Known for its arts and architecture, Jacmel had been a tourist destination. Hundreds of people were killed there in the earthquake, but the devastation to the city is manageable, and rebuilding and restoration seem possible.
Tag: 01.20.10
Surprise For Researchers: Texting Strengthens Literacy
“A study of eight- to 12-year-olds found that rather than damaging reading and writing, ‘text speak’ is associated with strong literacy skills. Researchers say text language uses word play and requires an awareness of how sounds relate to written English.”
Online, Users Of Museum Sites Morph Into Curators
“While museums have been experimenting with the Web for years, these projects have often consisted of little more than an exhibit photo gallery or online guestbook. In recent years, however, the rise of social media has given Web users the technological wherewithal to play a more active role in shaping the direction of museum collections.”
Julie Andrews: I Am Not Planning A Comeback
“‘What is happening is that I am re-creating a concert last year I did at the Hollywood Bowl and toured America with,’ she explained. ‘It’s with full symphony orchestra and singers. The first half is all Rodgers and Hammerstein music as it is related to me, so it’s footage and narration and storytelling.’ And, yes, a bit of singing from Andrews.”
What Robert B. Parker Did For The Detective Novel
Parker, who died Monday at his desk, “didn’t concern himself with looking back. Instead, he wrote, and in the process irrevocably altered American detective fiction, forging a link between classic depictions and more contemporary approaches to the form.”
Sundance Tries To Ditch Its Mainstream Reputation
“Year in and year out, the festival … is overloaded with undeniably non-commercial (and not necessarily artistic) films that don’t have a prayer of getting a theatrical release. But the accusation of worshiping Mammon is such a feared one that this year’s program guide fairly shouts on the cover, ‘This Is Your Guide to Cinematic Rebellion.'”
Folk Music Matriarch Kate McGarrigle Dead At 63
“[M]usic’s most multi-faceted family dynasty has lost the lynchpin which held it together through good times and bad. Alongside her older sister Anna, McGarrigle recorded a string of highly regarded folk-music albums.” She had a famously unsuccessful marriage to fellow folk singer Loudon Wainwright III; they “had a son, Rufus, and a daughter, Martha, both of whom inherited the family musical bug, albeit in wildly divergent ways.”
Erich Segal, 72, A Novelist And A Scholar
“After the success of Love Story, Segal neglected neither his academic, nor his popular, writing. … Despite his success he remained respected by colleagues and popular with students at Yale and Oxford, whom he charmed with lectures sometimes described as ‘living theatre’.” Not to mention that he wrote the screenplay for the Beatles’ film Yellow Submarine.
David Sarkisyan, 62, Moscow’s Crusading Preservationist
Under his direction, the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture “became a center of efforts to halt the destruction of everything from centuries-old mansions to modernist masterpieces and even the Central House of Artists, constructed under Leonid Brezhnev in the late Soviet era, a period that has few architectural defenders.”