“Counting only things that are printed and bound, we arrive at about 146 million. This is our best answer today. It will change as we get more data and become more adept at interpreting what we already have.”
Tag: 08.05.10
9/11 Memorial And Museum: Not Just Another Museum?
“Far from being the toothless, tasteful tribute to American greatness many expected after an earlier incarnation, the International Freedom Center, was abandoned five years ago, the revamped museum promises an unblinking account of the violence and terror of Sept. 11, 2001.”
Are Novellas Making A Comeback?
“It’s fashionable to lament the status of the novella: unjustly neglected, the ugly duckling of the literary world, etc. Actually the novella seems in pretty healthy shape to me.”
Latest Holocaust Documentary Stuck With ‘R’ Rating
A Film Unfinished, “directed by Yael Hersonski, dissects a Nazi propaganda film that purported to depict life among Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II but actually manipulated its portrayal to reinforce anti-Jewish policies.” The appeals board kept the rating because of the film’s “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities including graphic nudity.”
Jerry Garcia Biopic Forbidden to Use His Songs
“Grateful Dead Prods. and the Jerry Garcia estate issued a statement Wednesday asserting that they are not involved in the film and won’t license songs for it.”
Ken Tribe, 96, Who Transformed Classical Music in Australia
The attorney and administrator, who over several decades helped Music Viva Australia become the world’s largest single presenter of chamber music, went on to be lead author of the so-called “Tribe Report,” which led to the separation of the country’s orchestras from the national broadcaster.
How Our Bedrooms Are Like Those of the Stone Age
“A German study finds our preferences regarding the placement of bedroom furniture reflect the safety concerns of our distant ancestors. According to the paper, … our choice of room layout is remarkably consistent with the physical environment prehistoric men and women preferred.”
Nacho Duato Says Russian Dance Needs an Overhaul
The Russians “have never really danced,” says the Spanish choreographer, whose new job is directing St. Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky ballet company. “They have the best dancers in the world, a lot of money, a lot of publicity, a lot of soul, but they need renovation, and they are very conscious of that.”
Wagner for Children at Bayreuth
The new Eva-and-Katharina-Wagner regime at the Festspielhaus has begun presenting abridged versions of the Wagner canon intended for young viewers. Of this summer’s 70-minute Tannhäuser, Anthony Tommasini writes, “irreverent and completely charming … I have seldom been among an audience of such delighted operagoers.”
‘German, and How It Got That Way’
How invading Aryans, an ex-Roman soldier nicknamed “Herman the German,” the mighty Rhine, Martin Luther and Otto von Bismarck helped create der deutsche Sprache as we know it today.