Author: sbergman

All Elites Are Not Created Equal

Why is it that Americans embrace the idea of elitism in sports and movies, but disdain it in politics and the arts? “We want our rock ‘n’ roll heroes to be guitar gods, we want our movie stars to be brilliant actors, we want our surgeon to be tops in his or her field — but we want our president to possess average intelligence?”

Obsessed With Teens

Since the 1980s, teen culture has become familiar fodder for Hollywood, and the flood of teen films aimed at adults has hardly slowed. But rarely do such films attempt to convey the actual reality of teenage life. “Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit.”

Gas Prices Driving Up Concert Costs

“Add one more discretionary purchase to the already long list of things that could get more expensive because of high gasoline prices – concert tickets. Industry watchers say concert sales were “remarkably robust” in the first half of the year – considering the rise in fuel prices and tough economic times in parts of North America – but artists’ tour budgets may now have to be adjusted up.”

Giving The Little Buggers Their Due

The Insectarium, “billed as the first major new institution to open in post-Katrina New Orleans, has been created in a section of the United States Custom House by the Audubon Nature Institute… An exhibit about the insects of New Orleans discusses the splattered bugs that coat cars in the mating months of May and September, and explains how the city’s history was scarred by diseases carried by uncontrolled mosquitoes.”