“While climate change imperils humanity’s future, it also imperils its past. A new study out in PLOS One quantifies that in alarming detail: Just in the southeastern United States, a sea level rise of one meter would inundate thousands of archaeological sites, from Native American settlements to early European colonies.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
This Year’s Top Music Video Was Seen 4.4 Billion Times
The reggaeton-pop tune by Luis Fonsi, featuring Daddy Yankee, was number one in 47 countries.
UK’s Creative Industries Grew Twice As Fast As The Rest Of The Economy Last Year
Now worth £91.8 billion in terms of gross value added to the UK, the sector grew by 7.6% over the year, while the economy as a whole grew by 3.5% in the same period.
Movie Critiques Are Thriving On YouTube
Some of their “trailer reaction” videos actually boast more views than the trailers they reference, meaning that, mathematically speaking, a significant portion of their audience watch the reaction but not the trailers to which the reaction is, um, reacting.
Canadians Make Some Great Movies. Pity No One Sees Them (Here’s Why)
“There is a paradox in the missing cohort of current homegrown films and filmmakers at the box office. It’s not a lack of talent. Canadians make movies for Hollywood every day. We have the best movie craftspeople on the planet. It, X Men: Apocalypse and Blade Runner 2049 are recent Hollywood releases made mostly by Canadian crews. It’s also not a lack of market. Canadians spent around a billion dollars on movie tickets last year. So why has it become so rare for an English-language Canadian film to connect with audiences?”
Louisville’s Speed Museum Lays Off Staff, Closes Store
This is the second substantial round of layoffs since the Speed reopened in March of 2016 after a huge renovation project, with a price tag of $60 million. The first round of layoffs came in August 2016, just five months after the Speed’s reopening, when seven employees were let go.
UK Regional Theatre Saw Drop In Attendance, Boost In Box Office Last Year
“Theatres outside London sold 169,000 fewer tickets in 2016 than the previous year – a 1% drop – but improved overall box office sales by 3%, bringing in a total of £14.7m. New data from membership body UK Theatre shows income from plays, pantos, comedy and dance is down on last year, but this was offset, largely thanks to an increase in sales for musicals, which increased by around £20m last year.”
The Reading Revolution Of The 1800s – Powered By People Reading Aloud
There were practical reasons for reading books aloud. “Domestic lighting was primitive, and prohibitively expensive. Why strain the eyes with insufficient light and small print when a single person with a well-lit book could do the work of many?” Also, eyeglasses were rare until late in the 18th century, so it made sense for a person with good eyesight to read to people whose eyesight was poor. And reading aloud was a way of entertaining others—including people who were illiterate and could not read for themselves—while they were doing housework.
On The Morality Of Plants (And Of People Of Course)
“Human beings and other animals are, like plants, living things. In all three cases, Philippa Foot urged, there is room for speaking of healthy or unhealthy, excellent or defective specimens of their kind. This means that there is room to speak of the qualities conducive to their being healthy or excellent or otherwise. The vocabulary of human virtues and vices – courage, temperance, justice and so forth – belongs among the same structure of concepts. The human virtues, she proposed, are natural excellences, while human vices are natural defects.”
Has Hollywood’s Attack Dog Lawyer Reached His “Sell By” Date?
His “cease and desist” and proceed “at your peril” letters to media outlets and accusers on behalf of clients are legendary. Recently, as The Times prepared stories in which more than 10 women accused Ratner of sexual misconduct, the lawyer sent the paper multiple letters filled with florid language and threats of litigation. The missives, which would not have seemed out of place in the Hollywood novels of Michael Tolkin and Elmore Leonard, were the pummeling prose of a legal pugilist looking for an early knock-out.