In response to the latest flurry of celebrity run-ins, city officials will meet today in Los Angeles to outline plans for curbing unsavory behavior by paparazzi. The “personal safety zone” proposed by one city councilman was deemed nearly unenforceable, but another plan would legitimize the paparazzi – freelancers by definition – through credentials, and thus, rules.
Tag: 07.30.08
D.C. Museum Has Big Plans Following $85 Million Renovation
Washington DC,s National Museum of American History promises to “shed new light on American history, by bringing light into the building and by establishing new ways of interpreting American history” when it reopens this fall.
Digital TV Jitters – Test City Prepares For Signal Switch
The rest of America switches to digital TV next year. But this September, Wilmington, NC gets to play the Guinea Pig, and people are nervous. “Having this flat, coastal city make the switch in the thick of hurricane season is just one concern critics have voiced about Wilmington being the nation’s only full-fledged test market.”
XM, Sirius Merger Still Has A Last Hurdle
The U.S. Department of Justice might have approved the satellite radio merger, but Canada, where XM and Sirius also broadcast, has yet to sign off on the deal. “Having one company hold a significant share in two competing companies is sure to draw the interest of the Competition Bureau,” says one Canadian lawyer.
Where Are China’s Women Artists?
Even as China enjoys an unprecedented art boom, female artists there have found it tough getting recognized. That’s a shame, because it “is some of the most innovative work around,” writes one critic, who charts the reasons for their underexposure.
Researchers: Ancient Blackberry Kept Track Of Early Olympics
The Antikythera Mechanism, found in a shipwreck a few years ago, say the scientists, was a kind of proto-Blackberry. It was an ancient clock/calendar that was used as a scheduling mechanism that corresponded to the ancient Greek calendar, and noted the Olympic Games.
Western-Inspired Japanese Films Come West
Japanese post-war filmmaking hit its stride with Nikkatsu Action Cinema, whose versions of film noir, melodrama, gangster films and westerns have received little recognition in North America – until now. “It’s like discovering an entire genre of filmmaking that you didn’t know exists,” says one aficionado.
Newport Reinvented, NPR Buys A Seat For You
NPR Music will broadcast certain concerts from two fabled music festivals in Newport, Rhode Island, starting this weekend with the Folk Festival, and next week with the Jazz. “Newport’s trying something different this year,” said the host of All Songs Considered. “It’s a good start, and I think it’s a good idea for us to be on the ground floor.”
The Novel The Booker Judges Forgot?
“No novelist in Britain – apart, that is, from Salman Rushdie – suffers more from snide and stupid caricatures of who he is and what he does than [James] Kelman,” says Boyd Tonkin, and the snubs just keep coming, with Kelman’s exclusion from the Booker longlist.
Opera Revealed, As Only A British Tab Can Do
The British tabloid, The Sun, is offering up cheap tickets to opening night at the Royal Opera House, and making quite a production about it. “What’s brilliant – and important and true -about the Sun’s take on opera is that they see no reason to pretend that it’s a polite, elegant, decorative artform – they are determined to communicate that it is dirty, dangerous, sexy and nasty… Good for them.”