Author: Laura Collins Hughes

Stories We Tell About Ourselves May Help To Form Us

“For more than a century, researchers have been trying to work out the raw ingredients that account for personality…. They have largely ignored the first-person explanation — the life story that people themselves tell about who they are, and why. … Yet in the past decade or so a handful of psychologists have argued that the quicksilver elements of personal narrative belong in any three-dimensional picture of personality. And a burst of new findings are now helping them make the case.”

Will This Book Succeed? Let’s Ask The Masses.

“When predicting which candidate is likely to win an election, what a movie will make at the box office or how much the price of oil will fluctuate, the guesses of a crowd can be remarkably accurate. But can crowds predict whether a book will succeed? That is the hope of the founders of Media Predict (www.MediaPredict.com), a virtual market beginning today, and Simon & Schuster, a publisher that plans to select a book proposal based on bets placed by traders in the new market.”

Back To The Future (The 3-D Glasses Are Cooler Now)

“Last week the next phase in the theatrical viewing experience took a significant leap forward, as Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson signed on to direct and produce for Paramount’s DreamWorks Studios a trilogy of 3-D movies about the intrepid Belgian comic-book hero Tintin. And on Saturday nearly an hour of footage from the 3-D concert film of the Irish rock band U2 made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival.” So is 3-D the future of moviegoing? Some major players would like it to be.

Carnegie Hall Expansion To Dislocate Artist Residents

“The curtain may finally be falling for dozens of tenants of Carnegie Hall, whose studios helped form a Bohemia on 57th Street because of the many musicians, dancers, painters and other artists who lived in them. Carnegie Hall announced yesterday that it would embark on a major expansion that would create more offices, rehearsal and practice rooms and space for large ensembles, as well as renovate backstage areas. The plan would gobble up all of the studios in the building and its two towers, Carnegie said, and would mainly serve Carnegie’s expanding educational wing.”

MASS MoCA To Open Exhibit Sans Artist’s OK

There’s movement in the standoff between the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Swiss artist Christoph Büchel, who left his war-themed installation there unfinished last December after relations with the museum soured badly. “On Saturday it will open the doors to the show anyway, without Mr. Büchel’s permission or cooperation. But there is a catch…. Because of concerns about legal action by Mr. Büchel, the museum will shield all the huge objects in the warehouse from view with tall plastic tarps, as if Christo and Jeanne-Claude had intervened at the last minute.”

Sort Of Like A Library Without The Free Part

“BookSwim aims to be the ‘Netflix of books.’ Since 1998, Netflix has become the king of online DVD services by renting batches of DVDs via the mail for a fixed monthly fee, and letting subscribers keep the movies as long as they like. That’s how BookSwim is meant to work. For $15 to $20 per month, the company will send your top five book choices. Return three books in a prepaid envelope, and your next three choices will be mailed to you.”

“Spring Awakening” Leads Pack In Tony Noms

“In a season rich with contenders, ‘Spring Awakening,’ a dark rock musical based on a 19th century German play about sexually anguished teenagers, led the field of Tony Award nominations this morning with 11, including chances at awards for best musical, director and best actor for two of its cast.” “Grey Gardens” and “The Coast of Utopia” followed with 10 nominations apiece.

New Criterion, A Venerable Old Man At 25

“Little magazines have the lifespan of gerbils and goldfish — you can shower them with love and attention but still count on them dying in three years. For a literary journal like the New Criterion to have survived a quarter century is equivalent of a man reaching the age of 100: He stands as a triumph of the life principle, no matter how much of a codger he may now be.”

When A Terrific Book Fails To Sell, Who’s At Fault?

“It used to be that books had the shelf-life of a container of yogurt. Nowadays it seems more like hamburger meat. If a book doesn’t make it to the New York Times bestseller list within the first several days of arrival, it never will. … It’s easy to blame the bookstores, or the heinous overlords of newsprint, for the problem. But publishers, and even authors, deserve a little of the blame — especially when they pretend that marketing doesn’t matter.”