OAKLAND, California (AFP) ― U.S. Internet radio darling Pandora has added comedy to its line-up of stations that listeners can personalize to their tastes.“We’re excited to say that we are officially in the business of telling jokes,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren said in a blog post online Wednesday.“As with music, we hope that the Comedy Genome Project will let people enjoy comedy they know as

HONG KONG (AP) ― May is the month of Aaron Kwok in Chinese movies.The dancer-turned-singer-turned-actor stars in two of the month’s major releases ― Gu Changwei’s romance “Love for Life,” and Oxide Pang’s crime thriller “The Detective 2” ― and has earned rave reviews from both directors.The 45-year-old Hong Kong entertainer’s versatile performances in two closely timed releases are testimony to hi

How much do we know about diabetes? Kim Sung-rae, chairman of committee of public relations at the Korea Diabetes Association, shares some key fact about diabetes with The Korea Herald to raise public awareness of the disease ― Ed.About 5 million people in Korea are assumed to be diabetic. But only half of them are aware of their disorder and only half those diagnosed with diabetes visit doctors r

Cho Jung-goo interprets hanok in contemporary ways, while respecting traditionThe following is the final story in a series of articles on the contemporizing of Korean culture ― Ed.The area nestled between Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung to the west and Changdeokgung to the east, known as Bukchon, is a little gem of a place where time seems to stand still.The neighborhood where myriad alleys and “hanok,” or

NEW YORK (AP) ― Hilary Knight didn’t expect “Eloise” to be a children’s favorite.“Never,” the illustrator said Monday night at a reception before the Children’s Choice Book Awards. “If (‘Eloise’ writer) Kay Thompson were alive, she’d be horrified. She hated when the stores started putting those books in the children’s section. She would go to one store and put them back in the adult section.”The a

 

The United States Embassy Library has enhanced its public services.With the launch of the new services, the Information Resource Center will now be known as the American Center Korea and will issue membership cards while expanding its public hours, staying open from 1-6 p.m. on weekdays.The center at 10 Namyong-dong in the Yongsan district will circulate books, DVDs and magazine back-issues to its

As U.S. tries to curb obesity, some fear increasing discrimination against the overweightThe images are striking: Overweight boys and girls staring somberly from billboards and online videos, real-life embodiments of the blunt messages alongside.“Chubby kids may not outlive their parents,” for example. Or: “Big bones didn’t make me this way. Big meals did.”The ads ― part of a new “Stop Child Obesi

From its earliest days, Hollywood has been a boy’s club.And summer traditionally is the season of boy movies ― big, loud, rude and not terribly smart.So what are we to make of the summer of 2011 when so many titles suggest, well, an estrogen-centric approach?It’s not as if bad boys and manly men will be AWOL from the megaplex over the next four months ― not with “Thor” and “Green Lantern” and “Cap

I was studying Georgia O’Keeffe’s abstractions, seduced by her simple charcoal curves, pink-and-blue flowers and cloud fields, when my cellphone rang.That afternoon in Santa Fe, I had slipped out of my parents’ hotel. As they napped, I strolled around the Plaza and found myself at the museum devoted to one of my favorite artists.Still, my thoughts of Mom and Dad were never far. When I answered my

TBILISI (AFP) ― In the kitchen of one of the most fashionable restaurants in Tbilisi, the chef is cooking up hearty peasant food using recipes long forgotten by most of his countrymen.“Nobody cooks a bird like this these days,” said chef Malkhaz Maisashvili, raising his carving knife to sweep slices of chicken into a pot. “I discovered the recipe in a small village.”Keen to assert itself as an att

 

I was weaned on bottled dressings poured over iceberg lettuce salads.There were three basic choices. When my two younger brothers dared to drizzle dressing on their salads ― and most of the time they chose (shiver) dry lettuce ― they adorned it with something called “Catalina,” a vivid orange, very sweet dressing.My personal favorite was blue cheese, or as we called it at my house, Roquefort. Our

The Seoul Art College presents the “Grand Concert” with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Ansan Performing Art Company Choir at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Seoul Arts Center.Since its establishment in 2003, the arts school has staged its spring concert annually. This year, more than 30 professors from the college are involved in the concert. The lineup includes pianist Chang Hae-won, who is also the

LOS ANGELES ― Ajay Kapur and Michael Darling have glimpsed the future. And it looks a little like “The Jetsons” meets “Spinal Tap.”In the not-too-distant future, they say, stadium concerts as we know them will be passe. In their place, humans will jam onstage with hipster robots that will perform previously unheard sounds during mind-blowing multimedia shows that are three-dimensional, interactive

 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ― Book dealer Ken Sanders has seen a lot of nothing in his decades appraising “rare” finds pulled from attics and basements, storage sheds and closets.Sanders, who occasionally appraises items for PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, often employs the “fine art of letting people down gently.”But on a recent Saturday while volunteering at a fundraiser for the small town museum in Sandy, Uta

VIENNA (AP) ― Hollywood actor Jude Law is among the stars of “360” ― a new movie partly set in the Austrian capital in which the British heartthrob plays a man whose marriage has hit a lull.The film is directed by Fernando Meirelles and inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s play “Reigen,” or “La Ronde.”While storyline specifics are being kept under wraps, screenwriter Peter Morgan told reporters Tuesday

It all started with a move.Not a downsizing, but an upsizing to a place with more storage and a bigger kitchen.But when I opened the cabinet where I store my cookbooks, magazines and thousands of recipes that I’ve been saving for the past couple of decades, I was horrified. Had I become a hoarder?I started pulling them out and making giveaway piles, but it wasn’t long before the stacks were so tal