“Silvio Berlusconi’s light-hearted dalliance with a television starlet whom he subsequently appointed to his cabinet has been made the subject of an oil painting in which both are shown in the nude. … The artist, Filippo Panseca, made his name in the 1980s as the designer of colossal, pharaonic stage sets for the conventions of the Socialist Party under Mr Berlusconi’s then patron, Bettino Craxi.”
Tag: 04.21.09
Publishers Ask, How To Find Profits In E-Books?
“A standing room only crowd jammed into the Cromwell Room at Earls Court mid-morning on day two of the London Book Fair, hoping to learn the answer to what moderator Torin Douglas, media correspondent for BBC News, called ‘the $64,000 question: where’s the money’ in e-books?”
Alongside Veterans, Debut Novelist Shortlisted For Orange
“Samantha Harvey’s first novel, The Wilderness, the story of a man in his early 60s struggling to hold on to his identity as Alzheimer’s takes hold of his mind, was chosen by judges for the six-strong Orange shortlist, ahead of Nobel prize for literature winner Morrison’s 17th century slave trade novel, A Mercy. The £30,000 women-only prize looks to reward excellence, accessibility and originality in writing.”
Illegal Downloaders Also Music Industry’s Best Customers
“Piracy may be the bane of the music industry but according to a new study, it may also be its engine. A report from the BI Norwegian School of Management has found that those who download music illegally are also 10 times more likely to pay for songs than those who don’t.”
Stand On A Plinth For An Hour? Dibs On 3 A.M. In The Rain!
“The search has begun for members of the public to become living works of art on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth. More than 2,400 people will stand on the central London plinth for one hour each, over 100 days from 6 July. Artist Antony Gormley, who created the Angel of the North, said he hoped the whole of the UK would be represented in the work, entitled The One and Other.”
Research: Boys’ Bad Grades In English Are Girls’ Fault
“Boys do best with ‘as few girls as possible’ in English lessons at primary and secondary school, Steven Proud, a research student at Bristol University, will tell the Royal Economic Society’s conference. But when it comes to maths and science, both boys and girls at primary school achieve up to a tenth of a grade more when there is a high proportion of girls in the class, Proud found.”
Rediscovering Movie History Through DVD On Demand
“The recent launch of the Warner Archive Collection could well portend a revolution; it’s DVD on demand” — as in, they’ll burn you one — “a way for Warner (and, one hopes, for every other studio) to make movies available without spending the $75,000 to $100,000 it costs to release an old title into an ominously contracting marketplace. … Virtually none of the movies in this collection has been available on DVD before. Many never even made it to VHS.”
Why Newspaper Tales Make Great Cinema
“Newspaper movies get made because good drama usually involves moral dilemmas — and when it comes to complicated choices, the daily work of a newspaper reporter is a perfect vehicle. If you look back on the history of newspaper movies, virtually all of the great films, comedy or drama, involve wrestling with difficult choices and establishing some sort of moral compass. … [T]he issue always raises its head — how far will you go to get the story?”
Dutch Company Buys Rodgers & Hammerstein Catalogue
“Broadway’s best-known collection of show tunes is to come under the same ownership as work by Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten after a $200 million (£137 million) deal expected to be announced today. Rights to The Sound of Music and other musicals written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein are to be sold by their daughters to Imagem Music, the owner of the Boosey & Hawkes classical library.”
Wii Shoulder? Players Get Physical, And Injuries Show It.
“To say that Wii injuries are an epidemic would be an overstatement, but they are proliferating along with the popular video-game system. Interviews with orthopedists and sports medicine physicians revealed few serious injuries, but rather a phenomenon more closely resembling a spreading national ache: patients of all ages complaining of strains and swelling related to their use — and overuse — of the Wii.”