“The company declines to release financial data but claims to publish 50,000 books every month, making it, by its own accounting, one of the largest book publishers in the world.”
Tag: 03.23.14
A Unified Theory of Humor
What makes something funny? There’s Plato and Aristotle’s old “superiority theory”, there’s Freud’s “relief theory”, there’s the currently-favored “incongruity theory”. But the founder of the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) argues that each of those theories has a flaw – and offers one of his own.
Ancient Fresco Stolen Off The Wall In Pompeii
“An initial theory that the fresco had been taken away for conservation was quickly disproved. Another wall painting fragment, from the House of the Orchard, was previously stolen from an on-site laboratory during restoration, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports.”
How The Henson Company Is Supercharging Puppets With Technology (Reinventing The Art)
“As soon as we could use things like radio-controlled servos, we started using them. As soon as we could use computers to help perform our creatures, we used them.”
The Shutdown Of San Diego Opera: “It Doesn’t Make Sense”
“Who has ever heard of a major arts institution with a $15-million budget, one of the country’s top 10 opera companies, simply throwing in the towel over a deficit of a couple million dollars and not fighting to the end because there is no dignity in that?”
Flavor Of The Month: Behavioral Economics (It Can Explain Everything!)
“So popular is the field that behavioural economics is now often misapplied as a catch-all term to refer to almost anything that’s cool in popular social science, from the storycraft of Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point (2000), to the empirical investigations of Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics (2005).”
Contention: Female Opera Singers Have To Give Up Everything For A Career
“It’s not just the fame and the pop culture that make opera people suspicious. The conventional wisdom has it that you must be ready to sacrifice everything — friends, family, a personal life — for an opera career.”
Conductor Bramwell Tovey Lashes Back At Classical Music Gender Gap Report
“In response to the article, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra conductor Bramwell Tovey has launched a series of tweets while on vacation in Tuscany, blasting the article as inaccurate, sensationalist, Toronto-centric, plagiarized, and borderline liable.”
Auction Houses Aren’t Into Giving Artists A Cut Of Resale Royalties
“Art world deal making typically doesn’t involve Congress, so elite auction houses have not had much cause to spend time — or money — lobbying Capitol Hill. And in this case, the effort might seem outsize.”
Films, Especially Indies, May Not Be So Safe For Those Who Make Them
“The biggest Hollywood films … are overseen by studio safety officers who check and crosscheck potentially hazardous situations, making an accident of the kind that killed Ms. Jones almost unthinkable. But smaller productions … rely heavily on the professional skills of production managers and, especially, assistant directors.”