Lounge chairs | Courtesy of Kartell
The winners here aren't always expected -- and they aren't just the golfers. When Zach Johnson grabbed last year's green jacket, it won him $1.3 million in prize money and instant fame -- and earned his sponsors free airtime. Accounting firm RSM McGladrey, whose logo Johnson wears on his shirt, netted an estimated $1.7 million of TV exposure in the final round alone, according to Joyce Julius Associates; not a bad return for a company that spent no more than $250,000 in 2007 on Johnson's endorsement contract. -- Jeff Chu
friday, april 11
Schedule
National Association of Broadcasters Show
Las Vegas
Old and new converge at this year's weeklong NAB show, the annual conclave of audio and video content creators and distributors. Bob Barker -- who, in his 35 years as host of The Price Is Right, pioneered such cutting-edge technologies as the corded mic and the Plinko chip -- will come on down to be inducted into the association's Hall of Fame. As for the future, a central topic of discussion will be broadcast TV's move to digital next February, which will mean that anyone with an analog set will need a converter box to catch Andy Rooney's inevitable rant about the problem with converter boxes. -- EG
saturday, april 12
Sis-Boom-Bah!
All American Football League debuts
"The fandemonium of a college rivalry doesn't exist anywhere else," says Keenan Davis, COO of the All American Football League, a new pro-football startup. So rather than offer a simulacrum of the pseudo-NFL leagues that have failed before, the AAFL -- whose first two games kick off on April 12 -- is trying to tap into collegiate passion. Its teams are in pigskin hubs: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, and Texas. Teams will play in college stadiums on Saturdays, their colors riff on university ones, and there are no nicknames, blurring the line between the college program and the AAFL. The league hopes that the net effect is a hybrid -- "professional college football." The AAFL also signed up InService America, the faith-based marketing group credited with making The Passion of the Christ a hit. "Jesus Christ and football run one-two in Southerners' hearts," Davis says. Touchdown? Hallelujah! -- DL
tuesday, april 15
Ride
Hard Rock Park
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
First, they sold burgers and T-shirts. Then came casinos. Now the Hard Rock folks are moving into theme parks, with the new 140-acre, $400 million Hard Rock Park. There's a giant guitar-shaped pier, but the pièce de résistance is Led Zeppelin: The Ride, a 15-story rock-and-roller coaster that zips along at 65 mph with "Whole Lotta Love" blasting. Some kid-friendly attractions and eateries have not-so-kid-friendly names. Does your toddler want to go to the Magic Mushroom Garden first, or to the Cod Piece for fish and chips? Tickets are $50 a day "for children of all ages"; whether you're 4 or 84, you pay full price to rock out. -- KR
tuesday, april 15
Read
The Endless City
Edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic
What will the city of the future look like? In 2004, the London School of Economics launched the Urban Age Project to answer that question by exploring six cities of the present: New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg, and Berlin. This doorstopper contains 510 pages of the project's findings, along with lavish photographs and enough charts and graphs to please any urbanist geek. There are also essays by Rem Koolhaas -- whose writing is as dense as a Mumbai city block -- as well as Jacques Herzog and Pierre De Meuron, the resident Jeremiahs, who write that "all cities have one thing in common: their decline and ultimate disappearance." -- JC
tuesday, april 15
Read More
The White Tiger
By Aravind Adiga
In this sensational first novel, one Balram Halwai relates the tale of his own journey from an impoverished boyhood in India's "dark" interior to entrepreneurial success in Bangalore, epicenter of his country's IT boom. Horatio Alger this is not: Our hero bootstraps his way from servitude to economic empowerment via acts of ruthlessness and, as he confesses in the first chapter, the murder of his trusting -- if corrupt -- employer. Balram is a seriously charming sociopath, however; as he guilelessly relates the events that led to the crime, it's hard not to read the deed itself as the triumph of entrepreneurial pluck over crony capitalism. A fascinating glimpse beneath the surface of India's economic miracle, you'll never think of "creative destruction" the same way again. -- Scott Medintz
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
