“Blockbuster peaked at 9,000 locations globally in 2004, then went through bankruptcy six years later. Sold and reorganized, it’ll be down to 300 by the end of this month… Meanwhile, roughly 36,000 Redbox movie-rental kiosks have metastasized nationwide, charging $1.20 per rental. Netflix is the other main store-killer: unlimited streaming for $8 a month and disc delivery with no late fees for another $8.”
Tag: 09.18.13
Dance UK Loses State Funding, Doubles Income
“Advocacy body Dance UK has nearly doubled its income in the past two years, despite losing all its regular Arts Council England funding in 2012.”
Bertolt Brecht: Theater Visionary Or Communist Relic?
“Is he still an irresistible force or simply a chapter in theatrical history whose reputation has declined with the collapse of eastern European communism? In weighing up the pros and cons, one has to start with a basic fact: as both a practising dramatist and visionary theorist, Brecht changed the face of modern theatre.”
Russia’s Culture Minister Denies That Tchaikovsky Was Gay
“Vladimir Medinsky claimed that there was no evidence to suggest the 19th-century composer was anything other than a lonely man who failed to find a suitable woman to marry.” Most historians argue that the evidence is plentiful.
MOOCs Can’t Replace Colleges, But They Can Make Colleges Better
“The basic idea is to use MOOC-style video lectures and other online features as course materials in actual, normal-size college classes. By assigning the lectures as homework, the instructors are free to spend the actual class period answering students’ questions, gauging what they have and haven’t absorbed, and then working with them on projects and assignments.”
Man Booker Prize Expands Eligibility To Writers Worldwide
“At present, the £50,000 ($79,850) prize only considers works by writers from the Commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe. … Announcing the changes in London on Wednesday, the Booker Foundation said: ‘The expanded prize will recognise, celebrate and embrace authors writing in English, whether from Chicago, Sheffield or Shanghai.'”
Eli Broad Won’t Be L.A. MOCA’s Lead Funder For Much Longer
“Eli Broad said Tuesday that he won’t continue giving $3 million a year to his new museum’s across-the-street neighbor, the Museum of Contemporary Art, ending his five-year run as its primary funder.”
Melbourne Arts Centre Faces Big Deficits, Staff Layoffs
“According to the restructure proposal, nearly every business unit within the Arts Centre could face losses: performing arts (including programming), corporate services (finance and human resources), customer enterprises (commercial and visitor/reception services), marketing and online, as well as development (corporate communications).”
Why We Can’t Have A Grand, Unified Theory Of Life, The Universe And Everything
“Thinkers in the grip of the Newtonian picture of science want a general basis for general phenomena. Life isn’t like that. Unity fails at both ends. To understand the fundamental processes that go on in living things – mitosis, meiosis, inheritance, development, respiration, digestion and many, many more – you need a vast ensemble of models, differing on a large number of details.”
There Is A Grand Unified Theory Of Pixar
Jon Negroni: “The Grand Unified Theory of Pixar is a long tale, spanning centuries, of a struggle for the domination of Earth among humans, animals with humanlike consciousness, and sentient inanimate objects – AI machines.”