The Latest Flap Over Canadian Content In Broadcasting

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s new rules require broadcasters to spend at least 30% of revenues on Canadian content, but are flexible about where and when that content is presented. Says one actor, “It’s great that broadcasters are being told to spend money on Canadian drama, but they’re not being told they have to air it.”

To Boldly Go Where Only Klingon Went Before: Avatar Fans Start Speaking Na’vi

“Twenty-four hours after Avatar appeared in theaters, the Web site Language Log was teeming with comments about Na’vi, the alien tongue spoken in the film. The site is always lively, but it was especially so that day because Paul Frommer – who created the language – had shown up to discuss Na’vi syntax and phonetics.”

Banksy Draws Attention To Somebody Else

“With mutton-chop sideburns, a gone-fishing hat and a Ratatouille-style accent, Thierry Guetta is a character that documentary filmmakers pray for: gregarious, oddball, dogged and hungry for fame. In April, a documentary about Mr. Guetta – who’s either an overnight art-world sensation, or wholesale bogus creation – opens in New York, directed by British art-star Banksy.”

Digital Technology Can Help Push Theatrical Boundaries

“[T]he growth of pervasive media and digital technologies is offering theatre-makers and audiences unprecedented new challenges and opportunities. … [T]hese technologies are not a passing fad; in fact they are as likely to have an impact on our theatregoing and theatre-making as the Oyster card, Facebook or mobile phones have had on our everyday lives.”

Huge Nerd Analyzes U Of Chicago Library Graffiti

Quinn “Dombrowski has come across [Regenstein Library] graffiti written in Arabic (‘a lot of it, actually’), Chinese (‘a reasonable amount’), German, Turkish, Greek, Russian and Serbian.” There are also “the graffiti she has found scrawled in dead languages; the graffiti that use the letters of multiple dead languages; and the graffiti scrawled in hieroglyphics.”