“A new study unveiled by The Library of Congress notes that a scant 14 percent of the feature films produced and distributed in the U.S. from 1912-29 exist in their original 35mm format.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
“She Concocts A Fictionalized Life”: Norman Rockwell’s Family Furious Over Deborah Solomon’s Biography
The man depicted in Solomon’s new book “lived a far darker life” than the scenes he painted, “fraught with anxiety, depression, and loneliness. He was a twice-divorced, thrice-married repressed homosexual who gravitated toward men and boys.” It’s that last bit that has the Rockwells so upset.
Egyptian Museum’s Antiquities And Staff Alike Suffer From Country’s Instability
“The century-old home of Egypt’s mummies and King Tutankhamun’s treasures is trying to make the best out of the worst times of political turmoil. But the Egyptian Museum is taking a hammering on multiple levels, from riots on its doorstep to funding so meager it can’t keep up paper clip supplies for its staff.”
St. Petersburg’s First International Winter Theatre Festival Faces Russia’s Chaotic Politics
“Strange days when a production of Death in Venice provokes an uproar, then ends in a theatre being defaced.”
The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly En Anglais: Paris My Fair Lady Is A Hit, Even In English
Director Jean-Luc Choplin: “How do you translate ‘the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain’? I mean, you can come up with something in French but it doesn’t have the same clarity or sonority. … And it’s such an important part of the play.”
Roy Orbison’s Final Interview, For The 25th Anniversary Of His Death
“You set out to whip the world. And then when you get beat up a little bit … In my case, you say, ‘Father, I’m gonna let you have it. I’ve done what I can do.’ You turn your will over to God.”
Sam Shepard On Why He Writes
“I couldn’t do anything else but drive a tractor. I felt like this is the only thing I had. … I don’t do it to get a message across. I’m writing just because there are certain kinds of raw material. The material may be very strange, but it takes shape in the course of writing. Whether that has a message or not is not my concern.”
Silicon Valley’s “Permissionless Innovation” Is Oppressive, Hypocritical, And Ultimately Dangerous
David Lowery, frontman for Camper van Beethoven and Cracker, and now copyright activist: “The bigger fight here is that if they can do this with our songs, with our lyrics, then they can do it with your Instagram photos, they can do it with your Facebook profile, they can do it with anything you put on your Web page without your permission. That’s what permissionless innovation is.”
Hotfile Shuts Down After $80M MPAA Piracy Settlement
“Hotfile’s file-sharing service went offline just hours after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered the website to shut down unless it implemented copyright-filtering technologies to prevent piracy. The court also awarded MPAA $80 million in damages.”
Imgur – Little Photo Sharing Site Begins Morphing Into Mega-Social Network
“Imgur is shifting: from image host to user community to public destination. In that sense, it’s following the opposite trajectory of a Facebook or a Twitter or a similar sites – networks that are trying to become platforms. Imgur is a platform that is trying to become a social network.” (It’s pronounced “imager”, by the way.)