“One year after they met for the first time, 52 college freshmen were asked to rate their relationships with each other. By a significant margin, the first relationships they made were often the closest.”
Month: June 2008
Pavarotti’s Family Agree On Split Of Estate
“Pavarotti had drafted two wills near the end of his yearlong battle with cancer. One divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters. The second left the tenor’s U.S. holdings to Mantovani.”
Our Language In Universal Gestures
“It seems that, regardless of the sentence structure of their native tongue, non-verbal communication is the same across the globe. English, Spanish and many other Western languages build most basic sentences around a simple blueprint.”
Pixar: Quality Is The Best Business Plan
“For all the talk that critics are out of touch with mainstream moviegoers, critics and audiences are in agreement on one key thing: Nobody makes better movies than Pixar. This stratospheric level of quality has turned Pixar into movieland’s most reliable family brand.”
NPR Expands Its Books Coverage
National Public Radio has expanded the book coverage on its website, adding weekly book reviews, and has hired six new book reviewers–including a graphic novel reviewer–and added more features to an already existing lineup of author podcasts, critics’ lists and other book-focused content.
Bacon Portrait Sells For $34 Million, Koons’ Balloon For $23 Million
“Four tenacious bidders vied for his “Three Studies for Self-Portrait” from 1975 in what became the evening’s longest bidding war, with two would-be buyers on the phone still running up the price, even as it passed $30 million. The final tally was $34.4 million.”
A Need To Protect Historic Buildings
“In 2002, the National Trust for Historic Preservation identified 100 communities in 20 states where teardowns were taking place in architecturally significant neighborhoods. By 2008 the list had grown to around 500 communities in 40 states — with about a third of those in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.”
Hollywood Studios Make Actors “Final” Offer
“The producers alliance said its package was worth more than $250 million in additional compensation to SAG members and was patterned after previous deals negotiated with Hollywood writers, directors and AFTRA.”
When Poetry Got Difficult
“One has to wonder if poetry has any place in the 21st century, when music videos and satellite television offer daunting competition for poems, which demand a good deal of attention and considerable analytic skills, as well as some knowledge of the traditions of poetry. In the 20th century, something went amiss. Poetry became ‘difficult.’ That is, poets began to reflect the complexities of modern culture, its fierce disjunctions.”
Art Shortages And The Art Market
“If extreme scarcity makes it easier to exaggerate the merit of the remaining works by artists whose truly great pictures rarely come up at auction, it also leads to some real gems being overlooked. As art supplies shrink, so does connoisseurship – the most gifted connoisseurs are only as good as the sum total of what they have trained their eyes on.”