The Tonys celebrated themselves. “More than ever this year, the Tonys broadcast served as apt reminder of how much the liberal and gay-friendly Broadway universe proudly marches to its own contrary drumbeat in these conservative times.”
Tag: 06.09.03
Business Noose Tightens Around University Presses
University presses are in trouble. They’ve been pushed into a commercial marketplace in which they’re ill-equipped to function. And the returns are killing them. “Because of returns, success can fail. If a book looks promising, stores will order most or all of a first printing; and the publisher will reprint. But there are always more promises made than kept, and not all books fulfill their promise. Then come the returns, and the publisher has all the copies from the new printing and piles from the first one. Last year, an Ivy League press had one month with more than a million dollars in returns. In some months, some presses had more returns than sales. Why are we so involved with returns? How did university presses move so far into the trade marketplace, ever further from their universities?”
Australia Bans American Film From Sydney Festival
The Australian government has banned the American film “Ken Park” from the Sydney Film Festival. The film, which has been screened at several film festivals internationally, “includes scenes of explicit sex, suicide and auto-erotic asphyxiation, is about four teenagers struggling with uncertain futures in suburban California.” The Sydney Festival’s director protests: “It seems ironic that in the festival’s 50th year, we are still fighting censorship battles.”
Aussie Actors Protest Free Trade Deal
Prominent Australian movie and TV actors get together to protest a proposed free trade agreement between Australia and the United States. If the deal goes ahead, they fear, “the local screen industry will be consumed by American content.”
7000 Spaniards Strip Naked For Spencer
Seven thousand Spaniards strip for photographer Spencer Tunick in Barcelona, the most people he’s used for one of his photos. “There was a festival-like atmosphere among the crowd even though many of the models became quite cold from standing around naked for 90 minutes in temperatures of 15 degrees Celsius.”