Tag: 08.28.05

The Year VHS Tapes Died

Make no mistake – teh videotape format is dead. “In fairness, the remains of VHS haven’t been interred yet. After all, 94.7 million American households still own VCRs. And more than $3 billion was spent on video rentals and purchases in the United States last year, according to Home Media Research. But if VHS isn’t quite dead, it’s at least on life support, comatose, all industry signs indicating it will not be resuscitated.”

Miss Manners Weighs In On The “New” Heckling

Miss Manners has observed that “heckling is attempting to reinvent itself under the popular name of ‘audience participation.’ The Internet having given us the means of widely disseminating immediate personal reactions to just about everything, the idea has arisen that doing so will enhance any format. Sorry, all you little whizzes who thought you could outsmart Miss Manners: Using a new method of achieving a rude aim does not catapult you into etiquette-free territory.”

The Publishing Conspiracy – You Have To Publish Something People Want To Read

It’s a well-peddled myth that the publishing industry is a cartel. “Curiously unsatisfied with the idea that being a successful novelist requires the ability to write books that a consistently large number of people are prepared to buy, jaded scribblers search instead for an explanation that will permit them to retreat with their pride and delusions intact.”

Shakespeare Wrote In Political Code?

Clare Asquith claims in a new book that Shakespeare embedded “dangerous political messages” in his work. “She argues that the plays and poems are a network of crossword puzzle-like clues to his strong Catholic beliefs and his fears for England’s future. Aside from being the first to spot this daring Shakespearean code, Asquith also claims to be the first to have cracked it.”

Blair To Bush – A Winston Churchill

In 2001 Tony Blair loaned George W Bush a bronze bust of Winston Churchill to put in the Oval Office. “The British government’s huge hidden collection is held inside an anonymous underground storehouse in Soho and contains around 12,000 works of art (five times more than the National Gallery owns). The curators are given £200,000 a year to buy new pieces and the art is available for government ministers to request for display in their private offices. It is also sent out all over the globe to foreign embassies and consulates. Intended as a showcase for British cultural life, the work has always stayed inside property owned by Britain. Until, that is, March 2001, when Blair’s officials requested the President of the US should be loaned a bust of the British war-time premier.”

Oxford Does Piano

The Oxford International Piano Festival is a different breed of dog. “It has nothing to do with winning anything or brokering careers. It’s about the exchange of views and opening of ears. We try to explore the world of the piano from every aspect: the virtuoso, the chamber musician, the accompanist, the pianist in academia. And being in Oxford, we’re interested in the relationship between playing and learning, performing and informing. I think that’s clear from who we invite and what they do while they’re with us.”

What Becomes (A Complete) Classic?

There are 1082 books in Peguin’s Classics collection. “The Penguin Collection raises a number of issues, not least being what exactly is a classic? A book few have read, but which remains in print centuries after it was issued? Does a classic have to have had a social impact, say, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War or Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass? Must it sell a zillion copies – Judith Krantz’s Scruples and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code would qualify, though neither are in this package – or is a classic defined by the amount of joy it brings to any reader, like the Hi-Lights constituency? Or should a classic be a book that changes the way we read?”

Copy This Building

“Copying in architecture is at least as old as tracing paper. Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia was an effort to import Palladio’s neo-Roman vision to the New World. And the first United States copyright act, passed in 1790, made no provision for architecture. It wasn’t until 200 years later, in 1990, that the United States added buildings to the list of things – including movies, books and recordings – that qualify for copyright protection. But even among architects with instantly recognizable styles, it’s rarely possible to state with certainty which similarities result from direct imitation and which are coincidental.”