Five stories that have North Texas talking: When it comes to using smartphones and tablets, we're No. 1!, DISD fires a teacher after a controversial photo shoot, exploring the legacy of the Zapruder film, and more:
More than 75 percent of Dallas residents own a smartphone, and nearly half own a tablet, which means that Big D leads 10 cities surveyed regarding smartphone and tablet use. (So does this explain why the lines are so long at Apple stores in Dallas?) Only 62 percent of Houstonians own a smartphone. New York City had the lowest rate of the 10 cities – only 48 percent of New Yorkers have smartphones. But Dallas doesn’t have any patience for mobile apps that don’t work. The survey shows that 97 percent of Dallas residents are likely to delete or uninstall mobile apps they bought if they didn’t work properly or had frequent technical issues. The survey was conducted online – of course! – and released by SOASTA, a technology company that provides services to test websites and web applications. The news comes as Apple on Tuesday unveiled a thinner, lighter and faster-running tablet called the iPad Air. Apple also showed off a souped-up iPad Mini that boasts a faster microprocessor, a high-definition display screen -- and a higher price, The Associated Press reports. Apple is facing more competition from companies releasing their own smartphones and tablets.
- A controversial photo shoot: Dallas ISD has confirmed that it fired a high school teacher who once posed for Playboy’s website. Cristy Nicole Deweese’s termination letter, dated Oct. 10, was issued after The Dallas Morning News reported that her nude modeling was causing a stir with some students and parents. She had posed for Playboy before the district hired her. The News reported that the letter did not specify why she was fired from her job at Rosie M. Collins Sorrells School of Education and Social Services at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center. Deweese had suggested on Twitter that she had been fired. On Tuesday, she posted on Twitter that she was moving to Hawaii.
- The Zapruder legacy: The granddaughter of the man who caught John F. Kennedy’s assassination on film explores how he felt after the famous images were splashed on screens across the world. Alexandra Zapruder wrote in Parade magazine how Abraham Zapruder was hounded by media immediately after the shooting. “He would never fully escape the consequences of having been behind the camera that day,” she wrote. “My aunt says that for many months, he talked obsessively about the film. Others say he was imprinted with a kind of sadness. He wept openly when he testified for the Warren Commission and in the trial of Clay Shaw (who was accused of conspiracy in the assassination). He certainly continued to have nightmares. ‘The thing comes back every night,’ he once said.”
- “A poetic gift to the community:” D magazine profiles Rick Lowe, an artist on a mission to change one of Dallas’ worst neighborhoods for the better. Lowe’s project, Trans.lation: Vickery Meadow, is part of Nasher XChange, in which 10 artists have installed 10 pieces of public art across Dallas. “Lowe’s contribution is to help the residents of Vickery Meadow—a diverse community located less than a mile from NorthPark Center, one that includes 35,000 immigrants and refugees from more than 120 countries—organize a pop-up outdoor marketplace. That is his installation,” the magazine reports. A series of open markets will be held monthly. Nasher Sculpture Center describes his work as a way to tempt viewers to “question where process ends and product begins, what is art and what is community activism.” Lowe tells D about his contribution to XChange: “It is a story, a poetic gift to the community.” KERA’s Art&Seek produced this handy interactive guide to the XChange pieces.
A Tony Kushner play with a long title kicks off at 8 tonight at SMU’s Owen Arts Center. “Slavs! Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness” is described as “another dark, funny, often vaudevillian fantasia” by Kushner. SMU describes the play set in 1985 Moscow: “Here the slapstick and the lunatic combine, in the words of critic Vincent Canby, to ask those age-old questions about good and evil, justice and its miscarriage – and what is to be done about them.” “Slavs!” runs through Sunday.
