Category: today’s top story

The director of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 10, the Pink Panther films and Victor/Victoria “developed an audacious and risque comic style as a producer, director and writer that was rooted in the pratfalls, sight gags and otherwise preposterous sensibilities of pre-sound movie comedy.”

“In an astonishing move, the European Com­mis­sion (EC) has reversed a decision made in a UK tax tribunal, and refused to classify works by Dan Flavin and Bill Viola as “art”. This means that UK galleries and auction houses will have to pay full VAT (value added tax, which goes up to 20% next year) and customs dues on video and light works, when they are imported from outside the EU.”

“Why might people high in openness to experience report feeling chills more often? Surprisingly, people high in openness didn’t have chills because they tended to listen to different kinds of music. Instead, people with a lot of openness to experience were more likely to play a musical instrument themselves and they rated music as more important in their lives than people low in openness.”

“Getting Stern to stick around removed one of the big question marks facing Sirius XM. The company, which has weathered a difficult two years of financial uncertainty, needed to keep Stern not only for his listeners but also to signal to the financial community that its momentum is continuing.”

A pair of phoniatric researchers say that their studies confirm a diagnosis made by a physician who visited Callas in 1975: “dermatomiositis, a disorder that causes slackening of the muscles and tissues in general, including those associated with the larynx.”

“The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, one of the principal sponsors of ‘Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,’ demanded Monday that the Smithsonian restore the David Wojnarowicz video or the foundation would not fund future projects.”

“Conceptual art was always quicker and cleverer than its conservative critics gave it credit for, always closer to the mass market than the academies of art.”

“Why have companies like Amazon and PayPal decided that they didn’t want WikiLeaks as a customer? Angry citizens have called for boycotts on online forums, Facebook and Twitter. The different reactions from Internet firms to the WikiLeaks publications reveal a dilemma. Many citizens regard the Internet as a public space, but in fact it is a private sphere. And the companies that control almost all the forums on the Web can, if in doubt, exercise their rights of ownership and ban who they like.”

The Chinese poet/critic/activist has been imprisoned so that he can’t travel to Oslo to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In Liu’s honor, The New York Times has published on its Op-Ed page an excerpt from his poem “Experiencing Death.”

“A major shareholder of Borders Group Inc. proposed that the bookseller acquire much bigger rival Barnes & Noble Inc., in a gamble to unite the two giant but struggling retailers at a time of major tumult in the book industry.”