“The last straw appears to have been the introduction of new rules that will allow even countries that fail the semi-finals to vote in the final in Belgrade in May. But will Austria’s absence even be noticed on the night, amid the frocky horrors and life-affirming balladry?”
Tag: 11.15.07
Lockout In Jacksonville
The Jacksonville Symphony has locked out its musicians and canceled performances after contract talks broke down earlier this week. JSO management is looking for wage freezes and benefit cuts from musicians, who say that they’ve already taken cuts to stabilize the organization.
CAD At 25 – How Computer-Aided-Design Changed The World
“In that quarter-century, much has changed in the CAD world. The industry has become more diversified and competitive, yet the same things that made computer-aided design commercially popular 25 years ago remain just as true today.”
Disney Disputes Writers Union Claims
“Union leaflets distributed at the Disney site stated that the company has projected $1.5 billion in digital revenue, and suggest that the writers’ share of that is zero. Disney immediately rejected those claims.”
A Civilised Place To Read
“The handsome house in the corner of St James’s Square, which now has 8,000 members and one million books, has for the past 160 years been the best ‘place on the civilised earth’, but it no longer caters for those who are ‘not rich’.”
Craigslist’s School of Writing
“Throughout the United States, aspiring writers are using Craigslist not just as a place to offload their futons, but as a pixeled writing workshop where they test their stabs at social satire on some of the more than 30 million visitors that the site draws each month. Their personal ads ostensibly seek a soul mate, but what they’re really looking for is an audience.”
How Publishers Slipped GarcÃa Márquez Past Iranian Censors
“The normally vigilant gaze of culture and Islamic guidance ministry officials was averted when a novel by the Nobel prize-winning author innocuously titled Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts was submitted and accordingly authorised for publication.”
La Scala Cancels Second Performance For Strike
“The ongoing labor tensions are casting a shadow over the 2007-08 premiere of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” scheduled for Dec. 7. The premiere, the social and cultural event of the year in Milan society, has never been canceled by a strike, as far as officials can remember.”
Understanding The Tate’s Crack
“This is a crack that runs through the world’s most popular museum of modern art. Just as Hirst’s diamond-studded skull symbolises the pinnacle of vanity of the contemporary art bubble, the crack symbolises its imminent collapse.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez Book Banned In Iran
Nearly a month after the first edition of celebrated author Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s latest book sold out in Iran, cultural officials have reportedly banned the title.