“Thriller,” the 1983 Michael Jackson video, “is among the 25 motion pictures that have been selected this year for preservation by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.” The other films include “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “Pillow Talk” (1959) and “The Muppet Movie” (1979).
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
In Dance, The ’00s Were Gently Transformative (And Not)
Among the changes: “While waiting for the new savior, ballet has admitted the language of modern dance into its world and, very cautiously, sought solutions in the movement lexicons of non-European cultures.” Also: “In just a few years, YouTube has become an indispensable resource for the dance world.”
How The Decade’s Architecture Changed San Francisco
“In this city, the process of getting a project approved makes it easier to cut deals than to let architects do their best work, and too much of what’s been built is inept or cynical or both. Even so, the decade saw a heartening number of memorable additions to the landscape.”
The 100 Most Influential People In British Theatre
The 2009 Stage 100 list in full.
Ambassador Honchos Named Most Powerful In UK Theatre
“Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire, joint chief executives of Ambassador Theatre Group, have topped this year’s Stage 100, beating competition from both Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Their rise in ranking “follows ATG’s acquisition, earlier this year, of Live Nation’s UK theatres, which they purchased for £90 million.”
Publishers Didn’t Have A Great Year, But Readers Did
“For readers, 2009 was a year of miracles that brought massive price cuts on popular titles, and unprecedented choices in how to consume them. It was not the year the book died – not yet. It was the year ‘long-form content’ finally threw off its cellulose shackles….”
As World Architecture Boomed, Busted, Canada Was Calm
“The [2009] news in Canada, true to form, runs a relatively smooth, undisturbed course. Our minarets will stand unharmed. … Still, there’s an unsettling inconsistency within the Canadian story of architecture. Just when serious architecture and design occurs, something ridiculous jumps out on the scene.”
Um, Those Kindle ‘Bestsellers’? Most Of Them Are Free.
“Amazon’s top 10 Kindle bestsellers currently include a large portion that are free. The list now has eight free books. Only two in the top 10 — one each from major bestselling authors Dan Brown and James Patterson — will generate any revenue.”
Another Thing Real Books Are Good For: TSA Freak-Outs
“After Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to set off explosives on a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day,” airline “passengers want to know what they can do to keep themselves entertained” on board. The safest bet? An old-fashioned, non-electronic book.
Dali’s Ballet Backdrop, Out Of Carnegie Museum’s Closet
“An enormous stage curtain created by Salvador Dali for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was unfurled yesterday at the Carnegie Museum of Art for the first time since the museum acquired it 33 years ago. The purpose: to evaluate its condition, photograph it for the museum’s internal use and figure out how to display it.”