Christopher Paolini is only 20, and he lives in a remote part of Montana. “This time last year, he was just another geeky teen with too much time on his hands. But now, thanks to Eragon, his 500-page rousing adventure story set in his imaginary world, young Christopher is suddenly rich.” The book “is a huge bestseller in America, where it has surged past the Harry Potter books. Almost half a million copies were sold in only two months, a screenplay is in the works and at least a dozen foreign-language editions are on the way.”
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Why Is Music Just A Commodity?
“Seldom, it would appear, is music simply thought of or enjoyed as music anymore. It’s a commodity, a type of virtual contraband, the “sport” at the centre of cutthroat, Olympian competitions. Even the sense of community that a shared love of music is supposed to bring people has been supplanted by a pitched us-against-them mentality between the recording industry and the hordes of downloaders it longs to drag into court.”
Cooper-Hewitt – In Need Of A Makeover
The struggling Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York has plans to give itself a makeover. “Some in the design field say a rethinking is long overdue, but they remain skeptical about the museum’s ability to pull it off, given its recent history. ‘Under director Paul Thompson the museum has the same blurry identity it has always had. There’s still no strong thread holding it together’.”
Currin Dumps Dealer For Gagosian
Artist John Currin suddenly switched his gallery affiliation last week from his longtime New York dealer, Andrea Rosen, to Larry Gagosian. “Artists change galleries all the time, but Mr. Currin’s timing drew a great deal of attention. The show at the Whitney is the culmination of his 14-year association with Ms. Rosen, who gave him his first commerical gallery show, in 1992, and worked assiduously to foster and manage his success. Speculation about Mr. Currin’s move fueled conversation at art-world Christmas parties over the weekend, with expressions ranging from disgust to admiration for an astute business move.”
Strictly Grammarian – The UK’s New Punctuation Craze
This winter’s blockbuster book in the UK? A book on punctuation – Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. “Demand for the book has been so great it burned through six printings in the first three weeks of publication. The initial print run of 5,000 ballooned to 510,000; in the second week of December alone, 67,000 copies were sold, beating sales of John Grisham’s new book by more than 40 per cent. Seems correct punctuation isn’t just for your pedantic parents any more.”
Why Recording Labels And Download Companies Can’t Get Together
So with all the money to be made in online downloading, why don’t recording labels and the downloading networks just get together and be content making their fortunes? Answer – they don’t like each other. “Label executives continue to hold hush-hush meetings with leading distributors of file-sharing software, trying to find common ground. But they also seethe at the companies’ refusal to change their software in ways that might deter piracy, using words like “extortion” and “rape” to describe their situation.”
Humana Chooses Festival Playwrights
“For the second year in a row, the Actors Theatre of Louisville has filled five of its six slots for the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, running Feb. 29-April 10, with works written by women.”
Star Turn For Scotland’s National Theatre?
Finally Scotland has its National Theatre. Should it cast big movie stars to make itself successful at the box office? “It is not Hollywood names that bothers many in the theatre establishment, but the idea that the National Theatre is seen as a means of getting them, of making theatre ‘sexier’. Is that what they were lobbying for all these years? You don’t need a national theatre for that…+
The Global Movie
“Increasingly Hollywood studios are aiming to open their potential blockbusters simultaneously, or nearly so, around the world. If the phenomenon is beginning to make seeing the Hollywood blockbuster a global experience for the most avid movie fans, the reasons for it have little to do with those fans. Instead the trend is being pushed by the threat of movie piracy and the harsh realities of marketing costs, combined with ever-briefer theater stays as highly promoted films quickly saturate their markets.”
Tower Out On The Street
London’s “Tower Theatre had a 155-seat auditorium, two bars and rehearsal rooms, all housed in a fifteenth-century tower and hall in Canonbury, north London, rented from the Marquess of Northampton. Here they put on 20 full-scale productions a year, opening a new show every three weeks. But an alleged slip on the part of their lawyers led to the loss of their protected tenancy, and in March they became homeless. The financial consequences were disastrous.”