In gentle black-and-white photos shot by professional photographers, “the nonprofit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep captures the bittersweet farewell of parents and their lost babies.”
Tag: 07.09.10
I Author, I Video Star
“For many authors, it was bad enough when, once every book, you had to slick on makeup, hire a photographer and adopt a writerly pose — hand on chin, furrowed brow — for the book jacket portrait. But in the streaming video era, with the publishing industry under relentless threat, the trailer is fast becoming an essential component of online marketing.”
Why “West Side Story” Needs A Real Orchestra
“Things aren’t great for Broadway musicians. There are fewer jobs than ever, as orchestras have increasingly become small bands. I’m O.K. with that; times change. Some shows need orchestras and violins; others don’t. But “West Side Story” is one of those shows that does.”
Concert Ticket Sales Collapse. Now What?
“Concertgoers are beginning to shop less like obsessed rock fans and more like picky air travelers, waiting weeks to buy tickets in hopes of scoring discounts, scouting a maze of websites and resellers for the best prices.”
What’s Wrong With Today’s Music Business
“You’re going to see a lot of new models, but we have to turn around the business proposition for investors in music, because [otherwise] it becomes a self-fulfilling downward spiral. The less people spend, the less they sell, the less they sell, the less they invest, the less they invest, the less they sell, and it just keeps going down.”
An Upturn In UK Movie Box Office. Does That Mean Things Are Well?
“I don’t think we should mistake that for a sign that cinema-going in Britain is in a uniquely healthy state. Apart from the huge audiences for a handful of blockbusters, it’s a hard case to prove.”
Should Edinburgh Festivals Combine?
“Why are there seven separate festivals? Why not unite them under one banner – and spread the subsidy around more equably? Goodness knows there are struggling Fringe artists who could do with a slice of Mills’s £2.5m from Edinburgh City Council. But then, why risk reducing Edinburgh to the homogeneity Mills already detects in its media coverage?”
Celebrity Court – LA Feels The Strain
“Stretched to the limit by budget cuts and a rising caseload — traffic filings alone rose nearly 10 percent to 1.83 million last year — the Los Angeles County justice system has been struggling to contend with what appears to be a growing number of celebrities gone bad, done wrong, or otherwise in need of adjudication.”
The Unexpurgated Mark Twain (His Auto-Bio 100 Years Later)
“Twain dictated most of it to a stenographer in the four years before his death at 74 on April 21, 1910. He argued that speaking his recollections and opinions, rather than writing them down, allowed him to adopt a more natural, colloquial and frank tone, and Twain scholars who have seen the manuscript agree.”
Recreating Detroit As A Rural Playground
“Across Detroit, land is being turned over to agriculture. Furrows are being tilled, soil fertilised and crops planted and harvested. Like in no other city in the world, urban farming has taken root in Detroit, not just as a hobby or a sideline but as part of a model for a wholesale revitalisation of a major city.”