“France is considering imposing a tax on smartphones, tablets and other devices used to access the internet and using the revenue to fund the creation of French cultural content.”
Tag: 05.13.13
Dan Brown’s Latest Book Is Already Atop The Bestseller Lists And It Hasn’t Been Released (Here’s How)
“A book that commands this much anticipation comes with a heavy amount of foreshadowing — including, in this case, a social-media tease surrounding the title, arcane mathematical symbolism around the publication date and a virtual lockdown of its international translators.”
Is This India’s Greatest Architect?
“From cultural and civic monuments to modest housing developments, Charles Correa’s influence and style has spread far beyond the subcontinent.”
Charles Barzun’s Moving Letter To His Grandfather Jacques
“Amazingly, you played such an immense role in my life almost entirely through your letters. They were just words, but they were words written with care and attention and with the thought of a particular individual in mind.”
Was Opera Company Right To Cancel Controversial Tannhauser?
“To some commentators, the Dusseldorf Tannhauser was a stretch: the opera is set in the Middle Ages and based on a ballad about a bard called Tannhäuser. Yet the intention of the director, Burkhard Kosminski, had a logic that many could understand. In the month of Wagner’s bicentennial, he wanted to link the opera to the Holocaust – an event which the composer’s own ardent anti-Semitism seemed to presage.”
The Librotraficantes Of Arizona
A 2010 Arizona law “that prohibited school districts from offering courses that, among other things, ‘promoted resentment toward any race or class” and “advocated ethnic solidarity instead of being individuals.’ … [led to] the removal of books from school libraries, including such incendiary texts as The Tempest.” Enter the book traffickers …
Bing Crosby Helped To Create Silicon Valley
You never thought of Der Bingle as being in the vanguard of anything, did you? Well, it turns out that – as a media star and as an investor – he was crucial to the development of the tech industry, both in general and as a mainstay of northern California.
The Great Gatsby – Can The Movie Work As Well As Cliff’s Notes?
“For whatever reason, Gatsby was consigned to my particular version of the list of classic books one pretends to have read while making small talk at dinner parties. My status as a Gatsby virgin, though personally embarrassing, proved useful to my editors.” J. Bryan Lowder takes a multiple-choice test and tries to write a high-school essay on the book after seeing Baz Luhrmann’s film version.
Showgirls! The Musical! – It’s High Camp And Therapy!
“Elizabeth Berkley played the lead role with such vulgarity that it parodied itself; to outdo her requires an inventory of something deeper and more manic. April Kidwell has that in her” – and the theatrical spoof of the notorious film flop “has become an unlikely form of personal redemption for her.”
Advertisers Deserting Network TV
“Advertisers are moving more cash to cable, cutting into the networks’ quarterly profits. New technologies are making it easier to skip those ads, anyway.”