The Adult Entertainment Industry and Online Technology - in connection with PRETTY FILTHY

New York Magazine's cover story HERE this week is about the adult entertainment industry and the internet - a topic also explored in PRETTY FILTHY! This article has a lot of info about how the business-side of the industry has developed online (see the diagram on page 2), and asks, how detrimental is free internet porn to the industry?

One of our interviewees for PRETTY FILTHY, Sunny Leone, was interviewed for the article:
'“Tubes are going to destroy our industry,” says Sunny Leone, 29, an Indian-American knockout who is celebrating eight nominations this evening. “Fans don’t understand that if they don’t pay for porn, we can’t make a living. They’ll have to watch crazy European porn.”'

Or maybe the internet hasn't been so detrimental?
"People who consume only free porn, [Feras Antoon, current CEO of The Brazzers] argues, are people who, in the past, would not have consumed any. The people who paid for porn then will still pay for it now. Plus the tube sites have so vastly enlarged the total universe of porn consumers that the number of those who pay has ballooned along with it. Ten years ago, total daily adult-site traffic averaged less than 1 million unique visitors—on the entire Internet; today Manwin’s tube sites alone get 42 million daily uniques."

Here is what one of our interviewees for PRETTY FILTHY said to us about this issue:
"I’m working... maybe twice a month and that’s a lot compared to what people are getting these days. There’s been a lot of girls that’s been “I’m going to retire...”  I think it comes from the fact that so much porn is free now.  You can go to “Red Tube” or “You Porn” or whatever you want to and there’s porn on demand.  Somebody sent me a little email, “This is my favorite clip of you” and I clicked on the link and it went directly into... [a] scene, no click on yes to enter if you’re over eighteen, no enter your credit card to make sure that you’re completely liable.  I’m sitting there, free link, full forty minute scene of me...  For free!  I’ve got kids and that is not something I want my child to be able to go click, “Oh, look at this, there’s Mommy.”  I’m very protective, I am."

For more about this, be sure not to miss our cabaret at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, A PRETTY FILTHY EVENING, this Saturday, Feb. 5. More info HERE!

IN THE FOOTPRINT: How was Boston?

Last weekend, In the Footprint was up in Boston at ArtsEmerson for six performances. Of course, the big question on everyone's mind was about how such a seemingly geographically-specific show would play in a different city where people might not even know what Atlantic Yards is. Here are some thoughts from some of the great reviews we got while the show was up there:

Time Out Boston (who called the show "a powerful, multifaceted portrait"): "You may ask yourself: “Self, what does a play about a real estate dispute in Brooklyn have to do with me, here, in Boston?” It has a lot to do with you, actually. We’ve had our fair share of skirmishes over neighborhood ownership; just look at the turf war between Allston and Harvard University, or the aborted move of the Patriots’ stadium to South Boston."

The Hub Review (who said, "I can't think of a more accurate portrayal of the Way We Live Now"): "You may shrug at the topic - what do the travails of Brooklyn have to do with Boston?  But rest assured, the Civilians limn through this particular prism a devastating vision of millennial politics and, you know, how things get done.  For what soon came clear about the Atlantic Yards project was that - as one disgruntled homeowner points out - no elected body or official had ever voted on it ever. "

WBUR (who felt that "the issues come alive in a way I certainly didn’t get from reading about it in the New York Times" - what would Norman Oder say to that?): "The unlikely subject matter is the urban development project in Brooklyn to bring the New Jersey Nets there, among other things. But the Civilians make the issue of eminent domain, something that Bostonians are certainly familiar with, compelling with a variety of strong theatrics from musical numbers to modernistic re-creations of who said what."

The Phoenix (who called the show a "surprisingly sprightly epitaph for a neighborhood"): Some New York–centric details may not resonate with Boston audiences, but issues of urban renewal (of which we've botched a few) are as hoary — and as pertinent — as Jane Jacobs's 1961 tome The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 

So it looks like the show was really well received by people who have probably never seen the footprint or heard the name Bruce Ratner before! 
 

Ted Haggard: Back in the News - Found in connection with THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY

Ted Haggard is back in Colorado Springs! He started a new church and is working on re-integrating himself into the fabric of the city.

Here are a few great excerpts from a recent revealing feature about him in GQ HERE:

On family:
'"Our lives have returned to normal," [Ted] declares, sliding a marshmallow onto a skewer. "We're starting to do the things we did before, because we're getting a grip on life again."
Elliott, a high school junior with moppish hair and the quiet confidence of a cool-crowd kid, rolls his eyes in a Dad, come onnnnn way. "I don't think our family has a normal anymore," he says.
"Yeah," Ted says, laughing. "It's a pretty dynamic situation."'

On New Life Church:
'Ted obediently signed the agreement, but he now believes it was excessively harsh treatment for a family in the midst of a major crisis—especially since, well, isn't providing mercy for sinners sort of the entire point of Christianity?
"I used to think the church was the light of the world," Ted says. "But I've completely lost my faith in it."
Ted's complaints about New Life are old news to anyone who's been following his saga, but tonight, when I ask him if he really means to say completely, he stops and looks at the sky already starting to lighten.
"You've got to understand, Kevin, people are, at their cores, hateful," he says, rising to stamp out the fire's embers and go to bed. "I don't want to believe that, but the facts have prevailed over my idealism."'

and last but not least, On Sexuality: -
'"Here's where I really am on this issue," [Ted] half whispers. "I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual." After a weekend of Ted trying to convince me of his unambiguous devotion to his wife and kids, I'm at first too surprised to say anything.'

HERE is a reaction from CO Springs in the Denver Post.

For even more info, Ted Haggard has a one-hour documentary airing on TLC. 

And HERE is a link to This Beautiful City at Colorado College. If you go to 1:15:34, you'll hear the performance of the letter of resignation referenced in the GQ article. Take a listen!

State of the Environment - Found for THE GREAT IMMENSITY

NY Times opinion blogger Andrew Revkin called out Obama for shying away from issues of climate change in the State of the Union yesterday, and addressing them by speaking about the economic benefits of clean energy. While this may be the only way to move what is still considered to be a liberal argument forward in a split Congress, what is the state of our climate change policy? Here are a few articles to check out:

Reporting about the Cancún Climate Change Summit in December of 2010: “Cancun may have saved the process but it did not yet save the climate,” said Greenpeace International’s climate policy director Wendel Trio. “Some called the process dead, but governments have shown they can cooperate and move forward to achieve a global deal.”

Carol Browner is leaving as Obama's Climate Change Advisor 

Here's info in the Huffington Post about Obama's new bills about energy efficiency that replace his comprehensive bill about regulating greenhouse gas emissions.