UK authors are protesting a plan to stop printing the prices of books on the books themselves. “The idea is that instead of being published with a suggested price, books should be published like eggs, as it were, so that the retailer alone would decide what to charge. But books are not like eggs. Every time we buy eggs, we are looking for the same thing we had last time; but every time we buy a book, we’re looking for something different. So when it comes to looking at the cost, we have nothing to go by, at the moment, except the recommended retail price.”
Tag: 03.05.04
Hubble Paints A Van Gogh
“Scientists say the latest image from the Hubble space telescope bears remarkable similarities to Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night, one of his most famous paintings and renowned for its bold whorls of light sweeping across a raging night sky.”
Immortal – Haitink At 75
Bernard Haitink turns 75. “The great Dutch conductor has been around for so long and has been so prominent – first as head of the London Philharmonic, then in charge of Glyndebourne and Covent Garden, in addition to his regular guest work with a range of orchestras – that it is hard not to think that he must somehow be immortal.”
The Koolhaas Effect – Architecture Of The Unconventional
Architect Rem Koolhaas is involved in aa series of unconventional projects across the globe. “His unorthodox choice of project reflects an impatience with the rules of a profession that he entered only late in life.”
Book Critics’ Circle Prizes Announced
Edward P. Jones has taken the top fiction prize at the National Book Critics’ Circle Awards, for his acclaimed novel of slave life on a Southern plantation, The Known World. Non-fiction winners included Paul Hendrickson and William Taubman, and a lifetime achievement award was presented to Studs Terkel.
WTC Office Park Design Unveiled
“Design guidelines intended to give three-dimensional form to the World Trade Center redevelopment project – but not quite as exactingly as a draft prepared last year – are now being circulated for comment among planners, architects and officials.” The plans focus on the 5-building office park that will surround the Ground Zero site, an aspect of the plan which lacks the glamour of the Freedom Tower and PATH station which garnered so much attention when they were unveiled several months ago, but which will have much to do with defining the eventual look and feel of the area.
The Award For Crassest Use Of Overtime Goes To…
Last week, just before a performance of the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof was scheduled to begin, the sister of theater legend Jerome Robbins, who was attending the show, collapsed and died in the aisle. The show was delayed for nearly an hour, as paramedics attempted to revive Sonia Cullinen, but the performance eventually went on. But where most in attendance saw an unavoidable tragedy, the musicians playing in the Fiddler pit apparently saw a chance to grab some extra cash, and demanded multiple units of overtime pay to compensate them for the delay. Michael Riedel reports that the pit orchestra wanted the stagehands’ union to join them in requesting overtime, but were turned down.
Protests Over Governor-General’s Award
“Some protests were logged yesterday with the Canada Council for the Arts, which recently selected the controversial artist Istvan Kantor (a.k.a. Monty Cantsin) as a winner of the Governor-General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts. Kantor gained notoreity (and a lifetime ban from the National Gallery in Ottawa) for one specialty, using his own blood to paint on gallery walls.” But Council officials insist that the number of protests they’ve heard is minimal, and that media interest is out of proportion to the actual size of the controversy.
Disney Faces Pressure To Can Eisner
Disney’s Michael Eisner has already lost his position as board chairman, and several prominent board members are putting serious pressure on the company to remove him as CEO as well. Eisner’s detractors say that he has lost the confidence not only of his own employees, but of institutional investors around the world. “They contend that he has done little since the mid-1990s to boost the company’s stock price and earnings to acceptable levels, as ABC television ratings have languished and few hits have emerged from the Disney animation factory.”
How To Make A Marxist Turn In His Grave
It’s difficult to imagine the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara being pleased with the idea of his face being plastered all over posters, t-shirts, umbrellas, and other assorted trinkets. But at some point in recent years, the famous portrait of Guevara was usurped by the bizarre and irony-proof world of high fashion, and now, the face represents nothing more than any other hot look of the current season. “How did an avowed Marxist become, literally, the poster boy for conspicuous capitalist consumption? Is it Che’s story that fascinates, or has his memory been usurped by that sole image, one that speaks to a life many know little, if anything, about?”