“In a bold move, two museums have built exhibitions around objects they think are previously unknown works by major artists, in one case Leonardo da Vinci and in the other Michelangelo. The shows open a window onto an aspect of museums the public rarely sees–the world of fathoming authorship and making judgments.”
Tag: 01.27.10
One Publishing Powerhouse Isn’t Eager For The iPad
“Possibly the biggest surprise about the new iBooks application of the new device was that Random House’s logo was left out of the onstage display of the participating partners. All six other major New York publishers, including Hachette Book Group and Simon & Schuster, were included….”
Indie Film Biz At Sundance: No Longer Manic, But Healthy
“[T]he dealmaking at this year’s Sundance, which concludes Sunday, reverted to what one producer with a film in play called a ‘rational approach.’ It’s the start of a new decade, and patience and thoroughness have become the catchwords in the condos, theater lobbies and lounges here.”
An Author Frets: E-Books Will Offer Distracted Experience
“The new generation of e-books will, in essence, merge the laptop and the book. Now if my narrative starts to drag, or I digress, readers can click onto their favorite news site to see what’s up with health care, or click onto TMZ to see what’s up with Brangelina. How do I compete with that?”
Miramax Is No More
As Disney prepared to shutter its art-house company Thursday, people in the movie business mourned. “When we think of the movies that defined the latter part of the 20th century – the movies that mattered, … that hit pop culture like a hammer and left a dent – more often than not they came from Miramax.”
What Will The iPad Mean For Book Culture?
“The traditional book, judging by [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs’s announcement, and a recent eulogy of sorts by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is headed for [the] cultural compost pile…. This raises two issues: what the loss of book stores does to communities, and what the brave new publishing world will mean to authors and readers.”
After 57 Years On Met Stage, Tenor To Take His Final Bow
“Now, at 80, [Charles] Anthony has become a Methuselah of the Met. It is tempting to say that he has appeared too many times to count, but the Met counts things. It says he has appeared in 2,927 performances, the most of any solo artist in its history.”
At Davos, Margaret Atwood Schools The Global Elite
“Unlike the discipline of economics, and indeed unlike money – a lately-come tool we invented to facilitate trading at a distance – art is very old. The anthropologists and neurologists are now telling us how old – it’s as old as humanity. It isn’t a frill. Art isn’t only what we do, it’s who we are.”
When Good Writers Make Bad Spouses
“There is almost no literature in any language known to me,” wrote Germaine Greer, “in which we are shown round a functional marriage. We get inside marriages only when they are dysfunctional.” Said Mrs. Brendan Behan, “Jesus protect us from geniuses.”
Democrat Or Republican? You Can Tell From The Head Shot
“In a study published in the January 18 issue of PLoS One, subjects were able to accurately identify candidates from the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate elections as either Democrats or Republicans based on black-and-white photos of their faces. And subjects were even able to correctly identify college students as belonging to Democratic or Republican clubs based on their yearbook photos.”