“Although today’s FCC is nowhere near as controlling as earlier FCCs, it still treats the radio spectrum like a scarce resource that its bureaucrats must manage for the “public good,” even though the government’s scarcity argument has been a joke for half a century or longer. The almost uniformly accepted modern view is that information-carrying capacity of the airwaves isn’t static, that capacity is a function of technology and design architecture that inventors and entrepreneurs throw at spectrum.”
Tag: 01.17.07
HarperCollins To Disband ReganBooks
“Judith Regan’s lucrative, scandalous reign at ReganBooks ended abruptly when she was fired last December amid allegations that she made anti-Semitic remarks to a HarperCollins lawyer. In November, Regan’s planned Simpson book and television interview were canceled by corporate head Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. in response to widespread public outrage.”
Antiquities Thief: We’re The Good Guys. Really.
An Italian antiquities thief says his work saves important antiquities. “I saved hundreds and hundreds of works that otherwise would have ended up buried under cement. I found thousands of pieces of art that are considered part of Western civilization’s heritage.”
Wrong In Every Possible Way
When the producers of the new Broadway revival of Grease struck a deal with NBC to air a reality show in which viewers would pick the stage show’s leads, they figured that the TV exposure would be enough to boost their box office take through the roof. Think again: “Grease: You’re The One That I Want” has been trashed by critics, and is hemorrhaging viewers. Worse yet, the expected box office spike never materialized, and most working theatre types think the TV show cheapens their entire profession.
The Great Sundance Guessing Game
You just never know what might happen at the Sundance Film Festival, and picking the indie flicks that will later have a chance to captivate the world (or at least the U.S.) has become a cottage industry among critics. Last year’s surprise smash, Little Miss Sunshine, was a textbook case of an indie achieving wide success, but few saw it coming. “It becomes more apparent every year that William Goldman’s great rule of studio filmmaking applies to the independent world as well: Nobody knows anything.”
Where Are All The Canadian Composers?
The Canadian Opera Company has unveiled its 2007-08 season, and Robert Everett-Green can’t help but notice that, for the second year in a row, not a single Canadian composer is in the lineup. One Canadian work had been scheduled, but was postponed due to the composer’s health problems. Meanwhile, the COC’s British-born general director says that he won’t pander by programming just any Canadian opera: “I have to do something first-rate. It has to convince our audience that contemporary opera matters.”
Taylor Prize Shortlist Released
“A memoir of a rough-and-tumble childhood in Saskatchewan, a biography of one of Canada’s most charismatic leaders and a history of the convulsions in the French art world of the 19th century are the finalists for the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction… The winner will be announced in Toronto on Feb. 26.”
U.S. Sale Leaves Canadian Films Out In The Cold
“About 50 movies are at risk and producers are in jeopardy of losing funding after [Canadian film distributor] ThinkFilm was sold to American interests. Now the filmmakers have called in the lawyers… The filmmakers say the issue isn’t just their movies aren’t being seen, but government rules mean their funding could be in jeopardy.”
Snow Job
Eskimos have 48 different words for “snow,” right? Actually, no, they don’t, regardless of what your junior high English teacher told you, and by the way, there is no such language as Eskimo. “Anthropologists [have been] throwing around all kinds of figures for the number of words Eskimo supposedly [have] for snow without any facts to back them up.” Various efforts are underway to debunk the myth, but linguistic misinformation is often quite hard to counter, especially once the general public believes it knows the truth.
D.C.’s Alliance Director Stepping Down
“Jeremy Skidmore, the visionary artistic director of Theater Alliance, the small D.C. company with big ideas, will leave at the end of this season to pursue freelance directing and take a break from five years as an arts administrator. He oversaw 22 Alliance productions.”