The big thing in romance novels these days? Not so much with the wooing and courtship. What do readers want? Erotica, and today’s romance novels are spicing it up as the genre grows by double digits. “Publishing goes in cycles. Erotica now seems to be the new hot thing.”
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CBC’s New Programmer: All About The Numbers
CBC-TV has a new chief programmer, and she has a theory about programming: read the metrics right and you can choose the shows. ” ‘If a show scored 7.6 out of 10 and that ended up bringing in an audience of x-hundred thousand, I can build models on that that I couldn’t with qualitative research.’ Which is great if you want the trains to run on time backwards but not very useful if you’re trying to engage viewers forwards.
Dutoit Sails As Montreal Struggles
Charles Dutoit turned the Montreal Symphony into an exceptional instrument. But he made an abrupt departure four years ago. “Since Dutoit’s abrupt exit, the OSM has endured a series of setbacks: The organization has struggled with persistent deficits and a crippling players’ strike that lasted for five months. There have been no new discs in the last four years, and the orchestra won’t be making its annual pilgrimage to Carnegie Hall next season. Dutoit, on the other hand, hasn’t missed a beat.”
South African Writer Accused Of Plagiarism
Stephen Watson, a poet and the head of the University of Cape Town’s English department has accused Antjie Krog, the Afrikaner author of Country of My Skull, of “lifting material from a range of writers, including the late British poet laureate Ted Hughes and two 19th-century European linguists. He said Country of My Skull, an award-winning account of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was recently turned into a Hollywood film, used words and phrases from Hughes’s 1976 essay Myth and Education.”
Quarry Plans For Prehistoric Site Shelved
Plans to quarry gravel from the UK’s biggest prehistoric site have been rejected. The site has been “ranked the complex as a “northern Stonehenge”. Although short of dramatic stone relics, the area is rich in burial mounds, traces of settlements and an formal avenue which may have been used for ceremonial funerals.”
An Oath For Better Building
Too many buildings get built where they don’t belong or where they aren’t wanted. So how about a Hippocratic Oath for architects…
Seven Wonders Of The Modern World
What would they be? “In the past few years, voters nominated a number of manmade sites, and the 77 top vote-getters advanced. They were narrowed to 21 in January by a panel of world-famous architects (seven of them). Results will be announced Jan. 1, 2007. The only remaining U.S. site in the top 21 is the Statue of Liberty, though at least the Golden Gate Bridge, Empire State Building and Mount Rushmore made the list of 77 finalists. Even so, it’s an interesting glimpse at which of humankind’s architectural accomplishments still have the power to inspire.”
South African Dancers Go For Record
A South African dance company plans “a double-pronged attack on existing Guinness World Records – the biggest ballet class ever taught and the most dancers to be on pointe together for one minute.” The company is recruiting 600 dancers for the attempt.
American Arts – Reliable (But Where’s The Risk?)
American viewpoints are still scarred by the 1990s National Endowment for the Arts grant debacle, when radical art exhibitions and abrasive performance artists came under fire for using government money. That’s one reason American arts organizations would rather do with less than depend on the government. Still, it’s hard to argue with the stimulating, government-subsidized stuff that greeted me at every turn earlier this month in Paris. Is what we’re missing important? Is America stunting its own artistic growth?
TV While You Work
“We find ourselves in the midst of the long-anticipated convergence of Internet and television, and a weird thing is happening: people are watching television during the workday, in offices, at their computers, sitting up straight in unupholstered desk chairs. They’re watching fake ads or clips from “Saturday Night Live” that show up in e-mail in-boxes. And they’re watching with their fingers on keyboards, toggling between “Lost” or lusty Colin Farrell and Excel spreadsheets. No wonder, then, that the latest programmers — people trying to create sustainable, popular, commercial Internet television — are incorporating workday attitudes of diligence, can-doism, detail-orientation and, above all, procrastination into new shows.”