Authors are trying to satisfy impatient readers who have become used to downloading
any e-book they want at the touch of a button, and the publishers who are
nudging them toward greater productivity in the belief that the more their
authors’ names are out in public, the bigger stars they will become. “It used to be that once a year was a big
deal,” said Lisa Scottoline, a best-selling author of thrillers. “You could saturate the market. But today the culture is a great big hungry
maw, and you have to feed it.” Television shows are rushed online only hours
after they are originally broadcast, and some movies are offered on demand at
home before they have left theaters. In
this environment, publishers say, producing one a book a year, and nothing
else, is just not enough. Ms. Scottoline
has increased her output from one book a year to two, which she accomplishes
with a brutal writing schedule: 2,000
words a day, seven days a week, usually “starting at 9 a.m. and going until
Colbert,” she said. The British thriller
writer Lee Child, who created the indelible character Jack Reacher, is now
supplementing his hardcover books with short stories that are published in
digital-only format, an increasingly popular strategy to drum up attention for
the coming publication of a novel. Mr.
Child’s first story, a 40-page exploration of Reacher as a teenager, was
released last August, several weeks before his latest novel came out in print. On the advice of his publisher, he is planning
to write another digital-only short story this summer. “Everybody’s doing a little more,” said Mr.
Child, who is published by Delacorte Press, part of Random House. Even John Grisham is working overtime. Mr. Grisham, who used to write one book each
year, now does an additional series aimed at middle-grade readers, the popular
“Theodore Boone” novels that are published annually. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The Canadian one cent penny will be no more as of this autumn. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and
the Conservatives introduced the federal budget at the end of March. In the annual
budget, it was announced that the government will save $11 million
per year by not producing one cent pennies, which cost 1.6 cents to create. Some Members of Parliament are advocating
for the end of the five-cent nickel as well. This would make the 10-cent dime the lowest
denominated currency in Canada. http://digitaljournal.com/article/324178
Thanks primarily to rising costs of zinc – the main material in a penny – the U.S. Mint now spends 2.4 cents to
make a penny. Just last year, the U.S.
mint made 4.9 billion pennies. It
doesn’t add up: That’s $118 million to
make just $49 million worth of pennies. The current Treasury Secretary, Timothy
Geithner told Congress earlier this week that something has to be done about
the sky-rocketing costs of making U.S. coins.
And it’s not just the penny: the lowly nickel costs 11.18 cents to make. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/u-s-penny-to-be-kept-as-canada-bids-coin-farewell/
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act, the most sweeping
financial law enacted since the Great Depression, is supposed to protect
investors and shield the economy from bubbles and speculation. Its promise is hard to judge; many detailed
rules are still being drafted. What can
be said with confidence is that Dodd-Frank has been a boon for lobbyists. This spring a scrum of them is grappling over
a relatively obscure provision known as Section 1504. Bill Gates, George Soros, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, and Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) have endorsed the proviso. Big Oil and mining corporations are determined
to undo it. At issue is a problem not
typically associated with Wall Street reform: how to help citizens in poor countries stop
their leaders from stealing money earned from oil and mineral sales. Dodd-Frank would use Securities and Exchange
Commission rules to require resource companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges
to make timely, detailed disclosures of the tax and royalty payments they make to
governments worldwide. Anti-poverty
groups such as Oxfam and Publish What You Pay have long argued that such
transparency can help reduce corruption in oil-rich, thievery-plagued places
such as Nigeria and Iraq by giving local media and civil society the hard data
they need to ask where their country’s cash is going. Large oil and mining companies already
participate in a voluntary regime, the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative. Executives at ExxonMobil (XOM), the world’s biggest oil
company, have sat on the Initiative’s board. Reformers have been frustrated by the slow and
incomplete nature of the disclosures required by EITI; Dodd-Frank is a chance
to push through tougher rules. Lobbyists
are now urging the SEC to delay action or to narrow the kinds of disclosures
that would be required. The American
Petroleum Institute, the industry’s Washington arm, is leading the push, but
all major oil and mining companies have joined in on their own. (Newmont Mining (NEM) is
the only major exception; it has expressed support for the 1504 rules.) The companies argue that the proposed rules
would be “excessively burdensome,” in the words of Patrick Mulva, ExxonMobil’s
vice president and controller. Big Oil’s
“greater concern,” as Mulva wrote in a letter to the commission, is that 1504 would have a “detrimental effect” on
the “global competitiveness of U.S. companies.” The fear is that Chinese,
Russian, Brazilian, and Indian oil and mining companies, lacking qualms and
unburdened by Dodd-Frank rules, would exploit the financial disclosures made by
their Western competitors to outbid them—and potentially persuade leaders of
resource-rich countries in the developing world to stay away from U.S.
companies altogether. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-10/exxonmobil-vs-dot-dodd-frank
People with clear skies across most of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will experience a partial eclipse of the Sun late this Sunday afternoon (May 20, 2012). Sky and Telescope's website describes several recommended Sun-viewing methods: "When the eclipse is deep or annular, the clear blue sky will become a darker, deeper blue than normal," says MacRobert. "Look for Venus - it's shining east of the Sun by about two fist-widths at arm's length. Jupiter and Mercury will be tougher. They're on the other side of the Sun by about a quarter and a third as far, respectively, and they're not as bright." A partial or annular eclipse is a rewarding experience in itself, but it's no match for a *total* eclipse of the Sun. "The next total eclipse of the Sun to cross the United States will be on August 21, 2017," says MacRobert. "So consider Sunday's event a warm-up." But another solar spectacle is coming up much sooner. Just 16 days later, on the afternoon of June 5th, it's the planet Venus's turn to cross the face of the Sun. The silhouette of Venus will be a small black dot with just 3% the diameter of the Sun, compared to the Moon's 94% on May 20th. Read much more at: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Solar_Eclipse_to_Sweep_North_America_on_Sunday_May_20th_999.html
Scott Pask, a Tony Award-winning
scenic designer (for "The Pillowman," "The Coast of
Utopia," "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "The Book of
Mormon" ), was at the New York Botanical Garden's Enid A. Haupt
Conservatory, where he was helping set the stage and the mood for the NYBG's
new exhibition "Monet's Garden." (runs May 19-Oct. 21) The task: evoking Giverny, the Normandy estate that was
manse and muse to one of Impressionism's founding fathers—the man who said
"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." "Monet's Garden," which includes two rarely seen paintings by the
artist, is a return engagement for Mr. Pask, who designed the set pieces for
last year's NYBG exhibition "The Orchid Show: On Broadway." His contributions included a proscenium arch,
a chandelier and a balcony. Joanne
Kaufman See much more plus pictures
at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304371504577403981962193586.html
