Come the holiday season metropolitan cities like New York are filled with street vendors selling Christmas Trees. Andy Bankin interviewed some of the merchants:

• Pricing for trees is exponential – a tree twice as big may cost four times as much.
• The only real way to get a discount is to ask the vendor to show you the reject less-than-perfect trees.
• The tree sellers are there 24 hours. They have no place to store them at night so they’re always around to keep watch and make late night sales.
• The salespeople who sell the trees are seasonal workers. In the summers they may fan across the United States to work on farms. Selling trees is good business since there’s little else open work in the winter.
• Contrary to popular perception the vendors don’t just have a single stock of trees they go through. Multiple deliveries of new trees are made every day.
• If you want the freshest supply go early in the morning. Deliveries usually happen at night, when traffic is low.
• You may also want to get to know your tree salesperson. They’re likely to return to the same spot year after year.

Read more about the Hanukkah Bush, some of the weirdest things that the vendors have seen, and behaviours that they appreciate over here.

Source: Hopes and Fears

Nathan Hubbard looked at the success of Adele’s most recent album and what it says about the wider music industry:

• 25, Adele’s latest album, sold 25 million copies in its first week, breaking the all-time record.
• This is particularly surprising considering that a decade ago everybody thought that services like Napster would be the death of paid albums.
• Sales were helped along by Adele’s decision to prevent the album from being aired on streaming sites, forcing fans to purchase it.
• The album’s success has had a wider impact on the industry. Rihanna has delayed the release of her latest album given the amount of attention that 25, and even Taylor Swift’s world tour, are taking.
• Unlike Hollywood there is no male-female pay gap in the music industry. In fact, females seem to dominate the business.
• This puts them in a position of power over record labels, promoters, merchandizers, and many others who directly and indirectly benefit from the industry.
• Yet the future of music seems a little bleak for the consumer. We saw with the movie business that exclusivity deals meant that the best movies were scattered among a plethora of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
• Similarly you’ll likely need subscriptions to services like Spotify, Tidal, as well as the offerings of tech companies such as Apple music and Microsoft Groove, to listen to all your favourite music.
• Things also look bleak for live performances. A ticket to Demi Lovato’s performance a year from now has a headline price of $49.95. Just as you pay for the ticket though, a $13.50 service charge is slapped on, raising the final price by 31%.
• Venues have their hands tied. Quite often touring deals will require that artists be paid more than 100% of gross ticket revenue. Venues make their money from concessions, sponsorships, and other associated services.
• The industry’s best hope is if musicians band together and demand a better experience for fans – perhaps after being prodded through social media.

The full article is a thoughtful analysis of the past, present, and future of the music industry. It includes musings on what the Paris terror attacks mean for musicians, and why musicians, unlike other entertainers, have found it so hard to co-ordinate. You should read it here.

Source: Medium

Via: Marginal Revolution

Walt Hickey looked at the post Star Wars careers of actors that appeared in the iconic movies:

• All in all, being in Star Wars is bad for an actor’s career. 36% of the cast of episodes I-VI never acted again, and many of those who did only went on to make a couple movies.
• Actors who were associated with the Jedi or the Rebellion went on to have the most successful careers. Actors associated with Jabba the Hutt had the worst careers.
• Those who played human characters were also more successful than those who played alien characters.
• One role that can lead to surprising success is being one of Padme’s handmaidens. Kiera Knightley who went onto helm the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, was the 36^th billed handmaiden.
• Rose Byrne, who is now associated with X-Men First Class, and Sunshine, was the 18^th billed handmaiden.
• More generally, despite the negativity around the prequels, the prequel actors went on to have more successful careers than their original trilogy counterparts.

Read why Gwendoline Christie better hope that her mask soon comes off, and how some of the most little-remembered characters went onto have the most successful careers over here.

Source: Five Thirty Eight

Harriet Sherwood wrote about a religion that is quickly winning converts in Iceland:

• In Iceland registered religious bodies receive “parish fees” – paid through taxes levied by the government amounting to the equivalent of $80 per taxpayer per year.
• Zuism promises to refund taxpayers the money they receive from the government.
• The religion is being taken up by citizens opposed to state funding of religious bodies.
• Over 1% of Iceland’s population – 3,100 people – converted over a two week period.
• Attempts to disqualify Zusm from state funding have faltered because of problems with identifying which religions are legitimate and which aren’t.
• Zuism itself is a real ancient religion that worships Sumerian Gods.
• Weirdly some of the converts have taken an interest in the religion itself. Ancient Sumerian services and poetry events have been surprisingly popular.

Read more about the belief, Iceland’s religion funding system, and other details here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Marginal Revolution

Kenneth Garger and Laura Italiano wrote about a new service available to New York hipsters:

• Nina Keneally, a 63-year-old mother of two, is selling excess mothering to millennials aged 20-35 for $40 an hour.
• Mom services include criticism free advice, dinner party planning, baking assistance, and even help in dealing with one’s real mother.
• Like any good mother she’ll remind you that she “is not your maid” and is not there to help you clean.
• Keneally has had six clients so far.

Read more here.

Source: The New York Post

Via: Marginal Revolution

When the zombie apocalypse comes, Russian zombies will use Wi-Fi to co-ordinate:

• The city of Moscow is making Wi-Fi available at its most historic cemeteries.
• Officials hope this will encourage youth to congregate at graveyards where they can “unwind” and perhaps learn a little about the country’s history.
• It may also encourage visitors to look up the histories of some of the more famous people, such as Stalin, buried there.
• Two of the graveyards already have GPS systems that make it easier to locate notable resting places.

Read more at the source links below.

Source: Mental Floss, The Week

Alex Mayyasi wrote about the history of the creation of the quintessential Thai dish: Pad Thai.

• Phibun was a dictator who became Prime Minister of what was then called Siam in 1938. While his country was independent all his neighbours were ruled by European colonizers.
• Europeans justified their colonization by claiming that they were spreading culture to backwards natives. Given Siam’s multiple ethnicities he feared that his country was vulnerable.
• In order to prevent this he wanted to convince the world that his was a cultured country. He did this by encouraging the emergency of a national identity.
• Phibun listed 12 mandates. Many such as the requirement to wear hats, or the optimal length of time people should sleep, or even how frequently people should call their relatives have faded from history.
• A couple stood the test of time. The first was was the decision to rename the country “Thailand”. The second was the creation of a national dish.
• Legend has it that Phibun settled upon Pad Thai after hosting a competition to select the national dish.
• The government encouraged adoption of the meal by banning other foods, and distributing recipes and food carts to promulgate the food.
• Pad Thai had the added bonus of being more nutritious than the plain rice that was most frequently eaten then.
• The rest is history. Pad Thai has gone onto become closely associated with Thailand even though it’s a relatively modern invention.
• This shouldn’t be too surprising though. Italian food is closely associated with tomatoes even though for most of Europe’s history tomatoes were not native to the continent.
• And Irish cuisine is known for potatoes though the root vegetables were declared as being fit only for animals in the country for most of its history.
• All in all it seems to take little more than about 50 years to create a “national cuisine” that becomes attached to, and propagates a national identity.

The full article has many more details including the foreign influences on Pad Thai, the similarities between Phibun and Atatürk, and many other details here. It is well worth a read.

Source: Priceonomics

Via: Marginal Revolution