“Jazz saxophone legend James Moody, a San Diego resident for the past 21 years, has disclosed that he has had pancreatic cancer since at least February – and that he had decided not to receive any chemo therapy or radiation treatment.”
Tag: 11.02.10
UK Times‘s Online Readership Collapses Post-Paywall
“From a pre-paywall readership of 20 million unique monthly users, to a base of 105,000 cumulative reader payments in the last four months, The Times has encouraged just 0.5 percent of its online audience at most to pay.”
A Tricky Take on Caste Wins 2010 Hindu Best Fiction Prize
Manu Joseph’s Serious Men “tells the story of Ayyan Mani, a middle-aged Dalit [the group once called ‘untouchables’] who works as an assistant to a brilliant Brahmin astronomer … Furious at his humble situation in life, Ayyan develops an outrageous story that his 10-year-old son is a mathematical genius – a lie which becomes increasingly elaborate and out of control.”
Oregon Symphony Back in the Black, Thanks to Belt-Tightening
“The orchestra shaved $1.6million from its previous year’s budget by reducing expenses, including a 13 percent cut in pay and benefits for musicians and staff. Also, the orchestra paid off its long-term bank debt of $7million from unrestricted funds in its endowment, saving about $400,000 a year in interest costs.”
Emma Donoghue’s Room Wins Canada’s Writers’ Trust Prize
The novel, which tells the story of a child and his mother who live trapped in a locked room, was a finalist for the Booker Prize. Donoghue takes home C$25,000 in award money, as does non-fiction winner James FitzGerald for What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past.
Shanghai Gov’t to Demolish Artist Ai Weiwei’s New Studio
“Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei” – the creator of the porcelain seeds installation at the Tate Modern – “says he is offering his supporters 10,000 river crabs – an autumn delicacy – to ‘celebrate’ the government-ordered demolition of his new Shanghai studio.”
Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah to Have 25th Anniversary Re-Release
The nine-and-half-hour Holocaust documentary – “which does not use historical footage and instead consists primarily of first-person interviews conducted in 14 countries with survivors, witnesses and accomplices” – will be shown theatrically in New York in December and in other US cities in the new year.
‘Take Two Tickets to Blithe Spirit and Call Me in the Morning’: Finnish Doctors Prescribe Theater
The city of Turku, one of two European capitals of culture for 2011 (along with Tallinn), “has decided that ‘culture cures’ and seen to it that its board of healthcare will distribute 5,500 free tickets for cultural events to people who show up at its municipal health centres.”
Could Netflix’s Streaming Service Overwhelm the Internet?
In the first week after Netflix launched its on-demand streaming service in Canada, 10 percent of the entire nation’s Internet users used the site. “At peak hours (around 9 p.m.) the service accounted for more than 90 percent of the traffic on one Canadian broadband network. It’s not just Canada. Netflix is swallowing America’s bandwidth, too.”
Pee-Wee Herman Does Pro Wrestling
“Like an ancient proverb says: May you live in interesting times, or at least long enough to see Pee-wee Herman as a guest on the WWE Raw wrestling program.”