from AP via Pioneer Press

‘Simpsons’ creator: The real Springfield is in Oregon

Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - One of the best-kept secrets in television history has been revealed, with “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening pointing to Springfield, Ore., as the inspiration for the animated hometown of Homer and his dysfunctional family.

Groening told Smithsonian magazine, published online Tuesday, that he was inspired by the television show “Father Knows Best,” which took place in a place called Springfield. Springfield, Ore., is 100 miles south of Groening’s hometown of Portland.

“When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name,” Groening told the magazine. “I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S.

“In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, ‘This will be cool; everyone will think it’s their Springfield.’ And they do,” he said.

Groening said he has long given fake answers when asked about the Simpsons’ hometown, leaving open the possibility that his latest one is itself another fake.

The series has been on the air for 22 years, becoming the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program and a cultural phenomenon with colleges devoting courses to studying it.

[ click to read full article at TwinCities.com ]

from The Washington Post

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83

By Dean Takahashi | VentureBeat.com

Jack Tramiel, a huge figure in computer history and founder of Commodore, died on Sunday at the age of 83, according to Forbes.

Tramiel was both a visionary and controversial figure as the founder of Commodore International and former chief executive of Atari Corp. He was a Holocaust survivor and turned out to be a tough businessman. His life was like a chronicle of the tech industry.

He bought a typewriter repair shop in 1953 in New York and renamed it the Commodore Portable Typewriter company. The company became famous in tech circles in as it launched the Vic20, Commodore PET, and the Commodore 64. The latter went on to be one of the best-selling computer models of all time and it was a favorite among early video game fans, including a number who became famous video game designers.

[ click to read full article at WaPo.com ]

from The Hollywood Reporter

James Frey’s Full Fathom Five Taps Todd Cohen as Film & TV President

Cohen will oversee the company’s push into movies, TV and digital.

Full Fathom Five, the multi-platform intellectual property company founded by author James Frey,has tapped Todd Cohen as its president of film and television. He will head the company’s new Los Angeles office.

Cohen, who most recently served as vp of scripted television at Reveille, will oversee Full Fathom Five’s push into movies, TV and digital. According to the company, Cohen “will guide the company’s current projects through development and production as well as look to expand Full Fathom Five through partnerships with outside producers.“

At Reveille, Cohen worked on NBC’s The Office, Showtime’s The Tudors and ABC’s Ugly Betty. Cohen also developed, packaged and produced comedy, drama and unscripted programming for network and cable, as well as for digital platforms. He joined the company in 2004.

Full Fathom Five is best known for creating the hit book series I Am Number Four, which was adapted into a DreamWorks movie in 2011. The company is designed to be an IP generator and has already created over three dozen books, television shows, movies and video games. Several are already in development at CBS, HBO, 20^th Century Fox and Sony.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Full Fathom Five taps Cohen: Ex-Reveille exec to lead film, TV efforts

DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD: James Frey’s Full Fathom Five Hires Todd Cohen As President Of Film And Television

[ click to read article at The Hollywood Reporter ]

from Slate

White Bread Kills

A history of a national paranoia.

By Libby Copeland

Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

For some time now, a significant minority of the American population has considered bread suspect. Atkins and South Beach were down on bread long before the contemporary anti-gluten frenzy came into vogue. These days, everything from pizza to makeup is available gluten free, and no less a scientific authority than Jenny McCarthy has claimed that eliminating gluten from her son’s diet helped “cure” his autism. The problem is that gluten is everywhere, and avoiding it requires intense and sustained scrutiny. Dinner rolls are deeply suspect, of course, and so, for that matter, are dinner parties.

But if the anti-gluten craze is new, fear of bread is not. For the last century and a half of our history we’ve been intermittently spasmed by fears over bread. In the 1920s and ’30s, a bread panic called amylophobia swept the land, boosted by a leopard-skin-wearing diet guru named Bernarr MacFadden who toured the country and called bread the “staff of death.” Throughout the last century, fierce debates over white versus whole wheat pendulummed the nation’s eating habits back and forth. With  the rise of industrial bakeries, white bread was evidence of scientific progress, its very whiteness visual proof that it had been made by machines rather than dirty hands. But within decades, white bread was accused of causing deformities. “The whiter the flour the more rapidly it leads to the grave,” one expert observed.

[ click to continue reading at Slate.com ]

from AP via San Jose Mercury News

Designer of Porsche 911 dies at age 76 in Austria

By Associated Press

FRANKFURT, Germany — The Porsche 911, with its sloping roof line, long hood and powerful rear engine, has been a sports car-lover’s fantasy for the half century since its 1963 introduction. Its creator, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, grandson of the automaker’s founder, is dead at age 76.

Porsche died Thursday in Salzburg, Austria, Porsche AG said Thursday. No cause was provided.

Known as F.A. to his colleagues, Porsche headed the company’s design studio in the early 1960s when it needed a replacement for its first car, the Porsche 356. He came up with something sleek, stripped of decoration, and packing a six-cylinder engine where the 356 had a four-cylinder. It’s a combination that the company has evolved instead of replacing and which turns on car enthusiasts even today.

The 911, now in its seventh version, remains recognizably the same vehicle, though with much updated mechanical parts and technology. The new version was mobbed and groped when it was unveiled in September at the Frankfurt auto show. Showgoers left the doors and roof smeared with fingerprints as they scrambled to sit behind the wheel.

[ click to continue reading at mercurynews.com ]

from CBS 2 NYC

Pit Bull Shot In The Head Trying To Protect Owner, But Miraculously Survives

‘Kilo’ Didn’t Take Too Kindly To Gunman Pushing Into Staten Island Home

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There’s a dog that took a bullet, possibly saving his owner’s life. And surprisingly, the 12-year-old pit bull shot in the head survived.

The pit bull named “Kilo” was off to the vet Wednesday for a check-up, after taking a bullet for his owner, Justin Becker.

“He’s a hero. He saved my life. He went to protect me and he did his job,” Becker told CBS 2′s John Slattery.

Even Dr. Greg Panarello, the veterinarian who treated the dog, was impressed.

“Incredibly lucky. Incredibly lucky,” Panarello said.

It happened Saturday evening in Becker’s apartment house in the Graniteville section of Staten Island. A gunman, posing as a FedEx deliveryman, wearing a uniform, rang the bell and said he had a package, but then pushed his way into the apartment.

“He barged in. My first reaction after seeing the gun is push him out, so I pushed him to the door. Like I said, he fell like wedged right by the door. I slammed him inside the door and he was stuck and tried to get out now because he was getting crushed,” Becker said.

His girlfriend has been holding the dog and let go.

“I was shocked and I was terrified,” Nicole Percoco said.

The dog went after the gunman.

[ read the full article at CBS 2 ]

from The New York Times

In Turbocharged Porsches, Artist Richard Phillips Finds a New Muse

By TAMARA WARREN

Courtesy of the artistRichard Phillips, with his 1992 Porsche 965 on the set of a photo shoot last year for Elle magazine.

On a balmy March afternoon in Manhattan, the artist Richard Phillips was breaking in the refurbished engine on his 1992 Porsche 965. Mr. Phillips, who is 6-foot-5, just missed scraping his head on the roofline of the white sports car.

“For me, the 1992 965 Turbo represents the apex of Porsche design before the 993 came in,” he said, referencing the internal designations of consecutive 911 models. “Those are completely out-of-control cars. I love the car because there’s no safety net in it. It’s a great car to learn in.”

Mr. Phillips is making new paintings for a solo exhibition coming this fall at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Having recently taken up photography and filmmaking, he has been able to channel his interest in sports cars into his career. For the December issue of Elle magazine, he shot an editorial spread that featured the fashion model and television host China Chow posing with Mr. Phillips’s white Porsche and another 1992 Porsche belonging to his friend, the curator Neville Wakefield. “We brought the cars to Studio 59 on the West Side, brought them up in the freight elevator and worked with China to create this set-up,” he said.

In another experiment, he directed the short film “Sasha Grey,” in which the former pornographic actress drives a Lotus Evora along Mullholland Drive in Los Angeles. For the cover of Lotus magazine, he painted Ms. Grey in profile behind the wheel of the Evora. The cover was accompanied by a 16-page spread and an interview between Mr. Phillips and the author James Frey. Lotus loaned Mr. Phillips an Evora S to play with for the remainder of the year.

[ click to read full article at NYTimes.com ]

from Once Upon A Series

The Power of Six Quest Launches Today!

Are you a fan of The Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore?

Well, to celebrate the release of the paperback version of The Power of Six on 12th April, Penguin are launching a Facebook game where you can win some amazing prizes!

Points are collected by speed of which contestants answer questions (there’s a countdown clock for added urgency and pressure!), accuracy of answers and how many friends a player recommends to play the game.

And the prizes include:

A holiday in Spain for seven nights
An Ipad
A Kindle
Special release hardbacks of The Power of Six
Advance special release hardbacks of Rise of Nine
DVDs of the film I Am Number Four

The fun all kicks off today so if you are a fan of the series head on over to http://www.facebook.com/IAmNumberFourBook to be in with the chance to win some of these great prizes!

[ click to read at Once Upon A Series ]

from Shelf-Awareness

Movies: Scorsese to Direct Fifty Shades of Grey in 3D

Martin Scorsese, fresh off his book-to-3D-film hit Hugo, has been hired to direct a 3D version of Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic bestseller by E.L. James that was recently acquired in a multimillion-dollar deal by Universal Pictures and Focus Features.

Scorsese is writing the screenplay as a star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio, who will play the role of Christian Grey. Casting for the female lead is currently underway, with Kristen Stewart apparently the fan’s choice for the role of Ana Steele.

“I’m also seeing a black-and-white treatment as a real possibility,” Scorsese observed. “I mean, what we could do filmically with all those grey shades!”

[ click to read at Shelf-Awareness.com ]

from DealNews

Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” MP3 download

• Hotness: 

Archive.org offers downloads of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds for free. That’s the best deal we’ve seen on this classic radio drama. It’s available in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis (for you nerds out there). It originally aired in 1938 and is considered one of the greatest pranks of all time.

[ click to view at dealnews.com ]

thanks to Peter H.

from The Newark Advocate

The story is ending for The Book Nook

NEWARK — Bookworms in Licking County will have to find a new place for new and used books.

After close to 40 years in Newark, The Book Nook, 225 S. 21st St., is expected to close its doors for the last time Sunday.

The independent bookstore was started in Newark in the early 1970s and offered used and new books and collectors’ items.

“We didn’t want to close it,” said owner Pat Luckeydoo. “But it was something we had to do.”

Luckeydoo, 60, said she is ready to retire and was unable to find anyone who wanted to buy the store. Closing the store went from being a last resort to a necessary decision, she said.

“We will definitely miss the customers,” she said. “I’d like them to know they were very special to us.”

Luckeydoo first visited The Book Nook to buy “The Baby-sitters Club” books with her daughter, Michelle Petellier.

Around 2001, Petellier and her friend, Melinda Hicks, bought the store from its previous owner. Several years later, Luckeydoo took over ownership.

[ click to continue reading at The Newark Advocate ]

from The New York Times

A Poet of Unswerving Vision at the Forefront of Feminism

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

By MARGALIT FOX

Adrienne Rich, a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work — distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity — brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept it there for nearly a half-century, died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 82.

The cause was complications of rheumatoid arthritis, with which she had lived for most of her adult life, her family said.

Widely read, widely anthologized, widely interviewed and widely taught, Ms. Rich was for decades among the most influential writers of the feminist movement and one of the best-known American public intellectuals. She wrote two dozen volumes of poetry and more than a half-dozen of prose; the poetry alone has sold nearly 800,000 copies, according to W. W. Norton & Company, her publisher since the mid-1960s.

Triply marginalized — as a woman, a lesbian and a Jew — Ms. Rich was concerned in her poetry, and in her many essays, with identity politics long before the term was coined.

She accomplished in verse what Betty Friedan, author of “The Feminine Mystique,” did in prose. In describing the stifling minutiae that had defined women’s lives for generations, both argued persuasively that women’s disenfranchisement at the hands of men must end.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]

from Leesburg Today

Six Schools Advance In Battle Of The Books

It was a battle of book lovers Thursday morning, as Loudoun high school students competed in the 7th Annual Battle of the Books Semi-Finals.

High school teams were broken into three divisions, with Potomac Falls High School hosting the eastern competition; Stone Bridge High School the host site for the central competition; and Tuscarora High School hosting the western schools. Potomac Falls, Dominion, Broad Run and Park View competed in the eastern semi-finals; Stone Bridge, Briar Woods and Freedom in the central semis; and Tuscarora, Douglass School, Loudoun County, Loudoun Valley and Woodgrove in the west.

Students from the competing teams were asked questions from a selection of books. A certain amount of points were given for each correct answer. Five rounds consisted of 10 questions each.

The books in the battle were: The Alchemyst by Michael Scott; Chasing Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson; Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel; The Help by Kathryn Stockett; The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent; I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore; Knights of the Hill Country by Tim Tharp; Morpheus Road, The Light by D.J. MacHale; Mockingbird by Kathryn Erksine; and Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien.

[ click to continue reading at Leesburg Today ]

from Associated Press via Yahoo! News

Boxing writer Bert Sugar dies of cardiac arrest

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (AP) — Bert Sugar, an iconic boxing writer and sports historian who was known for his trademark fedora and ever-present cigar, died Sunday of cardiac arrest. He was 75.

Jennifer Frawley, Sugar’s daughter, said his wife, Suzanne, was by his side when he died at Northern Westchester Hospital. Sugar also had been battling lung cancer.

“Just his intelligence and his wit and his sense of humor,” Frawley said when asked what she will remember about her father. “He was always worried about people. He was always helping people.”

Sugar was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005. According to the hall’s website, Sugar wrote more than 80 books, including “The 100 Greatest Boxers Of All Time.” He also appeared in a handful of films, including “The Great White Hype” starring Samuel Jackson.

[ click to continue reading at Yahoo.com ]

from The Los Angeles Times

Storied West Hollywood studio buildings to be demolished

The studio lot, once owned by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, has had many names and housed many productions over the years. Its new owner intends to raze and replace several buildings.

By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks worked there. So did Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe,Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and practically everyone else.

Soon, though, wrecking crews will be at work at the storied West Hollywood movie lot at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue.

Once known as the Warner Hollywood Studio, it’s now called “The Lot.” Its new owner, CIM Group, intends to raze its aging wooden office buildings and sound-dubbing stages and replace them with glass-and-steel structures.

According to West Hollywood planning officials, the first phase of work involves the demolition of the studio’s Pickford Building — built in 1927 and remodeled in 1936 — and Goldwyn Building, which was built in 1932 and is used for sound editing.

Later phases will involve the removal of the studio’s Writers Building, Fairbanks Building and Editorial Building and a block-long row of production offices that line Santa Monica Boulevard. Replacement buildings will rise to six stories.

The redevelopment plans have riled many in the entertainment industry, particularly those who know the studio from past film shoots and television programs.

[ click to read full article at LATimes.com ]

from Good Morning Silicon Valley

from Publisher’s Weekly

Are Teens Embracing E-books? 

By Karen Springen

A recent PubTrak survey from R.R. Bowker indicated that teens remain reluctant when it comes to e-books. Accustomed to social media, they find that electronic stories have “too many restrictions,” according to the report. But many industry players—agents, booksellers, publishers, and authors—are saying just the opposite: digital sales are booming for YA fiction.

As evidence, over the recent holiday season Barnes & Noble sold five times as many YA e-titles as print ones online, says Jim Hilt, v-p of e-books for the chain. And at Amazon, there was a similar trend: “YA e-books are growing even faster than e-books overall in the Kindle Store,” Russ Grandinetti, v-p of Kindle Content, told PW in an e-mail.

As for the dreaded cannibalization of print, it does not appear to be happening in YA. “The whole pie grows,” says Hilt. “There’s a lot more evidence that users are going back and forth between digital and physical. People are now buying more books when they become digital readers. The key is to have the book available in all formats.”

About six weeks before some of its YA novels come out, Harper-Collins offers a “browse inside,” with free samples of 20% of the content. “We push it out everywhere,” says Diane Naughton, v-p of integrated marketing for HarperCollins. Last year, for example, the publisher ran the Dark Days of Supernatural promotion for 11 new YA books, with an online ad campaign, a video, and a Web site that linked readers to the program’s Twitter feed and Facebook page (with author tour information, among other things).

The publisher also publishes short novellas as extras. Before The Power of Six, the second book in Pittacus Lore’s I Am Number Four series, HarperCollins put out a $4.99 digital short that gave some backstory about the characters.

[ click to read full article at PW ]

from The San Jose Mercury News

Amazing wooden bicycles: beautiful, artistic, cool and recycled

By Bruce Newman

Bill Holloway and Mauro Hernandez pose with their hand built wooden bicycles at their San Jose, Calif. shop. The pair run Masterworks Wood and Design. Utilizing their skills in traditional wood working, they have created “art that you can ride”. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)

We are surprising slaves to conformity when it comes to the materials used to make things. An armoire made of bicycle parts? That would just be silly. But what about a bicycle made from an armoire? As it turns out, a bike hewn out of wood is a ride that some people pine for.

For the most part, form has rigidly followed function in bicycle design, with increasingly featherweight wonders forged out of materials ranging from aluminum to titanium. But a pair of San Jose woodworkers — one a self-taught genius, the other his interpreter to the real world — are turning recycled Honduran mahogany, cherry and maple hardwoods into cycling’s most splendid splinters.

At Masterworks Wood and Design, Bill Holloway, 49, and Mauro Hernandez, 33, are an artistic odd couple who have carved out a unique place for themselves in cycling’s peloton. They have built 10 bikes — all cruisers, with a pedicab in the works — that are made almost entirely of wood, and look like a Harley enthusiast’s idea of an elaborate weathervane. The original sapling in this fleet fleet, called the Defender, is their entry-level model and costs $5,500. Other models, such as the Interceptor, which has a pirate theme, and the Cherry Bomb, with flames carved out of wood, run as much as $7,500.

The bikes are considered “green” because the wood used to make them is not. The pair spend countless hours tracking down the most beautiful used woods they can find and repurposing them for their rolling works of art.

[ click to continue reading at the SJMerc ]

from The Telegraph UK

Children whose minds wander ‘have sharper brains’

The results appear to confirm previous research that found working memory allows humans to juggle multiple thoughts simultaneously Photo: CORBIS

A study has found that people who appear to be constantly distracted have more “working memory”, giving them the ability to hold a lot of information in their heads and manipulate it mentally.

Children at school need this type of memory on a daily basis for a variety of tasks, such as following teachers’ instructions or remembering dictated sentences.

During the study, volunteers were asked to perform one of two simple tasks during which researchers checked to ask if the participants’ minds were wandering.

At the end, participants measured their working memory capacity by their ability to remember a series of letters interspersed with simple maths questions.

Daniel Levinson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, said that those with higher working memory capacity reported “more mind wandering during these simple tasks”, but their performance did not suffer.

[ click to continue reading at The Telegraph ]

from The New York Times

Everywhere at Once

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Cynthia Rowley, left, and Bill Powers between parties. More Photos »

By BOB MORRIS

THE runway presentation at the futuristic IAC Building on the West Side Highway had gone off without a hitch. The boldface guests had come backstage and said their congratulations — Rebecca Romijn, Lauren Bush, Kelly Rutherford and Allison Sarofim among them. The news media had done interviews, and the staff was headed to Acme, the new NoHo hot spot.

After months of preparation, Cynthia Rowley had a moment to breathe. Or so she thought, as she guzzled a mini-bottle of prosecco.

“We should get over to the party now,” said Bill Powers, her husband, who had been working the event like something between a ringmaster and proud father. “Ready?”

“O.K.,” Ms. Rowley said. She hugged more guests. Her husband told her about two events the next night for Waris Ahluwalia and Josephine Meckseper. “Can you go?” he asked.

Ms. Rowley, who would be facing 40 buyers from Asia the following day, didn’t blink. “Of course, I can go,” she said as they left the building. “What do you think?”

You might think, given her very hands-on relationship with two young daughters (who are at her side after each runway show), and multiple TV gigs and design projects, that the answer might be a sharp “No.” But that isn’t in her vocabulary, nor is it in the vocabulary of her 44-year-old husband, an art dealer, judge on Bravo’s “Work of Art,”editor, hands-on father and author of a new novella with a sexy cover by Richard Prince.

“Warhol’s philosophy was ‘Do everything,’ ” Mr. Powers likes to say. “Us, too.”

Two days later at a packed opening at Half Gallery, the small Lower East Side space that Mr. Powers owns with Andy Spade and James Frey, many of the guests didn’t have much to say to Ms. Rowley. She didn’t mind. Like a proud wife, and in towering strappy heels no less, she stayed for the entire opening, enjoying herself in conversations while keeping far out of her husband’s way as he unloaded several sculptures, worked the news media and tossed out cans of Red Bull to friends.

“Are we done yet?” he said after the crowd had dissipated.

[ click to read full piece at NYTimes.com ]

from Twitter

[ click to read at Twitter ]

from MTV’s Hollywood Crush

Peep The EXCLUSIVE Cover Of ‘The Rise of Nine’!

Posted 3/14/12 10:25 am EST by Kat Rosenfield in Crush Exclusive!, Page Turners

If you’re a fan of Pittacus Lore’s brilliant aliens-on-the-run novels “I Am Number Four” and “The Power of Six,” then get ready to increase your literary anticipation by a mathematical factor of AWESOME: Hollywood Crush has scored an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek at the cover design for the next book, which will hit shelves this summer. Are you ready to feast your earthling eyeballs on “The Rise of Nine”? Well, gird your loins, because it’s happening right now.

“The Rise of Nine” picks up where “The Power of Six” left off, with hard-to-kill extraterrestrial John Smith (a.k.a. Number Four) on the run and desperately searching for the remaining handful of expat Loriens who’ve hidden themselves amongst the teenage population of planet Earth. And time is of the essence; the evil Mogadorians have already taken out a full third of the surviving refugees, and they’ll stop at nothing to eradicate the Lorien race from the face of the universe.

Will John and fellow Lorien Nine be able to locate Six and Seven in time to fight back?

[ click to continue reading at MTV.com ]

from The New York Times

After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses

By JULIE BOSMAN

Ángel Franco/The New York Times

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.

Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered reference books that were once sold door-to-door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, company executives said.

In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

In the 1950s, having the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the bookshelf was akin to a station wagon in the garage or a black-and-white Zenith in the den, a possession coveted for its usefulness and as a goalpost for an aspirational middle class. Buying a set was often a financial stretch, and many families had to pay for it in monthly installments.

[ click to read full article at NYTimes.com ]

from The Guardian

James Deen: The Tom Cruise of porn

Adored by young women for his clean-cut image, this male porn star has been named as the likely lead actor in Bret Easton Ellis’s forthcoming film. But can an adult entertainer ever  make a successful transition to Hollywood?

by Edward Helmore

Deen’s All-American appeal may aid a move to the mainstream. Photograph: Gideon Ponte

Earlier this week, Bret Easton Ellis announced his intention to cast a male porn star as the lead in The Canyons, a new film noir to be directed by Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and director of American Gigolo.

Ellis had long been an admirer of James Deen, who is striking because of his unusual appeal to young women – not generally key consumers of porn. When the two men met in January, they bonded over being unlikely poster boys: “He ordered a salad and we chatted amiably about the unearned feminist hysteria we both received at certain points in our careers,” Ellis tweeted.

Deen, 26, was recently featured on ABC’s Nightline in a segment asking if the nation knows that its daughters increasingly view him as a consort in their romantic fantasies. That Nightline saw fit to give him air time – the show is a rough equivalent of Newsnight – was further evidence either that the mainstream is more ready to accept adult entertainment performers on its turf, or that adult entertainment is itself becoming more mainstream.

“He’s exactly the guy I was thinking of,” says Ellis. “He’s accessible and represents the democratisation of our culture. He’s not some hot-blooded, super-tanned caveman pumping it — he’s a cute boy you could have gone to college with.”

[ click to continue reading at The Guardian ]

from The Lorien Legacies

HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE LORIEN LEGACIES

COULD YOU JOIN OUR NEW BASE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? THERE ARE 250 PLACES AVAILABLE FOR MEMBERS AGED 14 AND OVER. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW TO APPLY.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: SUNDAY 18 MARCH 2012

EMAIL THEYWALKAMONGUS@UK.PENGUINGROUP.COM NOW!

[ Terms and Conditions ]

from National Public Radio

‘Lifespan’: What Are The Limits Of Literary License?

by TRAVIS LARCHUK

When an author writes something that’s supposed to be a true story and readers discover he’s stretched the truth, things can get ugly fast. Recall Oprah Winfrey’s famous rebuke of author James Frey for making up much of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces. “I feel duped, but more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers,” she told him.

Now a new book is making waves by defending an author’s right to embellish the facts. The book is called The Lifespan of a Fact, and is a collaboration between author John D’Agata and his former fact-checker, Jim Fingal.

D’Agata… points out that we often apply a kind of double standard to the truth, depending on the perceived seriousness of the subject matter. “I don’t think it’s OK for us to say, ‘In your memoir about growing up and liking pie, it’s completely OK to alter the facts, but when you’re dealing with huge issues like suicide or nuclear waste or whatever, it’s not OK.’ I mean, the subject in this essay is amped up to get us to pay attention.”

Nevertheless, when readers feel they’ve been lied to, they feel betrayed.

“It is important, and it’s something that publishers think about all the time,” says Jonathan Burnham, a senior vice president at HarperCollins.

Burnham knows a thing or two about the trickiness of truth claims in creative nonfiction — he is the one who gave James Frey a second chance after the A Million Little Pieces scandal. He points out that the medium is important; the expectations are different for newspapers, magazines, literary journals and books.

“But one of the most problematic issues that lies at the heart of all this is this philosophical conundrum: What is the truth? Because the truth is often so subjective,” Burnham says.

[ click to read full article at NPR.org ]

from ART RUBY

Josephine Meckseper’s Times Square Oil Hunt!

06 March 2012 - by Art Rubynstein

Josephine Meckseper’s Manhattan Oil Project.

It’s not every day that a marquee art installation comes to Times Square. So we couldn’t be more excited to catch Josephine Meckseper’s “Manhattan Oil Project” which she put on 46th street and 8th Avenue in collaboration with the Art Production Fund. Until May 6, two intimidating red heads will crane up and down 25 feet in search of some good, old midtown oil. Friends like James Frey, Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Tobias Meyer, Ed Westwick, Danny Fuller and Tori Praver came to toast Meckseper at Playwright Celtic Pub across the street and many more (including millions of tourists) will do the same in next two months.

[ click to continue reading at ART.com ]

from The Washington Post

Ralph McQuarrie, artist who drew Darth Vader, C-3PO, dies at 82

By T. Rees Shapiro

Ralph McQuarrie, an artist whose paintings of a gold-plated robot in an otherworldly desert and an intergalactic sword duel between a scraggly youth and a black-masked villain helped persuade film executives to gamble on a young director named George Lucas and his visionary story, “Star Wars,” died March 3 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 82.

He had complications from Parkinson’s disease, said John Scoleri, co-author of a book of Mr. McQuarrie’s art.

“Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision ‘Star Wars,’ ” Lucas said in a statement posted online. “When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘Do it like this.’ ”

Mr. McQuarrie, for instance, designed the Samurai-inspired helmet and black caped-outfit worn by arch nemesis Darth Vader. (It was Mr. McQuarrie’s idea to put a breathing apparatus on Vader’s mask, so that he could survive in the vacuum of space, which led to the villain’s raspy voice in the films.)

Mr. McQuarrie’s pens, pencils and brushes brought lush color, dramatic scenery and lifelike characters to stunning vibrancy in film classics such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Cocoon,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.”

[ click to continue reading at WaPo.com ]

from ARTFORUM

Crown Prince

MÁLAGA, SPAIN - 03.02.12

Left: Writer and dealer Bill Powers with writer James Frey. (Except where noted, all photos: Nicolas Trembley) Right: ArtistRichard Prince. (Photo: Jesus Dominguez)

THE TWO MOST FAMOUS PEOPLE ever born in Málaga, Spain, are Pablo Picasso and Antonio Banderas. They’ll soon come together when the actor portrays the artist in filmmaker Carlos Saura’s biopic 33 dias. But on Monday, Málaga celebrated a different union, this one between Picasso and Richard Prince. The Prince/Picasso exhibition, which is being held at the Museo Picasso Málaga, was organized in collaboration with the artist’s grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, and his wife, dealer Almine Rech, and the support of their foundation, FABA.

Prince arrived Saturday from New York on a private jet in the company of his friends writer James Frey and dealer Bill Powers, a copy of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia in hand. He immediately went to check out the installation, done by his studio coordinator, Eric Brown, and the director of the museum, José Lebrero Stals. He was delighted, and changed nothing at all. He told me: “This is a real show!”

[ click to continue reading at ARTFORUM.com ]