According to a former editor, book coverage will be placed in the Calendar section of the paper where it will share space with features. The paper responds, “The Times remains committed to book review coverage. What form that takes is what’s under evaluation.”
Author: French Clements
How the Other Tango is Danced
On either side of the Rio de la Plata, a kind of tango-rivalry brews between Argentina and Uruguay: “while Buenos Aires’s tango scene has partly gone the way of dinner shows and canned street acts, in Montevideo tango remains intimate and gloriously authentic.”
Pre-Olympics, China Cracks Down on Pirated DVDs
“The vendors are missing from all their usual haunts, and many of the DVD shops that usually sell the products appear closed. Normally there is a clampdown on public sales of pirate product when someone like President Bush or a senior US trade official comes to town”.
“Doughy” Dancer Calls Out The New York Times, Nicely
A globe-trotting internet star–with a fascinating blog–points out several errors in his recent profile. Is “doughy” the best descriptor here? How about “lucky”?
In Battle Over Letters, a Tricky Poet Gets Complicated
“Pessoa was the shy, probably celibate, at the time virtually unknown Portuguese poet who lived through a multitude of literary pseudonyms. Crowley was the larger-than-life spectacle whose recent biographer felt compelled to point out that his subject ‘did not–I repeat not–perform or advocate human sacrifice.’ “
EMI’s Overall Revenues Rise 61% in the First Quarter
Heartening news for the recorded music imprint, earning $119 million one year after losing $89.6 million. Still, its ownership, an investment bank, said don’t get too excited. “It can be misleading to look at just one quarter in isolation due to the timings of releases. As we all know, the recorded music business is extremely volatile and we cannot count on future quarters always being this good.”
So Why Aren’t People Outraged by The Capitol Steps?
“Although every critic of The New Yorker understood the simple satire of the cover, the most fretful of them worried that the illustration would be misread by the ignorant masses who don’t subscribe to the magazine.” Says one blogger, “That’s the problem with satire. A lot of people won’t get the joke…there’s no caption on the cover to ensure that everyone” will understand the punch line.
“WALL-E” Slams Every Corporation but One
“More troublesome is the film’s complicity in the commodified culture it ostensibly critiques. This isn’t about Disney, whose external merchandise and marketing are extraneous to the film’s artistic vision. Within the movie itself, ‘WALL-E’ betrays its true corporate overlord, and it isn’t Mickey. It’s Apple.”
Tron Guy: The Internet Comes to Life, Is Kind of Dorky
“A funny Web site or goofy catchphrase can achieve widespread recognition in a matter of hours, complete with comments sections, making it possible for a cult phenomenon like LOLcats to infiltrate yr mainstremz.”
For Gaiman, Web Readership Generates Print Sales
The sci-fi author posted his American Gods, all of it, online for a month as part of a promotion. Now, from Harper Collins: “we see a marked increase in weekly sales across all of Neil’s books, not just American Gods during the time of the contest and promotion.”