Tag: 06.12.00

THE DIPLOMAT MAGICIAN

Any sign that North Korea willing to open its doors and forsake its Stalinist, bomb-making ways? It seems there is one man who has appealed to their softer side: magician David Copperfield. Two North Korean diplomats recently journeyed to Las Vegas to catch one of his shows, and invited Copperfield to perform in Pyongyang. “The man of secrets and the men from a country of secrets got along well.” – The New Republic

“MODERN, IN YOUR FACE AND EROTIC”

Two thousand years after they were written, six poems by a woman who lived in ancient Rome are to be published. “Sulpicia’s contemporaries were Ovid and Horace, but while their work has been feted in the centuries since they created it, Sulpicia has been largely ignored and marginalised.” – BBC

SELF-PUBLISHING FOR $99

The cost of publishing a book yourself has dropped with the internet and more and more authors are taking advantage of it. “My goal is to see the book read by and understood by a few thousand people. Obviously when you are young you dream of an advance, hardcover sale, foreign rights, movie sales, TV sales, but in my maturity I am being more realistic.” – Wired

PRINT MATTERS

The publishing industry is rife with questions about the future of the printed word: Is the book as we know it nearing extinction? Or will downloadable e-books and print-on-demand machines actually reinvigorate the world of reading? Seven industry insiders discuss the future of the printed (or printless) word. – Newsweek

WHITE-COLLAR WALK-OUT

Museum of Modern Art workers have been on strike since April, and as the days go on and workers continue to trickle across the picket line, things seem to be getting uglier. One thing that distinguishes this strike is that it involves white-collar workers, many of whom have had no experience with a union. – The Village Voice

BROOKLYN MUSEUM’S SUNNY SUMMER

The Brooklyn Museum has had enough controversy for awhile. So this summer they will present a Maxfield Parrish and William Merritt Chase exhibition – peaceful perfection filled with blue skies and still ponds. Fittingly, both artists had their own experience with giving the public what it wants a hundred year ago. Parrish, for instance, “knew how to market paradise; he understood that in America the beautiful, innocence sells.” – New York Magazine

ORCHESTRAS.COM

  • Fifty American orchestras have put together a deal that will allow them to bypass traditional recording companies and bring their music streaming directly to the internet. “In the classical field we read daily about classical sections of recording companies closing down, so we have to find a way that we can distribute and keep our presence alive in the commercial world.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

SANITIZING ROCK?

Frank Gehry’s latest project opens next week – the Experience Music Project in Seattle. “Gehry—who admits he prefers Haydn to Hendrix—bought a bunch of electric guitars in Seattle, took them back to L.A., chopped them up and reassembled the pieces into architectural shapes. That didn’t quite work, although the building—a lot rounder—stayed largely Stratocaster-colored. From a distance—say, a high hotel room about a mile away—the 140,000-square-foot EMP looks like a peculiar dessert: purple, red, silver, gold and baby-blue Jell-O with a garnish of green trees. Up close, it’s a trademark Gehry design, a mix of metals cladding ‘swoopy’ shells covering a careful floor plan.” – Newsweek