Increasingly, media seem to be portraying men in unflattering ways says Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau. “Negative images of men are prevalent in advertisements, news, television drama and films. Their effect? Blokes are starting to mobilise with rumblings of complaint.”
Blog
Bible As Magazine
A new edition of the Bible in the form of a magazine? It’s a hit with kids. “Although 82 percent of America’s teenagers say that they are Christians, only 32 percent say that they read the Bible. And we decided we needed to give it to them in a format they know how to use, which is magazines.”
The Auction Market Sweet Spot
“The stereotypical image of the auction buyer as chief executive with a seven-figure salary isn’t the only customer that auction houses are considering important these days. Now they’re seeing a growing number of buyers with perhaps only a few thousand dollars to spend but who add up to a vitally lucrative market in their own right.”
Is Living In The Midwest A Career Handicap?
Charles Baxter is an accomplished writer. But he has had less attention than many other writers with his achievements. “Part of the explanation may lie with the label ‘Midwestern’ and the mostly dubious associations it implies that hover over his fiction like, well, storm clouds over the prairie. ‘When others think about Midwesterners, they think: naïve, somewhat simple. Why else would you live here if not for some failure in judgment’?”
Detroit’s New Cultural Campus
The Detroit Symphony is moving into a renewed home this fall. But that home will be part of a new complex of cultural groups – a new Detroit High School for the Fine, Performing and Communication Arts be built there. “The $122.5 million high school is under construction, and after it opens in 2005, its 1,200 students will study in closer contact with symphony musicians than almost any students anywhere. Detroit Public Television will open a studio there, and there will also be a 50,000-watt AM radio station.”
The Eight-Year-Old 2000 Year-Old Carvings
In July carvings on rocks in Norfolk were discovered and archaeologists suggested they could be 2000 years old. “But the mystery was solved after the Great Yarmouth Mercury local newspaper reported the ‘potentially very important discovery’. Jobless construction worker Barry Luxton, 50, saw the report and a photograph of the rock and recognised it as one that he had engraved.” In 1995.
Art Of The Disappeared Art
“There are hundreds of thousands of missing works of art. Some – like the Cellini sculpture that has just been ransomed for £3.5m and the ‘Leonardo’ that was stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch last week – have been taken by thieves. Others have been destroyed by war or natural disaster. All of them acquire special significance once they disappear.” The Guardian puts together a virtual gallery of the disappeared.
Rem Goes To China (Along With Everyone Else)
Architect Rem Koolhaas struck out of some big projects in New York. So where did he go? China. “Every architect in the world right now is looking at China, because it seems to offer limitless opportunity. It’s a place of almost unstoppable optimism—despite this momentary setback from SARS—and immense building projects that are ideally suited for someone who positions himself right on the cusp of change, as [Mr. Koolhaas] does.”
Iran Cracks Down On Filmmakers
“Censorship of wilful new movies by Iran cast a cloud over the Venice Film Festival after one director was blocked from leaving the Islamic republic and another had his film seized… In [Babak Payami’s] latest movie, a Taliban soldier is ordered to have sex with a woman who is sentenced to death because she is still a virgin, and according to the Taliban interpretation of Islam, a virgin would automatically get into paradise.” Organizers in Venice had made a deliberate attempt to include Middle Eastern voices in this year’s festival, despite the inherent risk involved for participating directors from restricted societies like Iran.
Fringe No More
With the increasing popularity of film festivals and indie flicks across North America, the movies being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival have taken on a new significance for Hollywood. In a culture so fragmented as ours, where there seems to be a TV channel for every subdivision of humanity, the entertainment industry has learned the value of niche marketing, and even Hollywood’s biggest studios take notice of the more successful entries in festivals like Toronto’s.