“James Patterson’s $70 million in earnings vaults him to No. 1 on our list, up from second place two years ago. The prolific thriller writer’s latest deal, signed last fall, involves penning a carpal tunnel-risking 17 books by the end of 2012 for an estimated $100 million.”
Tag: 08.20.10
Are Celebrities Like Snooki and Paris Hilton a Modern Plague? Not at All
“Reality shows that exalt indolent, loud-mouthed exhibitionists may seem like almost biblical retribution for our materialistic, celebrity-obsessed age. But actually, these kinds of series are an extension of a time-honored form of entertainment, one that reaches back to the era of landed gentry, debutantes and social seasons in places like Newport, R.I., or the French Riviera.”
Jane Austen Couldn’t Punctuate
To judge from her handwritten drafts of Persuasion, “Austen hardly punctuates at all, so what you get is a much more urgent form of language, which becomes more restrained when it is edited. … There tends to be an awful lot of clauses and sub-clauses. There is the odd comma, but they aren’t always in the most rational places. There are no paragraphs.”
The Next Generation of Interactive Theater? Bicycle Plays
“Bike riders in New York have a secret, a communal understanding about the pleasures of navigating the urban landscape … Now there is a new piece of interactive theater to take advantage of that feeling. Joyride is a group bike ride with a shared route and a common soundtrack. Riders equipped with MP3 players and headphones set off from the same point, pushing ‘play’ simultaneously.”