McEwan says the protagonist of his next novel “is a Nobel prize-winning physicist who faces media attacks after he suggests that men outnumber women at the top of his profession because of inherent differences in their brains, rather than any gender discrimination. McEwan found himself under a similar kind of fire last summer, besieged by the media after he told an Italian newspaper that he ‘despise[d] Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest’.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
B of the Bang Sculpture Ends With A Whimper
“It was supposed to symbolise a new beginning, but the B of the Bang has met a sad end. The last of the 180 hollow spikes on the sculpture next to Manchester City’s Eastlands stadium have been cut off for recycling, leaving the 56m (184ft) sculpture a shadow of its former self. Only the steel core remains after councillors decided it had to come down earlier this year.”
Netflix’s Freakishly Fast Service: How Do They Do That?
“After a period of pretty-pleasing Netflix to let me poke around its clandestine Chicago-area hub, and see what wonders await and how its ubiquitous red-enveloped packages are processed, I was given an address and a time to arrive and asked not to blab about it. … To get there, I was told to go to Carol Stream, to be there around sunrise. I imagined it was like coming upon Narnia — one stares at it awhile until the entrance becomes evident, which turned out to be sort of true.”
Right The Wrong: Radio Stations Should Pay Artists At Last
Nancy Sinatra: “My father, Frank Sinatra, and singers like Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby and Perry Como fought for years for performance royalties from radio stations, arguing it was unfair that performers are not paid…. This fight isn’t just about featured artists. There are thousands of background singers and session musicians who deserve to be paid for their work, too.”
Laramie Epilogue To Go National On Opening Night
“The creators of ‘The Laramie Project,’ the acclaimed play about the 1998 murder of a 21-year-old gay man, Matthew Shepard, are finishing work on an 80-minute epilogue to the original work that will be given its debut simultaneously at dozens of theaters across the United States on Oct. 12, the 11th anniversary of Mr. Shepard’s death. … Tectonic’s goal is to recruit 100 regional theaters, universities and other arts organizations to hold staged readings of the work….”
Index Of A Nation’s Well Being: Its Song Lyrics And Blogs
“In a new paper, a pair of statisticians at the University of Vermont argue that linguistic analysis — not just of song lyrics but of blogs and speeches — could add a new and valuable dimension to a growing area of mass psychology: the determination of national well-being.”
For Dudamel Hopefuls, Standing In Line Was A Bad Call
More than 10,000 tickets to Gustavo Dudamel’s Hollywood Bowl debut as Los Angeles Philharmonic music director went on sale to the general public on Saturday. They were snapped up “at a pace more common for concerts by pop stars, not classical musicians,” and in the process, “about 550 of the estimated 800 patrons who showed up at the Bowl, some of whom arrived early in the morning and waited for hours in the heat, went home empty-handed.”
Florence Schumacher, Vital To Orange Co. Arts, Dies At 86
“Florence ‘Floss’ Schumacher, a doyenne of Orange County’s social and arts scene for nearly three decades who was instrumental in establishing the Orange County Performing Arts Center and several performing arts organizations, has died. … She played a key role in the beginnings of resident companies at the performing arts center — the Pacific Symphony, the Pacific Chorale, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the now-defunct Opera Pacific, which folded last year after 22 seasons.”
Could Even Cirque Du Soleil Fill The Kodak Year-Round?
The Los Angeles City Council is to vote today on whether to sponsor a $30 million loan for renovations to the glamorous but frequently dark Kodak Theatre, whose lease holders plan to sign Cirque du Soleil to a 10-year contract. “Designed to accommodate the Oscars and other red-carpet awards shows, the theater has not been an attractive venue for many other types of programs, and a good number have gone to competitors in Hollywood or the LA Live entertainment complex downtown.”
Mein Kampf Publishing Ban Stands In Germany
“Plans by German scholars to reprint Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ as an academic treatise were rejected by the state copyright holders, who said a new edition of the book could fuel support for far-right groups. The Bavarian authorities this week reaffirmed a 64-year-old ban on the book after the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History, or IFZ, applied for permission to reprint the work.”