“A new exhibition in London lets visitors in on the dirtiest of secrets: most everything we consider filthy – from dust to excrement to bacteria to rubbish to soil – is also essential to human existence.”
Tag: 04.12.11
What Book Publishing Was Like In 1984 (Remember When?)
Orders were placed by telephone, fax, or (snail) mail. Sales figures were totaled up manually and distributed inter-office on mimeographed sheets. The top retail booksellers were B. Dalton, Waldenbooks and Crown; the Book-of-the-Month Club was still a big deal. Peter Osnos looks back …
Cunningham Dance Without Cunningham
“Although the Legacy Plan lays out terms for other companies to take on Cunningham’s dances (a few already have), I can’t imagine them being performed by others with anything like the style Cunningham instilled into several generations of his own performers.”
Calling All Poetry Fanatics (Oh Wait…)
“A book that undertakes to educate ‘general readers’ about contemporary poetry is handicapped by the uncomfortable truth that there is no such thing as a general reader.”
Citigroup Won’t Break Up EMI
“Citigroup, the US bank which wrested control of music giant EMI from financier Guy Hands in February, is poised to sell the record label as a whole business rather than break up its music and publishing divisions.”
Jazz Violinist Billy Bang, 63
He “was an important figure on the experimental jazz scene that blossomed in New York in the 1970s. But he gained wider recognition in the last decade for a series of recordings which drew on his military service during the Vietnam War.”
Looted Golden King Tut Statue Returned To Cairo Museum
“A statue of King Tutankhamun, which was looted during Egypt’s anti-government protests, has been returned to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo along with three other pharaonic artifacts, Zahi Hawass, Minister of State for Antiquities, announced today.”
Chinese Censors Ban Time Travel On TV
“In a statement (available here in Chinese) dated March 31, the State Administration for Radio, Film & Television said that TV dramas that involve characters traveling back in time ‘lack positive thoughts and meaning’.”
Ugly Skyscrapers Have Ruined London, Says Guardian Critic
Jonathan Jones: “Someone has to speak up for the London skyline. It is being viciously attacked, invaded by philistines, and a nation stunned into acceptance of every monstrosity so long as we are told it is modern seems happy to see taste, style and proportion go out of the window.”
The Origins Of War Horse
“Before it was made into a hit West End play, before it was bound for Broadway, before it was set to be Steven Spielberg’s next big movie, War Horse was a slim, powerful children’s book … Published in 1982, the book was a ‘huge nonevent’ at the time, according to its author, Michael Morpurgo … ‘If sales ever reached 1,500 copies a year, I would be surprised’.”