“In many ways, [‘A View from the Bridge’] is Miller’s best-observed work. Not only is the atmosphere based on his own dockside wanderings, but the play’s scandalous crux–will Eddie, driven by his attraction to his own niece, do something disastrous?–turns out to be based on a true tale.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Take That Avatar Box-Office Triumph With A Grain Of Salt
Yes, “Avatar” has just become the highest-grossing movie ever — but the inflation of ticket prices is a big factor. “Given the current estimated average ticket prices of $7.46, ‘Avatar’ still needs to sell about 50 million more tickets before it matches the inflation-adjusted domestic gross of ‘Titanic.'”
In Audience Triumph, N.H. Music Fest Changes Leadership
Henry Fogel is out as director of the New Hampshire Music Festival, the chairman and president are both stepping down, and three board members have resigned — all fallout from the audience’s vehement opposition to the festival’s “new artistic vision and restructured orchestra.”
If Only Google Would Do All Our Social Interfacing For Us
The prank site Google Xistence “resembles a Google product page, complete with YouTube instructional video, and purports to let users plug in their Facebook, Twitter and blog log-in credentials. The service supposedly lets Google live your social life for you — so you can ‘play World of Warcraft or Tower Defense.'”
Huntington Library Buys Cache Of Dickens Letters
“Among the letters are Dickens’ instructions … about how a scene in a women’s hat shop in ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ should look: ‘there may be a cap on a block and a dress on a stand if it would improve the sketch,’ the author suggests, adding, ‘Please to take care that Miss Knag is not like Miss La Creevy.'”
Heirs Seek Return Of Vermeer Bought By Hitler
“‘The Art of Painting’ is the most valuable painting in Vienna’s public collections and the only work by Johannes Vermeer in Austria. … The heirs say Jaromir Czernin, who spent 15 years in lawsuits to get it back after World War II and lost, had no choice but to sell it as his family was under threat.”
Historian: We’ve Wronged The Real Macbeth (And His Lady)
“He may have murdered his way to the throne, killing the king, Duncan … but Macbeth brought peace to Scotland in violent times. He was an effective and popular ruler and the first Scottish monarch known to have made a pilgrimage to Rome.”
Apple Tablet May Offer Solutions To Troubled Publishers
“People who have seen the tablet say Apple will market it not just as a way to read news, books and other material, but also a way for companies to charge for all that content.” If they agree to its terms, “Apple could help create a way for media companies to alter the economics and consumer attitudes of the digital era.”
Whatever Happened To Simplicity In Design?
“Inoperable cellphones. Impenetrable Web sites. Neurotically overstyled objects. Too much packaging. Digital versions of this, that and the other. … There’s no excuse for this, not least because qualities like ‘clarity’ and ‘simplicity’ loom large in almost every design doctrine.”
Earliest Shakespeare Quartos Go Online
“[T]he Shakespeare Quartos Archive (www.quartos.org) is a free resource that will in time reproduce at least one copy of every edition of Shakespeare’s plays printed in quarto before the theatres were closed by the Puritan parliament in 1642.”