It’s Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, which “beat Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre in a survey of members of the 700-strong Romantic Novelists’ Association. Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights and Rebecca were also in the top five.”
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Doonesbury Derailed By Ski Instructor
Garry Trudeau, creator of the popular and controversial Doonesbury comic, suffered a broken drawing arm this past week when he was tackled by a ski instructor to prevent him from skiing into a tree. Trudeau was in Aspen to accept the Freedom of Speech award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He could be unable to draw the strip for six to eight weeks.
How About A Little Politics With Your Candy? (The Role Of Art)
Steve Almond writes a book about candy and throws in a few political opinions for good measure. Then he gets trashed by readers. “What really bummed me out about the Amazon haters wasn’t that they disagreed with my politics, but that they immediately summoned such genuine outrage at me for deigning to express a political opinion at all.”
Workers Destroy Section Of China’s Great Wall
Construction workers destroyed a large section of the Great Wall of China recently. “Almost 100m of the wall in northern Ningxia autonomous region was levelled in two overnight raids by construction workers who used the material to pave a road. The destroyed area near Zhongwei city was constructed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in an region known as “the Great Wall Museum” because of the profusion of rammed earth sections of the wall.”
Arthur Miller, 89
Arthur Miller, one of the 20th Century’s greatest playwrights, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure.
Super Trouper – Vanska Bringing ABBA Into The Concert Hall
Osmo Vänskä, artistic director of the Minnesota Orchestra, will conduct his musicians playing his own arrangements of music by the 1970s Swedish pop supergroup ABBA as part of the 2005-06 season, announced today. While classical purists might view this as “Waterloo,” Vänskä says that expanding musical horizons is “The name of the game.”
Canada’s TV, A 2004 Snapshot
“Spending on Canadian programming rose by 5.8 per cent to $575.5 million in 2004. But the portion spent on comedy and drama — perennially a sensitive issue within the industry — fell by 13.2 per cent to $86.5 million.” But “compared to 2000 spending, the payout for dramatic and comedy programming is still up by $8 million, or 10.1 per cent, for an average annual increase over the period of 2.4 per cent. Overall spending increased for reality, musical/variety and news programming. In 2004, nearly 8,000 people were employed in the industry, accounting for more than $553 million in salaries.”
Stratford Festival Director Retiring
Canada’s most successful theatrical artistic director, Richard Monette, announced yesterday that he’ll be retiring as the head of the Stratford Festival of Canada, but staying on ”at least until the end of 2007, or until such time as a successor is in place.”
Ryan: Speed Up Oscars But Don’t Trim Speeches
So organizers want the Oscars to zip along faster? Fine, writes Maureen Ryan. Just don’t cut the acceptance speeches. “There are so many other things that could be trimmed instead. How about taking out any and all musical numbers? That’s 20 minutes gone, easily. Lose the lifetime achievement awards, or make those presentations three minutes long, at most. As for the long montage of actors who’ve died, why not put that on Oscar.com? And do we need to see the accountants who tabulate the votes, listen to forced, unfunny “banter” from presenters or hear a speech from the head of the academy? No, no and no. But we do need to see actresses cry while wearing couture gowns.”
MoMA – Back From The Spa
The remade Museum of Modern Art is the return of an old friend, writes Mark Wigley. “While savoring the return of this wonderful collection and expressing our appreciation to the museum, this is not a moment to celebrate architecture for its capacity to maintain subservient yet elegant good manners. Like the best art, the best buildings make us hesitate, disturbing our routines so that we see, think, and feel in ways we simply could not have imagined before. Architecture itself should be an education. To complain that the resultant building is attractive but tame, that the architecture has been domesticated, neutralized, just as the artworks it houses have had their social and intellectual edge removed to be enlisted for a singular global mission, is as pointless as accusing a church of preaching. MoMA is devoted to a particular form of education and does not pretend otherwise.”