Amazon, in an open letter last week to it customers, indicated it would “have to capitulate” to Macmillan’s demands because the publisher “has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.”
Tag: 02.04.10
Movement = Mood?
A new study “finds an ostensibly meaningless physical activity — moving marbles upward — can cause people to think more positive thoughts.”
World’s Oldest Christian Monastery Completes Restoration
“Egypt’s antiquities chief on Thursday unveiled the completion of an 8-year, $14.5 million restoration of the world’s oldest Christian monastery,” St. Anthony’s in the Red Sea Mountains. The monastery, which is still in operation, was completed in 350AD by the followers of its namesake saint, who is considered the founder of Christian monasticism.
Lars Hansen, Former Head Of Pasadena Playhouse, Is Dead At 60
“From 1988 to 1999, [he] served as managing director and executive director of the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was responsible for presenting more than 150 plays and musicals, including four that went to Broadway.” (He died two days after the Playhouse announced that it would close its doors.) Hansen went on to head L.A.’s Theater League Alliance and USC’s cultural relations office.
A New, Multimillion-Pound Theatre Opens In Belfast
Just days after the province announced plans for a new opera company, “Northern Ireland’s theatre capacity has increased with the official opening of the £7.6 million Theatre at the Mill in Newtownabbey. Located on the northern edge of Belfast city limits, the 400-seat venue is housed in a former linen mill and forms part of a complex that also hosts the borough council’s new Civic Centre.”
The Peripatetic And Perverse Life Of Patricia Highsmith
Elizabeth Zimmer: “Clear from childhood that she was something of a changeling – a boy trapped in a girl’s body – she managed to turn a difficult upbringing into a difficult adulthood, while producing reams of work in several genres.”
Adolescents – You Really Can’t Reason With Them
“There are powerful forces – such as the brain’s reaction to the presence of peers as a potent prompt and reward for sensation-seeking – that can move an adolescent to select risky behavior as the ‘right’ choice. … When you sit down to explain to your early adolescent why it’s unwise to climb the town water tower to have sex with predicate felons while doing nitrous, you’re acting on two assumptions that we now know to be false.”
The Irresistible Allure Of So You Think You Can Dance
Yes, it has cheesy production values and “pits dance styles against each other, usually to the disadvantage of contemporary choreography. Most of the numbers are stunt-heavy hip-hop routines, disco, Broadway, lindy hop and jazz.” Somehow none of that hinders its addictiveness.
Cue The Costumer: What Musicians Wear Onstage Matters
“[I]deally how musicians are clothed should have no bearing on the sound they make. But the brute fact is that understated elegance inspires confidence in the performer, while ugly, ill-fitting and garish outfits (still the norm in our concert halls) make one sub-consciously doubt the wearer’s competence.”
London’s Foundry Gallery To Be Replaced By A Hotel
“[T]he Foundry, an east London gallery and pub that for more than a decade has served as a focal point for the area’s alternative art scene, is set to be demolished after the site’s owners drew up plans for an 18-storey hotel and retail complex.” But “a wall painted with one of the biggest Banksy murals in Britain” will be preserved.