“Despite the success of sales through Amazon’s own outlets, agents said that some authors will remain reluctant to sign with the company because of the belief that they could do better if their books were sold through physical stores, as well as through online retailers such as Amazon.”
Tag: 11.08.13
CEO Of Arts Centre Melbourne Resigns Following $7.2M Deficit
“[Judith] Isherwood has been a controversial figure during her tenure, with numerous current and former staff speaking critically of her tough, at times confrontational, management style and determination to launch costly initiatives such as … [presenting] Einstein on the Beach.” Others praise her artistic ambitions for the Centre as well as her stewardship of the recent renovations of concert venue Hamer Hall.
Bill Cosby Plans New Prime Time Sitcom
“Nearly 30 years after The Cosby Show debuted, Cosby has re-teamed with one of that series’ executive producers, Tom Werner, to develop a family comedy that he says ‘would [satisfy] the people who have come to me in public places and said, ‘Can’t you put something on that I can watch?'”
Has The Brooklyn Philharmonic Come To An End?
“At this point, the orchestra mainly exists in name only. It has no staff, no season and meager financial assets. The orchestra played its last and only concert of the 2012-2013 season in June, and after that, Artistic Director Alan Pierson’s contract wasn’t renewed.”
Have We Lost The Art Of Literary Letter Writing?
“So can contemporary writers — and nonwriters who are overwhelmed by email, i.e., pretty much everyone I know — take away any lessons from our literary ancestors’ less fraught relationship with correspondence?”
How Could We Fall For Those Bad Fake Paintings?
“How could anyone ever, for a minute, have mistaken those howlers for Vermeers? That’s easy. Connoisseurs are products of their times as much as anyone else, subject to the same unexamined assumptions. But it’s usually a connoisseur who soonest smells a rat. He or she does so not by being wary but by becoming puzzled in a normal pursuit of pleasure.”
The Dutch Grapple With “Black Pete”
The black-faced, red-lipped servant of Sinterklaas – often more beloved by regular folks than the goody-goody St. Nick himself, it must be said – has been the subject of controversy in the Netherlands off and on for decades. But this year, following the suggestion by a black UNESCO official that the character should be abolished, the issue has become “an existential revolt not seen in Dutch society since the murder of Pim Fortuyn.”
Why Art Forgery Is Necessarily A Bad Thing
Peter Schjeldahl: “Wonders Gopnik, ‘Why not think of that picture as the sublime masterwork that Rothko happened not to have gotten around to?’ Well, because it’s not a ‘work’ at all but a pastiche whose one and only intention is to deceive.”
Do We Have Too Many Arts Organizations? Should Some Of Them Fail?
“It’s in the nature of aging bureaucracies–and nothing is more bureaucratic than a solidly established arts organization–to place self-perpetuation at the top of their to-do lists.”
The No-Guilt Guide To Quitting Bad Books
“If you are truly a reader, every time you put down one book it simply frees you up to engage with the next.”