“The company said that ticket holders for [Britten’s] Albert Herring can bring along friends who have never been to the opera before for just $25 per seat.”
Month: February 2012
When Academic Economists Think About Beer
“Do people drink more during difficult economic times? What effect does social milieu have on personal preference? Can television change the course of an entire industry? … [A number of] scholars have come together to create a new field, ‘beeronomics,’ devoted to analyzing the economics of beer and brewing.”
Aspen Puts Abstract Art On Ski-Lift Tickets
“Ski-lift tickets usually just consist of a logo, a bar code and an expiration date. But in Aspen, Colo., they now display limited editions of Mark Grotjahn’s art. The Aspen Art Museum arranged for the release last week of five different batches of tickets featuring his work, part of an effort to bring art to unlikely places.”
Even Wasilla, Alaska Can Have Fights Over Public Art
“Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, is back in the news – but not for anything the former vice presidential candidate has said or done. A public sculpture at the town’s high school is causing a ruckus for what some claim to see as a depiction of the female genitalia.”
A New Generation Of Civil Rights Museums
“Collectively, they also signal an emerging era of scholarship and interest in the history of both civil rights and African-Americans that is to a younger generation what other major historical events were to their grandparents.”
The Value Of Humor (Really)
“More than music, more than sports, more than “personal style,” comedy has become essential to how young men view themselves and others, the research showed. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said their sense of humor was crucial to their self-definition, 74 percent said ‘funny people are more popular,’ and 58 percent said they sent out funny videos to make what might be called a special impression on someone else.”
Do We Need “Reputation Insurance” On The Internet?
“We need a mandatory insurance scheme for online disasters. For what is an accidental disclosure of information if not an online disaster–a ferocious man-made information tsunami that can destroy one’s reputation the way a real tsunami can destroy one’s home?”
Where Will The Getty Now Stand On Antiquities Repatriation?
“Getty director James Cuno has denounced repatriation claims of looted antiquities as “nationalistic” and argued against placing limits on museum purchases of objects with an uncertain origin. Getty Museum director Timothy Potts, whose appointment Cuno announced this week, has echoed some of those views.”
The Science Of Willpower
“Willpower–the popular idea is that it’s something that you use to resist temptation and to make yourself work. But they’ve also found that this same energy is used in making decisions, simply deciding what to have for lunch, what to do at a meeting; all these things deplete the same resource. After a while, when you’ve depleted this resource, it’s a state called ego depletion.”
Where The Action Is – Romance Novels
“Low or not, romance is by far the most popular and lucrative genre in American publishing, with over $1.35 billion in revenues estimated in 2010. That is a little less than twice the size of the mystery genre, almost exactly twice that of science fiction/fantasy, and nearly three times the size of the market for classic/literary fiction.”