off.

Books

Kalima - a new non-profit corporation established earlier this year and almost completely funded by the Sheikdom of Abu Dhabi - plans to translate 100 Western classical texts into Arabic by the end of 2008. According to a 2003 United Nations report on the Arab world, more books are translated into Spanish each year (approximately 10,000) than have been translated into Arabic in the previous ten centuries. /// Do people still care if they have the hard copy of a book to put on their shelves when they can just find it for free over the Web? NY Times article discusses the subtle art of converting free web content into "real book sales" in the Information Age.

Music

The Police worldwide reunion tour brought in over $212 million in ticket sales (1.8 million tickets sold), making it the highest grossing tour of 2007 (according to Billboard). /// The mobilization of music continues: Content provider Thumbplay has partnered with music-oriented social network iLike, providing links for purchasing ringtones alongside artists' songs. iLike currently claims to have over 9 million users, a figure that seems to be growing steadily each month. /// Another music-oriented social network, MOG, has integrated with Rhapsody's streaming music service, allowing its musically devout users to listen to entire tracks and albums through the MOG site for the first time (strings attached, of course).