“Today, the problems associated with risk and uncertainty are constantly being amplified and, courtesy of our own imaginations, are turned into existential threats. Consequently, it is rare for unexpected natural events to be treated as just that; rather, they are swiftly dramatised and transformed into a threat to human survival.”
Tag: 10.11.10
The Hobbit Could Be History’s Most Expensive Movie
“The Hollywood blockbuster – a prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and planned to be shot in New Zealand for the last decade – is expected to cost US$500 million … and has already racked up legal fees believed to exceed $100m.”
Is There Veritas in Vino? Is the Real Me the Sober Mensch or the Opinionated Drunk?
“The argument is an interesting one, and one that psychologists have pondered for years. Who is the authentic self – the rude or bigoted person who may come out when we’re drunk or enraged or exhausted? Or the person we are the other 99% of time, when sobriety allows us to tamp down our unsavory impulses?”
Why It’s Important To Preserve Dying Languages
“Half the world’s 7,000 languages – most of them unwritten – are withering away for various political and economic reasons, disappearing at the rate of one every two weeks when their remaining elderly speakers die.”
Arthur Penn’s Real Contribution to Cinema
It wasn’t the heightened depiction of violence. (Is Bonnie and Clyde really so much more violent than some of John Ford’s Westerns?) Penn’s gift to the movies was “a profound understanding of the potential of actors to enrich their characters, and thus his movies, with layer upon layer of complexity and contradiction.”
Dublin, Where Theatre Thrives Amid (or Because of?) the Recession
There’s “‘a revolution in Irish theatre’ that has seen the great literary tradition challenged by an enterprising new generation of theatre-makers emerging from the universities … The great myth is that audiences want froth and fantasy during a recession: the Irish experience suggests that what they really crave is innovation and substance.”
Malaysian Islamists Object to Yet Another American Rock Star (Adam Lambert)
“Malaysia’s Islamist opposition party on Monday demanded that authorities cancel a planned concert by U.S. glam rocker Adam Lambert.” Said a party spokesman, “Adam Lambert’s shows … are outrageous, with lewd dancing and a gay performance that includes kissing male dancers, this is not good for people in our country.”
How a Ballerina Dances While Deaf
“[Nina] Falaise uses the tiny threads of residual hearing she has to hear the lowest notes in music – low notes which she says she ‘treasures very much’. Like many deaf people, she has a small amount of hearing that she utilises to the maximum. Falaise also senses music through vibrations – much the same vibrations as a hearing person will sense in a loud concert.”
Banksy Tags The Simpsons
“Typically, the ‘couch gag’ in the opening credits of The Simpsons is a spot for its writers to slip in one more punch line before the cartoon family assembles to watch its own show. But on Sunday that running joke went to a very dark place” – one dreamed up by the pseudonymous British street artist.
A Fine Use for a Failed Bank: The American Museum of Ceramic Art
“[The] PFF Bank and Trust … in Pomona closed its doors last year, and the FDIC put its building up for sale this year. But instead of another business taking over the two-story, 51,000-square-foot building, the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) will be moving in and gaining some serious elbow room.”