“It would be foolish to argue against Mamet’s genius.” But do his plays still measure up?
Tag: 09.28.09
Princeton’s Free-Kindle Experiment A Flop With Students
“[L]ess than two weeks after 50 students received the free Kindle DX e-readers, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices. … ‘I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,'” one student said.
History’s Habit Of Forgetting Female Artists
“[I]t’s not that great women artists do not exist. It is that men are very good at finding new reasons to underrate them. We didn’t rule the world for millennia without being pretty ingenious when it comes to preserving our territory.”
Why France Treats Artists’ Behavior Differently
“[T]he French culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, says he is ‘dumbfounded’ by [Roman] Polanski’s ‘absolutely dreadful’ detention,” while “a large group of French actors and cinematographers … have signed an angry petition calling for Polanski’s ‘immediate liberation.'” Their response is consistent with tradition.
Wilshire Blvd.’s Berlin Wall To Be Erected, Toppled At Night
The organizer of the Nov. 8 installation, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall and originally slated for daytime, “said that the time was changed for the ‘Wall Across Wilshire’ … because the event was beginning to take on a ‘block party, street event’ quality rather than a historical one.”
Next To Normal‘s Twitter Campaign Wins Online Award
The Broadway show’s winning campaign “involved a retelling of the show’s narrative in tweets attributed to the tuner’s characters (as penned by book writer Brian Yorkey).”
UK Libraries Unite In Huge Lending Network
“More than 4,000 libraries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland” have banded together to allow people to borrow from them, no matter where they live. “Existing membership cards or a proof of address will allow people to use any library in the scheme, although books have to be returned to the same area.”
Spanish Actor With Down Syndrome Wins Film Prize
“Pablo Pineda won the prize for his portrayal of a man with Down’s syndrome who gets a university degree and falls in love in Yo Tambien (Me Too).”
For CEOs Of Big Nonprofits, 2008 Pay Echoed The Boom
“[A] new study by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, released Monday, shows that the top pay at the nation’s largest nonprofits rose again last year, with some eye-popping results. But the survey also found signs that these high-dollar salaries may be starting to turn around.”
US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan On The Benefits Of Her Job
“I was at a festival recently at Yosemite, and I was standing in line to use the bathroom. This was up in the Tuolumne Meadows, and the people said, You go first! And I said, Oh I couldn’t possibly. They said, You must!”