“It’s not often that I take my seat at a restaurant out of breath and disoriented but the Secret Restaurant prides itself on the punter’s total immersion into the setting – on the night I visited, that was Vienna, 1946. Having whispered a password in a Frenchman’s ear and been led a scrambling chase through tunnels, over duckboards and up flight after flight of freezing stairs, the diner finally finds themselves [sic] in a candlelit loft.”
Tag: 02.06.12
The Book Of Mormon Beats Wicked and The Lion King In Broadway Box Office Race
“After 11 months of performances on Broadway, The Book Of Mormon reached a milestone last week in its extraordinary box office success fueled by premium ticket pricing: The musical beat the long-running blockbusters Wicked and The Lion King to become the top-grossing show in a single week for the first time, even though Mormon had hundreds of fewer seats to sell to each performance than those two other commercial hits.”
Indian Court Orders Google, Facebook, Others To Block Certain Content – And They Do
“Facebook and Google say they have complied with an Indian court directive and removed ‘objectionable’ material. They are among 21 web firms, including Yahoo and Orkut, facing a civil suit in Delhi accusing them of hosting material that may cause communal unrest. A criminal case of similar allegations is due to be heard next month.”
Verizon And Redbox Join Forces To Compete With Netflix
“Verizon Communications Inc and Coinstar’s Redbox unit have formed a joint venture to sell video services aimed at competing against video rental giant Netflix Inc. The venture will combine the Redbox DVD rental kiosk business with an Internet video offering from Verizon, including mobile offerings, in the second half of the year.”
Should Replicas Of Destroyed Sculptures Be In A Museum Show?
“That knotty question arises in the case of Jack Goldstein, an admired artist whose sculptures are currently included in” a Pacific Standard Time show at Pomona College. Goldstein, known mainly as a painter, made a few sculptures which were shown at Pomona 40 years ago. They don’t survive, so Pomona recreated two of them. Is this enterprising? Or unethical?
More Large Book Retailers Join Ban On Amazon
“The money-losing U.S. chain stunned and cheered the publishing industry by announcing its Amazon ban earlier this week, citing the online company’s policy of reserving exclusive rights to sell e-books produced by its new publishing arm. By week’s end, both Indigo and Books-A-Million, the second largest chain with more than 200 stores, had joined the ban.”
Mounting Internet Protests Against International Anti-Piracy Deal
“European activists who participated in American Internet protests last month learned that there was political power to be harnessed on the Web. Now they are putting that knowledge to use in an effort to defeat new global rules for intellectual property.”
Berlin’s Deutsche Guggenheim To Close
“Over the years the Guggenheim has held 57 exhibitions and attracted 1.8 million visitors. It also commissioned 17 artists — among them John Baldessari, Anish Kapoor, Gerhard Richter and James Rosenquist — to create new works that were first shown at Deutsche Guggenheim.”
Reinventing Classical Music: Pub Crawl
“The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – where I’m joint leader – are mid-way through something a little unusual. We’re out on the road on tour, but rather than concert halls, our venues are London pubs. Our aim is to put the social back into music.”
Twelve Arts Donors Among This Year’s 50 Biggest American Philanthropists
“Reporters for the Chronicle found specific donations of at least $1 million to arts and cultural institutions by 12 of the 50, totaling $213.4 million. The Philanthropy 50, as the Chronicle calls them, gave $10.4 billion in total charitable donations in 2011, more than three times the $3.3 billion they donated in 2010.”