“Nearly every image is original: either a graphic created in-house, a photograph taken in-house, or an image so manipulated by Photoshop as to not represent any real event that has ever happened. The tiny graphics team at The Onion pumps out about 50 original pieces of art per week.”
A Director’s Medium: It’s Not Just The Writers Who Make This A Golden Age Of TV
“The prevailing sentiment is that TV is a writer’s medium, and film is a director’s medium. … But that doesn’t mean TV can’t be a director’s medium, too – many ‘golden age’ shows have also had fantastic directing. In fact, many respected movie directors are taking notice and flocking to the small screen.”
Harvey Weinstein Feuds With NY Post Columnist Over “Finding Neverland” Musical
Post theater columnist Michael Riedel, based on two reviews of the pre-Broadway run in Cambridge, Mass., pronounced the show “dead in the water” and said of the critics that “if you’re going to review the baby in the cradle, strangle it.” One of those critics, Jeremy Gerard, reports on the brouhaha and Weinstein’s predictable response.
No Copyright For Works Not Created By Humans, Says U.S. Copyright Office
“Marking an end to the controversy surrounding the ‘monkey selfie,’ a self-portrait snapped by a particularly photogenic macaque in Indonesia in 2011, the US Copyright Office” has ruled that it “will register an original work of authorship, provided that the work was created by a human being … the Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants.”
Zaha Hadid Sues Critic For Defamation
“Zaha Hadid has filed a law suit against the New York Review of Books and architecture critic Martin Filler … claiming that Filler had falsely implied that she did not care about the working conditions of migrant workers on her projects in the Middle East.”
Google Wins Dismissal Of German Publishers’ Suit
“A German regulator handed Google Inc a victory on Friday as it said it would not pursue a complaint brought against the internet search engine operator by a group of publishers for giving users access to their news articles.”
The Real Editors And Gatekeepers Of The Internet
“In a small number of Silicon Valley conference rooms, decisions are being made about what people should and shouldn’t see online – without the accountability or culture that has long accompanied that responsibility.”
Chautauqua Symphony Mourns Murdered Violinist
“For eight weeks every summer, Mary Whitaker, 61, would come to the Chautauqua Institute to play violin with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Whitaker was a regular for the past 36 years.”
The Art Thief Who’s Turned Into An Online Art World Sensation
Turbo Paul: “When it comes to negotiating the recovery of stolen art, the bad guys want to deal and tell the truth, the so-called good guys lie and prevaricate.”
You Have No Excuse: More (And More And More) Ballet On The Internet
“The quantity of ballet performance history currently available to us on YouTube alone is staggering. No ballet illustrates this better than ‘Giselle.'”
Streaming Opera To Your TV: The Bad, The Good, And The Rather Enjoyable
“It all makes one long for some Netflix-like behemoth — Netclassix? — that could easily stream works from all over to all televisions, tablets, smartphones and computers.”
Time To Celebrate #Shortreads?
“Of all things, the least of which we have is time, and short novels tip their hats courteously to that fact.”
Time For The FCC To Review The Comcast Takeover Of Time Warner
“Among other things, the FCC requested that Comcast explain how the proposed Time Warner Cable transaction would result in ‘cost savings and other synergies worth approximately $1.5 billion’ according to the public filing.”
Sometimes An Artist’s Best Strategy Is To Avoid Strategic Plans
“No matter what the crisis is — whether financial, emotional, spiritual, creative, physical or other — it is not the time to be setting future objectives or making determinations about how you’ll behave in a year, or two, or three. You don’t have objectivity in a crisis and your ability to be strategic is greatly diminished.”
The Canadian Roots Of North American Fringe Festivals
“A producer named Brian Paisley with a $50,000 grant decided to open up the crummy, empty spaces in Old Strathcona to artists. Or people who wanted to be artists. Anyone, really. … This year, there are 53 venues.”
These Beautiful Images Might Just Make You Want To Diagram Sentences Like It’s 7th Grade At The Parochial School
“It was a purely American phenomenon. … It was invented in Brooklyn, it swept across this country like crazy and became really popular for 50 or 60 years.”
Fearing Riots, Indian Gov’t Blocks Film About Indira Gandhi’s Assassination
Certification board chief Leela Samson: “We saw the film and decided it could not be released as it was, due to fears that it would lead to disruption of public order. … The film is double trouble. It glorifies Indira Gandhi’s assassins who took the law into their own hands and it glorifies the hanging of the two men.”
Thelma Holt Tells Tales
“In the previous 15 minutes, [the legendary London stage producer] has related one story about a fellow theatre producer (unprintable), two stories about a theatre owner (possibly libellous), a yarn about an encounter with the crown prince of Japan (probable diplomatic incident) and a saga that swerves from the crisis in Gaza to David Cameron’s taste in suits.”
Met Opera Settles Contracts With Last Remaining Unions
“The Metropolitan Opera announced Thursday night that it had reached labor settlements with the last of its unions, including those representing its costume and wardrobe departments, hair and makeup artists, scenic artists and designers, camera operators and others.”
Even After A Decade On Broadway, “Wicked” Is Casting (Exactly) The Same Spells
“The producers have been careful, not to say monomaniacal, about replicating the experience they gave audiences in the opening months. … My return visit also confirmed how significant … young fans remain to the show’s success. The audience at the evening performance I attended teemed with bopping tweens and their families.”