“It wasn’t always this way. When Amazon first appeared, in the mid-90s, mailing books out of the Seattle garage of its founder, Jeff Bezos, it was greeted with enthusiasm. The company seemed like a useful counterweight to the big bookstore chains that had come to dominate the book-retailing landscape.”
Month: November 2014
When Richard Avedon Photographed The Fall Of The Berlin Wall
“A thousand years from now when history textbooks will allocate to the Cold War a mere couple of paragraphs, the text should be illustrated by one Berlin Wall photograph. For by seizing this singular moment in history, Richard Avedon exposed in the faces of his subjects the stress and the pain behind the wall and the related historical events.”
The Reason ‘Raising Arizona’ Star Holly Hunter Is Working On A Zillion Different Kind Of Projects
“Zack asked me. He came to me with an offer, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that would be fun.’ It’s fun to mix it up.”
When A Wagner Can’t Have Bayreuth, She’ll Take Beethoven Instead
“She wouldn’t mind if she were asked less about her great-grandfather and more about Liszt, whose daughter Cosima married Richard Wagner in 1870, making the composer Nike Wagner’s great-great-grandfather.”
If You Highlight A Phrase In An E-Book, Research Can Tell You When You’re Not Alone
“Even if we sometimes turn to fiction for help with our lives, we may also be reading for passages that pull us, as Mr. Siegel puts it, back into the infinite.”
Humans Learn By Imitation – Or Else We Die
“It’s time to retire the notion of genius and all the baggage that comes with it: the exaltation of big brains, the story of progress as a grand parade of exceptional thinkers, the myth that innovation happens with a lightning bolt of insight. We can stop worshipping at the altar of disruption.”
London’s Booming Immersive Theatre Scene Might Indicate A Bit Of A Problem With Escapism
“Immersive theatre producers ‘put audience members centre stage’ in an apparently tailored experience, including audiences in the action ‘to make their “escapist” experience all the more unique and personal to them.'”
Orlando Has High Hopes For Its Big, Pretty, New Performing Arts Center
“‘The key, now that they’ve spent all this money, is to ensure momentum,’ she said. ‘This should be an escape.'”
Orlando’s New Performing Arts Center Has Some Ideas About How To Make Money
“Dr. Phillips Center officials hope that guests will arrive early and stay after the show to enjoy a drink in one of the many bars. How many bars? 13 — compared with just four in the Bob Carr Theater, Orlando’s previous performing-arts center.”
Dancers Who Long Ago Left Cuba Return For International Ballet Festival
“Coming back, seeing my family again it was an indescribable feeling. It’s been such a long time. I started … I broke into tears ’cause it was so much emotion.”