Each holiday season, Mariah Carey’s song and other holiday tunes begin to climb the Billboard charts as their popularity resurfaces through streaming, radio play and even digital sales. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart this week, followed by Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock,“ Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” – Toronto Star (AP)
Author: Douglas McLennan
Ex-Ticketmaster CEO To Movie Theatres: Time To Reinvent And Here’s How
“This is the opportune time to review pricing strategies with the goal to both increase attendance and make the grosses larger. We all know that attendance has been static and the revenue growth in the industry in America has been from raising prices. Theaters will need to look at and embrace variable pricing. Lower prices on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and before 4pm on Thursday—ticket prices from $4-$7, might entice new customers to fill otherwise empty seats and change attendance patterns.” – Deadline
Is Substack The New Journalism?
“In its variety, the Substack corpus resembles the blogosphere. It is produced by a mix of career journalists, bloggers, specialists, novelists, hobbyists, dabblers, and white-collar professionals looking to plump up their personal brands. The company has tried to recruit high-profile writers, offering (to a select few) health-care stipends, design help, and money to hire freelance editors. In certain instances, Substack has also paid advances, often in the generous six figures, incentivizing writers to produce work without employing them.” The New Yorker
Designer Pierre Cardin, 98
He clothed the famous — artists, political luminaries, tastemakers and members of the haute bourgeoisie — but he was also a merchant to the masses with an international brand, his name affixed to an outpouring of products, none too exalted or too humble to escape his avid eye. – The New York Times
The (Difficult) Public Art Of 2020
“Public artworks created in 2020 often took up urgent political and social issues, and the very notion of monuments—of which figures were being elevated and how they were rendered—figured in protest movements, opinion pages, and beyond.” – ARTnews
Understanding The Concept Of Electricity Was Difficult At First
“The strangeness of electricity seemed to be that it was at once ‘so moveable and incapable of rest’ and yet also capable of being arrested if deprived of a suitable conductor, for example, by the air.” – Cabinet
The Argument Over Who Controls The New Digital Public Squares
The speech platforms are rather closer to a form of mass voluntary intellectual pornography: a marketplace that lauds the basest instincts, incentivizes snark and outrage, brings us to revel in the savage burn. – National Affairs
The Death Of Letter-Writing?
Fundamentally, whether you’re convinced that instant communication heralds the death of the literary letter depends on how you define a letter. – Times Literary Supplement
The Relationship Between Writing And Drinking
“Nothing slows the flywheel, nothing treats the node of unease on the ribs, like a drink—you don’t have to be an alcoholic to know that. And for writers, there might even be a fragile biochemical moment when the drinking helps.” – The Atlantic
Why Barcelona’s Bookstores Are Thriving During COVID
“The pandemic has made people aware of the need to support their local bookshop,” said Maria Carme Ferrer, president of the Catalan booksellers’ association. “Bookshops are local cultural centres.” – The Guardian