“Hundreds of jobs could go at Waterstones after the retailer launched a consultation with 560 managers as it seeks to slash costs and ‘secure the future’ of the UK’s last nationwide book chain.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Broadway Attendance Down 6%, Thanks To Sandy
“Superstorm Sandy was a force behind Broadway’s 6.2% dip in audience attendance – its lowest level in several years, according to end-of-season statistics … Box-office grosses were virtually the same: Shows took in $1.14 billion during Broadway’s 2012-13 season.” (Higher ticket prices made up the difference.)
The Problem With David Mamet’s Turn To The Right
“To my mind, though, all is not well when a dramatist has become so thoroughly cynical that his world-view only makes artistic sense when served up under the licence of wild larkiness.”
Could Lahore Restore Its Medieval Quarter To Its Mughal-Era Splendor?
“The Walled City’s gardens and squares are now obscured by illegal shops and businesses, the skyline cluttered by unplanned tenements and bundles of cables. … But last month the new Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) – in effect an independent town council – met for the first time. The body oversees the ambitious plan to restore the past glory … of the city’s oldest neighbourhood.”
The Problem With Studies Saying That Studying Music Improves Test Scores
“As we point out regularly here, correlation and causation are very different things. Newly published research concludes those differences reflect the types of kids who decide to participate in music, rather than anything that occurs in the practice room.”
It’s Totally Natural To Become More Boring As You Age
“Happiness becomes less the high-energy, totally-psyched experience of a teenager partying while his parents are out of town, and more the peaceful, relaxing experience of an overworked mom who’s been dreaming of that hot bath all day. … It’s a different way of understanding what happiness is” – as psychologists put it, promotion motivation versus prevention motivation.
He’s A Star Auteur At Cannes, But His Fellow Americans Barely Know Him
For James Gray (We Own the Night, Two Lovers, The Immigrant), “Cannes offers the kind of institutional legitimation he has not often received in the United States. … At Cannes he is not simply another director, he is one of this festival’s chosen auteurs as well as a celebrity in his own right.”
Delaware Symphony Reaches Agreement With Musicians, Saving Upcoming Season
“After months of negotiations, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra” – which performed a severely curtailed 2012-13 season after barely staving off collapse last June – “and the union representing its musicians have finally found some middle ground, as both sides agree to a tentative three-year contract.”
Rudyard Kipling Admitted To Plagiarism
“The signed letter [to a friend], written in 1895, admits that the writer may have helped himself ‘promiscuously’ to the works of others in his account of the Law of the Jungle, which features in the Jungle Book.”
What MoMA Learned While Cleaning A Pollock
“A 10-month examination and restoration of [Jackson Pollock’s] One: Number 31, 1950, by conservators at the Museum of Modern Art, have produced new insights about how the artist worked. The conservators also revealed a mysterious missing chapter in the painting’s history.”