“Disney announced today that it has begun production on the first Pooh feature film in decades, due for release in spring 2011. Writers have gone back to the original AA Milne books and, specifically, five unfilmed Pooh stories to be knitted together for the new film.”
Tag: 09.10.09
UK Indy House Marion Boyars To Shut Down
“One of the UK’s most adventurous independent publishers, Marion Boyars, is being forced out of business after more than 40 years by the adverse climate of today’s book trade.” The firm was “[the UK] publisher of authors including Ken Kesey, Georges Bataille, Nobel prize winner Kenzaburo Oe, Ivan Illich and Shel Silverstein.”
Digital Publisher Quartet Press Closes Before It Opens
“Kat Meyer, a book marketer, blogger and one of the principals behind the company, said the financial structure the group had envisioned was flawed and ultimately would not work.”
Top This, Damien Hirst! Sculptor Makes Self-Portrait Using His Own Blood
“Anyone of a squeamish disposition may want to avoid a certain room at the National Portrait Gallery, which today displayed its latest, £300,000, acquisition: 10 pints of the artist Marc Quinn’s frozen blood in a self-portrait cast of his head, sitting zen-like on a concealed refrigeration unit.”
A Virtual Shrine To Yoko Ono
“A husband-and-wife art team has launched a project dedicated solely to Yoko Ono. Titled ‘Amerika Wants Yoko,’ the project consists of a video/text/Web component plus a petition ‘that merges the fictional with the real’ … We still can’t get the temple bells out of our heads.”
Grading West End Musicals’ Dance Moves
“Musicals aren’t just about stories and songs, they’re also about dance and movement – that’s what gets under the skin of audiences, who carry on moving afterwards to keep the feeling alive. But just how good is that dancing – and choreography – in the big West End shows?”
From Texas’ Death Row, Briton Makes Fourth-Plinth Plea
“A Scottish man who has taken an interest in [Linda] Carty’s case played her seven-minute recording over and over for an hour while standing atop one of Trafalgar Square’s large statue bases, or plinths. He held up placards with messages from Carty and stood in front of a life-size cardboard cutout of her.”
Writing A Sequel To Another Author’s Work
“Authors are being roped in left, right and centre to continue or complete legacies, whether it’s Sebastian Faulks taking on James Bond in Devil May Care last year, or the bucketloads of Virginia Andrews novels she has ‘written’ since her death more than 20 years ago.” It’s a tricky business, say authors who’ve tried it.
UK’s First City Of Culture Could Be The Countryside
There are 29 candidates longlisted for the UK’s “city of culture,” an unfunded designation “intended to build on the European capital of culture award. One is peculiarly hard to pin down geographically, and another has requested its name be withheld, which could cause a few problems for tourists should it win the title in 2013.”
Musicians Assail UK’s Proposed Piracy Sanctions
The Featured Artists’ Coalition, the Music Producers Guild and the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors have come out “against UK government proposals to kick file-sharers off the internet. Persistent file-sharers could have their internet accounts suspended in an attempt to crack down on piracy.”