“For hundreds of years, Chinese have burned stacks of so-called ‘ghost money’ for their ancestors to help ensure their comfort in the afterlife. The fake bills resemble a gaudier version of Monopoly money … The value of the biggest bills has risen in the past few decades from the millions and, more recently, the billions. The reason: Even Hong Kong’s dead try to keep up with the Joneses.”
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Collecting Oral Histories Of The India-Pakistan Partition
Since it launched in California two years ago, the 1947 Partition Project and “its dozens of volunteers have video-recorded 647 oral histories from more than seven countries and stored them digitally. It describes itself as ‘a people’s history’ of that wrenching time.”
In Senegal, They’re Rapping The TV News
“The nightly news is beginning to rhyme in Senegal, a hip-hop-crazy country where half of the population isn’t yet 18. [Makhtar] Fall and his co-anchor Cheikh Sene, both aging rap stars, have found second careers dropping the week’s developments into verse.”
Fire Damages Roof Of France’s Historic National Library
About 100 square meters of the roof of the Bibliothèque Nationale’s old Richelieu building in central Paris were burned in the blaze last week, which authorities believe started by accident. No injuries have been reported.
Werner Herzog Directs A Corporate-Sponsored PSA
From One Second to the Next, a 35-minute documentary made as part of AT&T’s “It Can Wait” stop-texting-while-driving campaign, is “quite likely the greatest driver’s ed film of all time.”
Regina Resnik, 90, Opera And Broadway Star
A versatile performer who had two successful opera careers, first as a soprano and later as a mezzo, Resnik was known for a powerful voice, impressive dramatic skills – and for the snubbing she received at the hands of Met general manager Rudolf Bing even as she sang major roles throughout Europe.
Footage From Jerry Lewis’s Suppressed Holocaust Movie Leaks Onto YouTube
“A seven-minute report from a 1972 Danish television show about the making of The Day the Clown Cried” – which Lewis admits he withheld from release out of embarrassment – “surfaced recently, and based on that, the movie looks hammy and self-important at the same time.”
Pole Dancing Tries To Turn Itself Into A Sport
The organizers of the World Pole Sports Championships “want to reform pole dancing into a sport respectable enough to go to the Olympics. So they’ve written a rule book that gives code names to compulsory moves, specifies scoring methodology and bans pole-dancing staples such as removable articles of clothing. And they’d like people to call their event ‘pole sports’ now.”
Tourist Breaks Finger Off 14th-Century Sculpture In Florence
“The 55-year-old Missouri man was measuring the right hand of the ancient artwork when he unintentionally snapped the pinky finger off the estimated 600-year-old piece. A security guard monitoring the exhibit reacted immediately but apparently intervened a moment too late.”
E-Books Strain Relations Between Libraries And Publishing Houses
“E-books have changed the world of publishing in fundamental ways. The business model that encouraged publishers to support the work of public libraries has changed to such an extent that this relationship has been stressed to the point of non cooperation.”