UNESCO And Museum Council Release Emergency List Of Endangered Syrian Antiquities

“The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has published an ’emergency red list’ of Syrian cultural objects in danger of being looted and illicitly traded. The list, which includes vessels, architectural elements, stamps, coins and figural sculpture, will be distributed to customs officials, police, auction houses and museums around the world.”

Hollywood Thinks Its Market Research Is Awful

“Audience tracking, a cottage industry created in the 1970s, works principally by polling viewers at test screenings to gauge interest and awareness of a film, or over opening weekend to provide a window on a movie’s demographics. … Many in the film industry believe that current tracking systems, which have been loudly criticized this summer for considerable inaccuracies in predicting opening weekend box office, are in dire need of improvement to better determine the viewing habits of today’s moviegoers.”

Why Donald Antrim Won’t Call Himself A Novelist

The new MacArthur winner says that an editor he once worked for “felt that a novelist was a person who had dedicated his or her life to the pursuit – the professional pursuit – of the art form. At the time, I thought that Ray’s opinions seemed curmudgeonly, old-school. Now that I’ve spent some years writing fiction, I am more inclined to see his point, the rightness of it.”

Shakespeare: To Update Or Not To Update? The New York Times Launches A Debate

As a series of high-profile productions opens in New York this season, writes Charles Isherwood, “fellow New York Times writers and I will be regularly posting commentaries on aspects of them, engaging larger questions about how today’s theater artists approach these canonical works, and inviting you to add your opinions about how vitally Shakespeare continues to speak to modern audiences.”

German Stand-Up Comedians Not Only Exist, They’re Telling Jokes About Germans

“Germany has had a kick-me sign on its back for comedians at least since Kaiser Wilhelm donned a spiked helmet more than a century ago.” (Think Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks’s The Producers, Hogan’s Heroes, Mike Myers’s Sprockets.) But all those acts were outsiders laughing at Germans. Germans are getting in the act now. … Lederhosen-wearing Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy is among a growing group of German comedians who get laughs mocking Germany.”