The key problem for the Oscars is not, as Hollywood’s critics on the right sometimes suggest, that the movie industry’s liberal politics are dragging down both box office numbers and Oscar ratings — that the desire to preach is swamping the desire to entertain. There is a political problem, but it is secondary: The key issue for the academy is that the Hollywood system no longer produces enough of the kind of movies that a mass-audience awards spectacle requires.
Tag: 03.08.18
The Great Tuba Crime Wave
The tuba, the biggest and lowest-pitched among the brass family, can run from around $2,000 for beginner band models to more than $20,000 for specialized professional versions, says Martin Erickson, a past president of the International Tuba Euphonium Association. People with “nefarious” intentions, he says, probably try to resell tubas or use them in other bands. “You don’t expect tubas to fall into that sort of thing.”
The End(s) Of Oscar Wilde
John Banville considers the writer’s last years – and whether (and in what ways) he willed his own destruction.
Alt-Righters Threaten To Burn Down Berkeley’s Revolution Books
“On March 3, a small team of conservative activists converged on Revolution Books in Berkeley, Calif. live-streaming their actions on Facebook with this description: ‘Infiltrating Berkeley’s Marxist Hive.’ ‘Fucking Commie scum,’ shouted one conservative activist, taunting the bookstore employees who met them at the door. He wore an American flag on his shoulders and a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat. ‘We’re gonna burn down your bookstore, you know that right?’ he said.”
Saudi Arabia Has Its Own Version Of Petra, And Tourists May Soon Get To Visit It
Anna Somers Cocks, founder and chairman of The Art Newspaper: “I am one of the very few people to have been allowed to see Mada’in Saleh, the southernmost settlement of the Nabateans, whose city of Petra in Jordan is one of the wonders of the world.” But many more people will get their chance soon, because the Kingdom’s new crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, is making serious efforts to jumpstart tourism there.