Richard Nash, who pushed Soft Skull Press to prominence in the early 2000s, has moved on to Cursor and Red Lemonade – online communities for writers and readers that he thinks may help revolutionize publishing again.
Tag: 08.25.11
Why Is America Becoming More Homogenized? Because Americans Move So Much.
“From Boston to Burbank, we buy the same nationally advertised products at the same chain stores and restaurants, happily embracing conformity as we proudly proclaim our uniqueness.” U.Va. researchers “argue [that] our willingness to move far from home leads us to crave the comfort of sameness in our immediate surroundings.”
Cincinnati’s Historic Taft Theatre Gets A Makeover
“After a $3 million upgrade, the historic theater now boasts a $1.3 million eco-friendly air conditioning system, larger, more comfortable seats, tripled capacity in the women’s restrooms and doubled capacity in the men’s restrooms. A new color scheme and lighting honor the building’s past but bring it into the 21st century.”
Streaming That Sonata Is So Easy – If You Can Only Find It
iTunes and streaming music services have never known how to deal with classical music, says Steve Smith. But Spotify, which thrilled pop music lovers when it debuted in July, offers slightly better service – and a trove of European recordings otherwise unavailable in the U.S.
University Takeover Of Theatre Relieves Strained Missouri Symphony
After an expensive building renovation, the Missouri Symphony Society just about collapsed. Instead, the University of Missouri will lease and manage the Missouri Theatre, solving a host of problems for the school and the symphony.
Haruki Murakami Yanked From New Jersey School Book List
“Haruki Murakami’s venerated novel of love and mental illness, Norwegian Wood, has been pulled off a reading list for New Jersey teenagers after a rash of complaints from parents.”
New NASA Program Is Science Fiction (Literally)
“Time travel and warp drives may, alas, be out of the picture in a new partnership between NASA and Tor/Forge Books, which will see the science fiction publisher’s authors teaming up with the space agency to release a range of ‘scientifically accurate and entertaining’ novels”.
Coming Explosion Of URL Suffixes Is A Confusing Protection Racket, Says Esther Dyson
ICANN is set to introduce “a host of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), the suffixes that go after the dot, such as .com, .org, and, soon, .anything. … [The] value formerly associated with Apple could now be divided into Apple.computers, apple.phone, ipod.apple, and so on. If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is.”
American Folk Art Museum’s Hopes For Survival Fade
“The museum has defaulted on its construction bonds, moved into its old, smaller space near Lincoln Center and is talking of dissolving and transferring its collections to another institution. … [The] museum’s descent into financial trouble is a parable about how poor decisions and unfortunate timing can undermine even the most noble of ambitious undertakings.”
New York’s Cherry Lane Theater Pulls Back From The Brink
“The artistic director of the Cherry Lane Theater said on Thursday that she no longer planned to sell its building in Greenwich Village to pay down debts, and added that the theater’s recently precarious financial situation had been eased due to new rental income and changes to business practices.”