Does the prospect of deepening economic meltdown and political disarray raise the specter of a social upheaval and, perhaps, the collapse of capitalism, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression?
In a deal two decades in the making, China is opening its doors to the Walt Disney Co., having finally given the quintessentially Western enterprise the go-ahead to bring Mickey Mouse and his fellow characters to Shanghai with a new Disney theme park tailored to the Chinese megalopolis.
French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who wrote several seminal works during his six-decade career and is responsible for those seemingly inscrutable structuralist texts you may have grappled with in college, died last weekend at 100.
Two new biographies about the irascible and idiosyncratic Ayn Rand, objectivist philosopher and ham-fisted mistress of the capitalist morality tale, show how her rocky Russian childhood and her subsequent self-reinvention campaign in America (partly conducted in Hollywood, of course) influenced her work, and how her ideas led to her own undoing.
“The Opposite Field,” a memoir by Jesse Katz, is a moving meditation about baseball, politics, and the unease of negotiating a new kind of American place.
Google expanded its sprawling multimedia empire this week by adding a music feature to its array of search options, which means that the average, law-abiding music buff won’t have to shell out 99 cents or settle for a 30-second snippet of a new song on iTunes, nor hope that the song will eventually queue up on a Pandora playlist, to hear the whole thing online.
Despite Hollywood’s reputation for being a liberal hotbed, some stubborn forms of prejudice persist, such as the lingering notion that it’s a potential career-killer for certain high-profile types to come out of the closet. Luckily, those who are willing to try have at least one industry expert ready to give them a hand with the press, the public and their risk-averse bosses.
The Church of Scientology counts several high-profile figures from the world of entertainment among its members—Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, to name a few—and they sometimes act as public advocates for their religion. However, one of their own, screenwriter and director Paul Haggis, has very publicly left the fold after taking issue with the church’s stance on Proposition 8.
Somehow the Walt Disney Co. managed to convince the parents of one-third of America’s babies to spend $200 million a year on Baby Einstein videos. The tapes were supposed to smarten kids up, but watching TV from ages 1-3 could actually cause attention problems. Under pressure, Disney is now offering refunds. (continued)
The veteran alt-rockers of R.E.M. are joining forces with other musical acts such as Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails and Roseanne Cash in a bid to close Guantanamo Bay. Their group effort, the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, sprung in part from their joint outrage about their music reportedly being blared at high volumes to upset prisoners held at the detention center in Cuba.
There was a time when Hollywood studios kept their stables of stars on a short leash, keeping close watch over their public personas and even arranging their marriages. Actors at least appear to have more leeway these days, but some studios are requiring that they refrain from broadcasting the minutiae of their daily lives via social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Drawing God is an age-old challenge, but ultra-quirky illustrator R. Crumb was up for it—although it took a lot of white-out to do the job, which seems fitting somehow. Crumb tackled the first 50 chapters of the Old Testament in his latest creation, simply titled “The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb,” and lo, it is good.
A Turkish television series, “Separation,” caused a diplomatic clash between Turkey and Israel after an episode this week portrayed an Israeli soldier shooting and killing a Palestinian baby. The fictional scene was shown on Israeli television Wednesday and drew criticism from Israel’s foreign minister Thursday.
PepsiCo Inc. ran into trouble trying to be all hip and stuff with an iPhone app aimed at young male consumers of Amp energy drink. It was bad enough that the app was built around the charming idea of bagging 24 different types of women—and then posting the conquests online. Almost worse was the company’s Twittered apology after reception of its “Amp Up Before You Score” app fell flat.
Donald Trump is plotting to plop down a deluxe golf resort in an “environmentally sensitive” part of Scotland—a plan that’s getting some of the locals good and riled up, including actor Tilda Swinton, according to the AP. Swinton has added her name to a petition signed by some 15,000 Scots to block Trump from breaking ground, which does not please The Donald.
Pornography does not promote sex. It promotes masturbation. It promotes the solitary auto-arousal that precludes intimacy and love. Pornography is about getting yourself off at someone else’s expense.
A new book on Ramparts Magazine, “A Bomb in Every Issue,” marks the significant contribution of the alternative San Francisco-based publication that gave a viable and legitimate voice to 1960s radicalism. Check out the NYT’s review of it here.
Worried about catching the dreaded swine flu? Need to update your wardrobe with some stylish and tailored work solutions? You can do both with the Haruyama Trading Co.’s dapper new anti-flu business suit. That, or you could smear yourself in toothpaste, which isn’t exactly the best look for the workplace.
After his legal team came up short Tuesday with its request that Swiss officials reconsider his recent arrest and release him on bail, film director Roman Polanski remained behind bars, unable to spend his time awaiting his fate from his resort home in Gstaad.
The New York Philharmonic was all set to fly into Cuba and jam, until the Treasury Department decided the patrons footing the bill couldn’t go. That’s pretty insulting to Cuba, considering that the same posse of musicians and rich people was cleared for a trip to North Korea.
Here it is, people: further sobering evidence of The Decline of Print Media. The latest publications to give up their inky ghosts include a longtime fixture in the foodie world, Gourmet, as well as two bridal and one parenting magazine, all under the umbrella of publishing giant Conde Nast.
America Performs Its Familiar Role of Propping Up a Dictator
