Alastair Macaulay: “Over the last few days marvels have unfolded at American Ballet Theater, conferring a kind of performance-by-performance mounting delight that ballet today too seldom has.”
Tag: 10.30.08
Canada’s National Post Abandons Print In The Prairies
In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the weekday print editions are being eliminated, as is all home delivery. “The printed version of the paper will only be available in stores on Saturdays… Subscribers will be able to get the full digital edition of the paper at a special rate.”
Comedy Matriarch Estelle Reiner, 94
“Estelle Reiner, who as the wife of Carl Reiner and the mother of Rob Reiner was the matriarch of one of the leading families in American comedy, and who delivered one of the most memorably funny lines in movie history herself, died on Saturday at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 94.”
What Ever Will Rush Do On Nov. 5?
“With the presidential election days away, the talking heads of right-wing talk radio are mood-swinging between anxiety over a potential winner they despise and hope that the polls and pundits have got it wrong.” Yet some of them are beginning to turn on John McCain as well.
Defining Dracula: A Century Of Vampire Evolution
“Ever since Bram Stoker penned Dracula in 1897, the vampire’s image has been a work in progress. In the 43 sequels, remakes and adaptations of Stoker’s novel, Transylvania’s most famous son rarely appears the same way twice. He has evolved with the society around him.”
Conde Nast Slashing Magazine Budgets
“All Condé Nast publishers and editors have been told they have to cut their staffs by five percent and their budgets by five percent within weeks… It will affect every title, including the company’s most successful: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Glamour, and down the line. The plan is not just a five percent overall spending reduction but rather two distinct five-percent cuts for each title, guaranteeing that titles cannot meet the goal without cutting staff.”
Israeli Court Clears Way For Controversial Museum
“A Frank Gehry-designed museum can rise in Jerusalem on a site that was once a Muslim cemetery, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled today… The $250-million project had been delayed since early 2006, when builders unearthed bones. Arab leaders in Israel sued to stop the project and were supported, in an unusual alliance, by some ultra-Orthodox Jews with firm beliefs against disturbing graves.”
You Are What You Read? Well, Maybe.
“If we are what we read, then the books the presidential candidates claim to hold dear present clues to their character. Or do they? … All of us polish those lists for public view, and you can’t get more public than running for president. But these lists do tell us something, even if it’s not the truth.”
TV May Get More Expensive In Canada
“Historically, cable and satellite companies – which deliver TV signals to about 90 per cent of Canadians – haven’t paid for programming from over-the-air broadcasters but they do pay a portion of subscriber fees to specialty channels.” Now, a rule change may allow terrestrial broadcasters to charge for their signals, a cost which would likely be borne by the public.
Haven’t We Seen This Election Somewhere Before?
The Obama vs. McCain presidential campaign is looking awfully familiar to fans of The West Wing, which more or less wrote the script the two real-life candidates are now enacting four years ago. And that’s no accident: the show’s writers more or less based their fictional candidates on Obama and McCain, albeit without having any inkling that they would actually match up in 2008.