“The annual Cairo book fair, due to have been held this week, has been abandoned, with many foreign exhibitors left stranded after failing to secure flights to take them out of the country.”
Tag: 02.01.11
Author Martel Stops Sending Books To Canadian Prime Minister
“After four years and the donation of 100 carefully chosen books, Yann Martel, author of the 2002 Man Booker prize-winner Life of Pi, has finally ended his self-appointed role as the literary mentor of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. Martel has been sending Harper one book every fortnight since April 2007.”
TV News On Egypt Story – Big-Time FAIL
“This kind of story flushes out the good, the bad and the stupid in TV news. It’s as obvious as a poke in your eye that TV news wants an understandable, familiar narrative to emerge. What’s unfolding has to have a story arc, just like a movie. So, the lack of a discernible opposition leader in Egypt flummoxed everybody.”
Miami’s Most Famous Art Spot Is Now A Sand Bar
“A sandbar in Biscayne Bay seems to be Miami’s latest hot spot for staging an illicit rendezvous. Just after one mystery affair wrapped up — a grand piano that appeared on a sandbar about 200 metres offshore was removed last week — a new one blossomed.”
Police Arrest 50 Trying to Break In, Loot Egyptian National Museum
“Soldiers detained about 50 men trying to break into the Egyptian National Museum in a fresh attempt to loot some of the country’s archaeological treasures, the military said Monday.”
Peter Oundjian Named Chief Conductor of Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Oundjian, who will stay in his job as music director of the Toronto Symphony, “will succeed French conductor Stephane Deneve as the guiding maestro of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in 2012.”
Business Deal Gone Bad Threatens National Black Theater’s Existence
“In 2002 the National Black Theater, a cultural anchor of Harlem, invited the owners of Nubian Heritage, a growing beauty-care company with an African pedigree, to invest in its sprawling building at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. … Nine years later, though, the store is closed; the partnership owes nearly $1.8 million in unpaid property taxes; and the theater is facing foreclosure yet again.”
Nabokov’s Theory of Butterfly Evolution Vindicated
The novelist, who was also a self-taught lepidopterist, “came up with a sweeping hypothesis for the evolution of the butterflies he studied, a group known as the Polyommatus blues. He envisioned them coming to the New World from Asia over millions of years in a series of waves. Few professional lepidopterists took these ideas seriously during Nabokov’s lifetime.” They do now.