“In a simpler time, when automobiles went slower … there was a popular advertising campaign that ran from 1927 until 1963. It consisted of rhymed messages sequentially staked on the right side of the road, all ending with the advertiser’s name, ‘Burma-Shave’.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
UK’s Channel Four To Spend Nearly Half A Billion Pounds On New Content
“Channel 4 is to spend a record £455 million on UK commissions in 2012, with the broadcaster promising more one-off singles and serials in its drama output.”
David Robertson Is Sydney Symphony’s Next Chief Conductor
“The newly appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will bring ‘groundbreaking’ digital initiatives to the role when he takes the reins in 2014. David Robertson, music director at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, will take over from 75-year-old Vladimir Ashkenazy.”
Mike McGrady, 78, Architect Of American Literature’s Greatest Practical Joke
He was “a prizewinning reporter for Newsday who to his chagrin was best known as the mastermind of one of the juiciest literary hoaxes in America – the best-selling collaborative novel Naked Came the Stranger, whose publication in 1969 made Peyton Place look like a church picnic.”
Lincoln Center Theater To Open Third Stage
“The 112-seat theater, home to Lincoln Center Theater’s latest program, LCT3, aims to develop new talent, feed the company’s two larger theaters – the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi E. Newhouse – and attract younger, more diverse audiences. Even the drinks at intermission will be cheaper” – as will the tickets, at $20 each.
Fire Breaks Out At Oslo’s Astrup Fearnley Museum
“Only months before its scheduled opening, a fire broke out at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art’s new building in Oslo, designed by Renzo Piano. Monday afternoon, a fire went up on the top floor, but firefighters had it under control by around 4pm.”
New Zealand Gets A New National Dance Troupe
“The new venture” – named the New Zealand Modern Dance Company – “has a long-term vision to create a permanent, high-calibre national contemporary dance company which from its Auckland base will represent New Zealand nationally and internationally.”
Russia’s New Cinematic Sage
Andrei Zvyagintsev “is being described as a seer of the social and spiritual divides in Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. … And the sense that he views life – and the Russian condition – as a series of moral challenges is apparent in his films and in conversation.”
Leading Australian Aboriginal Actress Says She’ll Play No More Aboriginals
“Actress Ursula Yovich has quit playing indigenous roles, saying she has been typecast because of her race and that a career spent portraying the ‘tragic reality’ of Aboriginal characters has left her emotionally drained.”
After 11 Years, Weinstein Brothers’ Publishing House Releases Its First Books
The concern, launched in 2001 as Miramax Books (and the publisher of Tina Brown’s ill-fated Talk magazine), “has remained open throughout the brothers’ tumultuous last decade, persists. Now with a full-time staff of two, the latest iteration of Weinstein Books is about to release its first spate of titles.”