“While cinema ads have been around since the 1980s, in the last few years they have become more widespread — and more sophisticated. The Cinema Advertising Council estimates that cinema advertising revenues have been expanding by more than 30 percent annually. Nationally, about 26,000 of the roughly 30,000 movie screens show commercials.” But why run the ads, when consumers are so clearly annoyed by them? Simply put, advertisers are desperate, and the emergence of TiVo and other digital television manipulators has made it ever harder to get advertising messages across. Movies provide a captive audience that can’t fast-forward the commercials. But there’s backfire potential…
Tag: 02.22.05
News Flash: President Bush Has An iPod
Okay, he may not have the pop cultural clout of MTV or, um, Paris Hilton, but the President Of The United States actually has a fairly weighty impact on national culture – when he cares to, anyway. “There are certain colorful aspects of the [current] president’s life that have not been much explored, understandably overshadowed by war and a hard-fought election. That he listens to Creedence Clearwater Revival on his iPod, for instance. That he loves biographies and has recently dipped into Tom Wolfe’s latest take on American culture. That he and his wife are enthusiastic art collectors. That he has no idea what’s happening on Wisteria Lane.”
Blogs Snuff Words? LOL! ROTFL! Not A Chance!
We’ve all heard the argument: e-mail, instant messaging, and the online universe in general are killing the written word, and producing a generation of multitaskers who can’t put a simple, well-crafted, correctly punctuated sentence together. But as one linguist points out, what the internet has actually done is to get more people reading and writing than ever before, and the strange informal quirks of much of that writing are not a harbinger of literary doom. “The prophets of doom emerge every time a new technology influences language, of course — they gathered when printing was introduced in the 15th century.”
A Resignation at Scottish Arts Council
The head of music for the Scottish Arts Council has resigned to take a position as chief executive of England’s Bath Festivals Trust. The SAC has been under fire in recent months for its lack of support for Scottish art and music, particularly in the wake of the government’s temporary shutdown plan for Scottish Opera, but Nod Knowles was reportedly highly respected in musical circles.
Climate Change A Threat To Historic Houses?
The National Trust for Scotland is one of more than two dozen groups that have united in a campaign aimed at winning politicians to the cause of cutting global climate change. The Trust “is concerned that many of the 120 properties it has responsibility for could be at risk from violent storms, rising sea levels and a dramatic change in temperatures that will devastate wildlife and cause extensive damage to buildings.”
Appreciating Thompson, The Outraged Observer
“Hunter S. Thompson died on Sunday, alone with a gun in his kitchen in Woody Creek, Colo. In doing so, he added heft to a legend that came to obscure his gifts as one of journalism’s most influential practitioners. Somewhere beneath the cartoon – he was Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury strip, of course, but Bill Murray inked him well in the 1980 film ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’ – and a lifestyle dominated by a long and sophisticated romance with drugs, Mr. Thompson managed to change the course of American journalism.”
Milan Gets Its Groove Back
Stagnant since the 1970s, Milan is in the midst of a revitalization that transforms its old industrial sites and sets it up to compete with Paris and Barcelona. “Now, as the city comes to terms with its post-industrial future, a new layer is about to be added to the city bringing in some of the greatest names in 21st-century architecture – Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki, Massimiliano Fuksas, Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli.” Leading the way is Fuksas’ new Milan Fiera complex, set to open April 2.
Where Are The New Collectors?
Disposable income has increased substantially in Britain, but changes in the ways people spend their money have left the art-and-antiques trade scrambling to find buyers. “The truth is that although many people have money to spare, most are not spending it on art and antiques in the way that perhaps their parents and almost certainly their grandparents would have done. Business at the top end of the art market is still brisk, yet there are problems further down the price scale…. There are fewer collectors.”
Reality-TV Wrecking Ball: The People’s Architecture Critic
If its citizens have their way, an entire town could be destroyed in a new reality-television series, “Demolition,” coming this fall on Britain’s Channel 4. “The series is asking for suggestions of eyesores to be put to death, provoking outrage from many architects. … Of course, it is a bit trite to apply makeover-television ethics to the landscape. But perhaps this series will highlight the inadequacies of a British planning system that so excludes the public.”