“Nobody could deny that Jeffrey Archer ticks the zippy box, along with hundreds of other authors who might, in previous years, have been given to understand that a total lack of seriousness, along with the inability to write a decent sentence, still constituted powerful obstacles to Booker success. No longer.”
Tag: 09.11.11
Rebellion Leads To No Lost Art — Except For A Few Of The Dictator’s Cars
“Hewn from marble 2,000 years ago, the giant statues of the Roman emperors Augustus, Claudius and Tiberius command the floor at Libya’s National Museum. But they have to settle for ground level. Muammar Gaddafi reserved the top floor for himself.”
Sometimes, Wordless Movement’s The Way To Deal With Emotions
Since the horrors of 9/11, “choreographers have responded with works that attempt to make sense of the senseless.”
You’re Being Watched. Yes, You. And You. And Us Too.
“After a decade, the country is left with a legacy of secret and unilateral executive-branch actions, a surveillance infrastructure whose scope and inner workings remain secret with little oversight, a compliant judiciary system that obsequiously bows to claims of secrecy by the executive branch, and a populace that has no idea how its government uses its power or who is watching out for abuses.”
Who Gets To Talk About A Work In Progress? Good Question
“Given the growing power and influence of consumers, and given that we have welcomed them in and charged them money and promoted the importance of their presence and opinions, is it any wonder that they now want (or feel entitled or even encouraged) to blog about their experiences?”
You, Too, Can Be An Angel Investor, With As Little As £500 Down
“Judy Craymer, producer of Mamma Mia!, is now the 38th richest music millionaire in the UK, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. She is worth £62m since remortgaging her home to finance her idea of a musical based around Abba’s hits.”
Big Databases, Happy Biographers: Technology Changes Discovery
“For generations, biographers have used the same methods to conduct research: they waded through the paper trail left by their subject, piecing together a life from epistolary fragments. Based on what they found, they might troll through newspapers from specific dates in the hope of finding coverage of their subject. There were no new-fangled technologies that promised to transform their research, no way of harnessing machines to reveal new layers of historical truth. That’s all starting to change.”
How The National Theatre Keeps Producing Hits
The key is “an extraordinary safety net provided by the British government: an annual subsidy that today provides 28 percent of the National’s income: £19.6 million.” NT director Nicholas Hytner says that support is crucial “because we knew we could create work that we believed in without worrying 24 hours a day about ticket sales like so many American theaters have to.”