“Disney has boosted its offer for 21st Century Fox … to $71.3bn – from $52.4bn – trumping Comcast’s $65bn all-cash hostile offer tabled last week. Disney has also moved from its original tactic of an all-stock deal for Fox, … and a 39% stake in Sky, to a 50/50 mix of cash and shares.”
Tag: 06.20.18
In A Small Belgian City, A Director Aims To Shake Up The Entire European State-Funded Theatre System
“Maverick director Milo Rau has relaunched NTGent as no less than the ‘City Theatre of the Future’, sealed with the Ghent Manifesto, 10 commandments for making new theatre, Dogme 95-style, covering everything from authorship and language to casting and touring. Given Rau’s track record, this is no glitzy euro-branding hashtag exercise. He means business in changing the way we think about theatre. But there’s already a lot of flak coming his way.”
Philly Pops Replaces Its Music Director
Michael Krajewski, who replaced founding music director Peter Nero in 2013, will depart at the end of next season, a decision described by a Pops spokesperson as “totally mutual.” (Krajewski declined to comment.) Taking over the podium will be Broadway and Radio City Music Hall conductor Todd Ellison.
New EU Copyright Plan Could Block Popular Memes
Those filters could mark the death knell—at least in Europe—for social media use of popular memes like “Distracted Boyfriend” or the entire universe of SpongeBob memes. That’s because the filters created to prevent users from posting copyrighted content would be expected to catch the same copyrighted images from photographs or movies that are the basis for many popular memes.
How Did Techies (And Their Companies) Come To Control The Future Of American Cities?
Into this void march the techies, who come bearing money, jobs and promises of out-of-this-world innovation. But there’s a catch. Corporations are getting wide latitude in determining the future of cities. They are controlling more key services and winning important battles with once-indomitable city governments. Local officials find themselves at the mercy of tech: They can’t live without tech money, even if tech interests have a way of eclipsing every other civic priority.
Sculptor Anish Kapoor Sues NRA For Copyright Infringement
“Anish Kapoor is going after the National Rifle Association (NRA), filing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the US in response to a 2017 NRA ad featuring Cloud Gate, his famed public sculpture [known popularly as ‘The Bean’] in Chicago’s Millennium Park. … The NRA advertisement, titled ‘The Clenched Fist of Truth’ or ‘The Violence of Lies,’ denounced the US media and its “liberal agenda” in an effort to recruit new members and solicit donations.”
A New American History Prize In Honor Of David McCullough
“Looking ahead to its 300th anniversary year in 2024, Philadelphia’s Carpenters’ Company” – to this day the city’s union guild for carpenters – “has announced it will inaugurate the David McCullough Prize for Excellence in American Public History, to be awarded annually starting next year.”