Author: Douglas McLennan

Thursday October 31

GEORGE W. BUSH, BOOK CRITIC: The President of the United States apparently has a bit more time on his hands than many people think. According to author and Marine Reserve veteran Gabe Hudson, President Bush was anything but pleased to receive a copy of Hudson’s well-reviewed story collection entitled Dear Mr. President, and sent back a note calling the book “unpatriotic and ridiculous and just plain bad writing.” Hudson further claims that FBI agents have been showing up at his most recent book signings. The White House isn’t commenting. Hartford Courant 10/30/02

THINKING BACK: Sure we’re always hearing buzz about the latest books coming out. But it’s a publisher’s backlist that pays the bills. “Though the definition of where frontlist ends and backlist starts is tough to pin down, the idea of books that have stood the test of time inspires rapturous enthusiasm among independent booksellers, several of whom recently shared their thoughts on this vital category. Selling older titles is profitable and basic to the entire book enterprise.” Publishers Weekly 10/28/02

THE WRITER’S VOICE: “When Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Mantell founded Caedmon Records in 1952, they had little idea their upstart label would develop a back catalogue that included recordings by Ezra Pound, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and T.S. Eliot. Fifty years later, original Caedmon LPs have become fetish items for collectors, as many of the existing LPs have been destroyed by school children who have played library copies to inaudibility, and club DJs who use the LPs to pepper their dance tracks with snippets of dialogue.” National Post (Canada) 10/31/02

HAPPY NaNoWriMo! You mean you haven’t started your novel yet? Well, you’d better get cracking – November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, to the cognoscenti,) and if you want to participate, you’ll have thirty days, starting tomorrow, to write 50,000 words that no one outside of your household will likely ever read. Oh, and 6,000 people are said to be participating across the country, so your work had better stand out from a crowd. What’s the point, you say? Oh, c’mon: wouldn’t it feel great to put a check mark next to ‘Write a Novel’ on your great cosmic to-do list? Chicago Tribune 10/31/02

Wednesday October 30

“DIFFICULT” WIN: France’s top literary prize is the Prix Goncourt. It has great prestige but only token monetary value. This year’s winner is Pascal Quignard, who won for a book that critics have described as a “difficult” read. “It’s a sequence of beginnings of novels, stories, landscapes, autobiographical fragments. It’s not a novel or an essay.” BBC 10/29/02

LONGING TO TELL YOU… What’s with all these new extra-long books? The number of 500-page books is growing. “Economic reasons, naturally, play a part in this trend. To publish a long book does not cost much more than to publish one of 300 pages or fewer – perhaps about £5. But the market dictates that you can charge about £20 for a massive volume – and less than half of that for a smaller one. For publishers, booksellers and even writers, the margins on short books look very unappealing.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/30/02

Tuesday October 29

TO BE CANADIAN (SAY IT PROUD): Canadians seem to be scooping up all the big international literary prizes these days. Canadians themselves seem a little dazed by all the attention, but there’s no denying that Canadian literature now has cachet. How did Canada grow its crop of prominent writers? MobyLives 10/29/02

POETS LAUREATE – PRACTICING WITH AN EXPIRED LICENSE? Current controversies over American state poets laureate are a bit embarrassing. But hey, poets live messy lives, and besides, ”it has sparked the kind of controversy that allows people to have opinions about something they never knew existed in the first place. Maybe people will even care to have an opinion, and that’s a good thing.” Boston Globe 10/29/02

RESCUING WRITERS: The Australia Council has a program for “eminent” writers to “rescue” them from financial hardship. The program gives $80,000 each to authors who have “published at least four works, regardless of age, and must ‘dazzle’ the board with their literary merit, critical recognition and contribution to Australian literature. Eighty-one writers received grants totalling $1.94 million, out of a record 543 applicants.” Sydney Morning Herald 10/29/02

A GOOD MAD-ON: Mad Magazine is 50 and a cultural icon. Okay, so its circulation peaked in 1974 at 2.8 million and is now averaging about 250,000 each month. But Mad was father (or at least wierd uncle) to a whole generation of ironic, sarcastic humor. Funny, its style is so pervasively reflected throughout modern North American culture it’s difficult to remember pre-Mad times. Toronto Star 10/29/02

Monday October 28

SUING THE PATRIOT ACT: A coalition of free-speech groups have sued the US Justice Department over the Patriot Act. “The Patriot Act, passed in October of 2001, allows the seizing of records from institutions like libraries and bookstores even in situations where criminal activity is not suspected. It also imposes a gag order that prevents those who records have been seized from reporting what happened. The suit seeks certain pieces of what it describes as generic information, such as how many times the act has been used and against what kind of establishments. It does not seek to uncover what was revealed in these seizures.” Publishers Weekly 10/24/02

MARTEL’S ‘OVERNIGHT’ SUCCESS: Last week Yann Martel won the Booker Prize. Not many had heard of him before that. He got only a $20,000 for Canadian rights to Life of Pi, US$75,000 for US rights and was turned down by five UK publishers before getting $36,000 for the UK rights from a struggling publisher. For four years those advances were his only income. “I could only do it because I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t have a car. I have roommates. I wear second-hand clothes. I have no TV. I have no stereo. My only expenses are my notebooks and my computer.” National Post (Canada) 10/28/02

Sunday October 27

THE MAKING OF A COUP: When the wildly unorthodox process that led to the selection of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi as winner of this year’s Booker Prize came to light last weekend, the spotlight was thrown onto Professor Lisa Jardine, who may just have transformed the prize forever. “Every coup is part cock-up, part conspiracy. For the suits of Booker, the biggest cock-up was that, in the echo chamber of the British Museum, their proprietory rhetoric was inaudible. No one paid any attention. So when Harvey McGrath of the Man Group delivered the coup de grâce, establishing the Man Group’s control of the prize in a few silkily lethal sentences, Booker’s ancien régime was already mortally wounded.” The Observer (UK) 10/27/02

• THE TRAPPINGS OF FAME: So what will Yann Martel’s Booker win do for his career? Certainly, sales of his prize-winning book will skyrocket, but in the long term, many serious authors have found fame to be as much a hindrance as a help. Norman Mailer once claimed that his celebrity “ripped my former identity from me,” and damaged his ability to work. The Telegraph (UK) 10/26/02

TRIAGE AMONGST THE STACKS: It’s the hardest part of any librarian’s job, and there are many who think it shouldn’t be done at all. But with space at a premium in nearly every library, the process known as ‘weeding’ has become an essential, if painful one. Which books to keep, and which to discard? Should lack of recent readership banish a book from its space, or should decisions be made based on quality, as determined by ‘experts’? The debate goes on. The New York Times 10/26/02

Friday October 25

REJECTING A WINNER: Yann Martel’s Life Of Pi won the Booker Prize this week. But when he was looking for a publisher, five top London firms turned him down. “It is embarrassing for the editors concerned. I understand how they must be feeling today. But you know, this sort of thing happens all the time with serious fiction in particular, where taste and sensibility are what matters. Of course, it is very gratifying when your own judgment and belief in a book’s greatest proves correct.” The Guardian (UK) 10/24/02

Thursday October 24

ARE WRITERS THE NEW POP STARS? “There’s a sense among young people and those who make it that fiction can be central to the culture. There was a conventional wisdom among the older generations that it was a marginalized endeavor. To see it be a central cultural product for kids today, that’s all to the good. The only caveat is the problems that being a rock star or any kind of celebrity sensation presents.” New York Observer 10/23/02

HANDICAPPING THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS: This year’s National Book Award fiction list “lacks not only a clear favorite, but also a controversial anti- favorite—think In America, by Susan Sontag, in 2000—that could provide what contest-watchers live for: a big fat upset. Publicly, publishers say nothing but nice things about the nominated titles. Privately, they bicker and bitch about who’s been excluded. And who came blame them?” New York Observer 10/23/02

THANK GOD FOR THE BOOKER: “With a Canadian author walking away with this year’s prestigious Booker Prize and another two short-listed, the country’s hard hit publishers said on Wednesday they were are only too happy for some deserving international attention… Canada’s publishing industry, which has long been supported by the government, has had a tough year after suffering a bankruptcy of one of its major houses, General Publishing Company.” Yahoo! News (Reuters) 10/23/02

• MARTEL MADNESS: Canadian booksellers are reporting a mad rush on Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which was announced this week as the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. Sales are particularly brisk in Montreal, where several of the city’s largest bookstores have been unable to keep the title in stock. Montreal Gazette 10/24/02
• PLOT OF PI: So, now that the Booker has been awarded, and the gushing has begun anew over the talent of young Yann Martel, what about the book itself? Where did it come from, and where does it take the reader? According to Martel himself, the genesis of the idea came from a scene in a Brazilian novel of Jews escaping Nazi Germany, and fleshed itself out during the author’s travels in India into “a novel which will make you believe in God’ — or ask yourself why you don’t.” National Post (Canada) 10/24/02

SEBOLD’S SUCCESS: The publishing industry, like most entertainment cultures, does not like surprises. The best-sellers are supposed to be written by brand-name authors and fluffed up by expensive marketing campaigns. But once every few years, a book manages to break through the PR wall and sell like gangbusters simply because, well, it’s a great book. Enter Alice Sebold, and her self-made bestseller The Lovely Bones. Washington Post 10/24/02

Wednesday October 23

MARTEL WINS BOOKER – AGAIN: Canadian writer Yann Martel has won this year’s Booker Prize. He quickly denied that the fact that three Canadian writers made the Booker shortlist consituted a literary movement. “It’s happenstance that there’s three Canadian writers.” This is actually Martel’s second time winning the booker in the past week. Last week the Booker website briefly declared him the winner; that announcement was dismissed as an error by Booker judges. BBC 10/23/02

• THINKING ABOUT CANADIAN WRITING: Martel’s book was greeted with good but not great reviews in Canada, but was an instant hit with British critics. “I hope this award will encourage us to think of Canadian literature in a different light, to respond more positively to adventurous, playful, yet intellectually serious strains of writing.” Toronto Star 10/23/02
• O CANADA: “Canada, a country with no Robert Burns or Robert Louis Stevenson in its young literary history, may be the very model of how a nation can actively create and encourage an outstandingly strong book industry, with all the socio-economic benefits which flow from that, never mind the benefits to the heart, soul and grateful mind. Canadian investment in literature comes from various sources, national and provincial.” The Scotsman 10/23/02

CALIFORNIA POET LAUREATE RESIGNS AFTER LIE: Quincy Troupe, California’s first poet laureate, who was appointed last June, has resigned after it was discovered he had lied on his official resume. “His curriculum vitae says he graduated from college, but he didn’t. Troupe, a professor of creative writing and American and Caribbean literature at the University of California at San Diego, is author of 13 books, including six books of poetry. ‘He was extremely popular. His work was fantastic. He was loved among his students. It’s a shame’.” Yahoo! (AP) 10/19/02

• A LIFE UNRAVELING: The revelation could jeopardize Troupe’s post at UCSD, where he has taught since 1991, because it constitutes a violation of the faculty code of conduct.” San Francisco Chronicle 10/21/02
• THE PERILS OF POET LAUREATES: As the states of New Jersey and California have recently found out, hiring a poet is not a benign act. “Some are prone to confuse the prophetic with extravagant foolishness. Many believe that the ecstatic and the orgiastic are subjects just as suitable as the edifying. Some are sinister fools. Many others are in the process of living the same sort of messy, contradictory lives as everyone else – though usually more poetically.” Los Angeles Times 10/23/02

DISCOVERING HEMMINGWAY: Last March, in a small house in Cuba, “a delegation of four Americans found what they described as a jackpot: file cabinets and boxes filled with thousands of pages of Hemingway’s original manuscripts, rough drafts and outtakes from great works, handwritten letters of love and anger, notes in English and Spanish, and thousands of photographs.” The trove should reveal much about the last third of the writer’s life. San Francisco Chronicle 10/23/02

LISTENING TO THE PRINTED WORD: Why do people flock to author readings? They can, after all, cut out the middleman and simply read the book. The International Festival of Authors in Toronto is stuffed full of author readings. “You come to hear the ur-voice. To hear authors talks about the work, where it comes from, how it was made. That and the chance to actually shake the hand of the person who’s work you’ve admired. One of the things you can do here that you can’t do at a film or music festival is actually shake the hands of the stars.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/23/02

Tuesday October 22

A TRADITIONAL GG: Canada’s Governor General Book Award finalists were announced Monday. There were no first-time authors, no edgy, risky new voices on the fiction list. The shortlist includes The Case of Lena S. by David Bergen (M & S), Exile by Ann Ireland (Simon & Pierre), The Navigator of New York by Giller nominee Wayne Johnston (Knopf), A Song for Nettie Johnson by Gloria Sawai (Coteau) and Unless by Carol Shields (Random House), who is also a finalist for the Booker and the Giller. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/22/02

• SHIELDS’ HAT TRICK: With the Governor General’s nomination, “Carol Shields’ novel Unless, about a family’s agony when a daughter opts to live on the street for no apparent reason, is also a finalist for the $25,000 Giller Prize and for the $120,000 Man Booker prize, to be announced in London tonight.” Toronto Star 10/22/02
• WHAT’S CANADIAN? Three Canadian books made this year’s Booker Prize shortlist. But is there anything that’s distinctly Canadian about them? “Merely posing the question – Is there such a thing as a Canadian style? – betrays the sort of provincialism these Canadian authors and books so forcefully reject. There is no writing that is identifiably Canadian because what is distinct about the literature coming from there is its diversity.” Calgary Herald 10/22/02

AN EIGHTH HARRY POTTER? JK Rowling has always said that there would be seven Harry Potter books. But Warner Brothers has copyrighted not only the next three titles, but a fourth as well. “The new titles are book five (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) plus Harry Potter and the Pyramids of Furmat, Harry Potter and the Chariots of Light and Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Cell.” The Scotsman 10/21/02

• NO EIGHTH HARRY: JK Rowling’s agent has denied there are any plans for an eighth Harry Potter. “There is absolutely no truth in the story that either there is going to be an eighth book in the series or that these titles are genuine title for the sixth and seventh books.” BBC 10/22/02

SCOTLAND ABANDONS NATIONAL LIT CENTER IDEA: The Scottish government has ditched a £2 million plan for an expansion of the National Library to turn it into a National Literary Center. “The aim was to provide a ‘national information and literary centre’ by giving the library the space it needs to expand, and at the same time bringing in other organisations such as the Edinburgh Book Festival to promote books and internet learning.” The Scotsman 10/15/02

Monday October 21

THE NYer’S NEW FICTION EDITOR: Deborah Treisman, a “32-year-old prodigy little known outside the literary world,” has been named the new fiction editor of the The New Yorker magazine, succeeding Bill Buford in one of the most important fiction editing jobs in the literary world. “I suppose it is not wrong to say that that I am interested in younger, more experimental, edgier voices.” The New York Times 10/21/02

WHOSE BACKLASH IS IT ANYWAY? Is a backlash forming against today’s young trendy literary writers? The signs are all there. But look a little closer – the ” ‘backlash’ being forecast is against a group of writers who started by exploiting a ‘backlash’ of their own devising.” MobyLives 10/21/02

Sunday October 20

DO LIT PRIZES MATTER? They generate lots of publicity. But do literary prizes really make a difference to the world of letters? “Yes, say leading literary professionals, who believe such awards not only carry commercial weight, but also play an increasingly important role in connecting serious writers with readers eager for qualitative road signs in a world awash in books.” Los Angeles Times 10/19/02

BAD WAY TO CHOOSE: Lisa Jardine, the chair of the panel of judges for this year’s Booker Prize says the way novels are chosen for consideration of one of the world’s major literary awards is outdated and she “accused the head of the prize of having an outdated corporate agenda.” She says “that the current crop of 130 books – two submitted by every publisher – was too large” and that “the judges were prevented from making the best decision by the sheer number of books they had to read.” The Observer (UK) 10/20/02

• CHANGING OF THE GUARD: This year’s Booker jury piles into cabs and rides the London Eye to check a plot point. The ascent of Lisa Jardine as jury chair was, “symbolically, the moment a stuffy old literary prize was dragged into the twenty-first century, the moment when old-fashioned literary critical discourse was replaced by publicity-conscious British empiricism. This, far more than the springtime media flap about the opening of the prize to American competition, is the real, rather overlooked, story of the 2002 Booker prize.” The Observer (UK) 10/20/02
• ALL THINGS BOOKER: For some writers, winning the Booker Prize (the winner of which is to be announced Tuesday) is the difference between being able to earn a living as a writer or not. This is the Year of the Canadian, with three of the six finalists coming from the Frozen North. It’s difficult to overstate the Booker’s effect on a career. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/19/02

THE DAVE EGGERS PUZZLE: Dave Eggers’ new book is being self-published and he’s giving away the money earned from it. With the success of his last book he could have done anything he wanted. “He’s so averse to promoting himself that it is the canniest act of self-promotion. He really doesn’t care – really. But that’s hard for anyone in the frenzy business to believe.” Los Angeles Times 10/20/02

Friday October 18

BOOK GLUT WARNING: Each year publishers release many of the biggest books in time for the holiday season; it is, after all, the time when most books are sold. But “this year the stream of titles from the publishing houses has become a flood, provoking booksellers to warn that some high-quality titles are at risk of being drowned.” The Independent (UK) 10/17/02

Thursday October 17

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED: Nominees include “You Are Not a Stranger Here,” a debut story collection by Adam Haslett, “Big If,” by Mark Costello; Julia Glass’ “Three Junes”; Brad Watson’s “The Heaven of Mercury”; and “Gorgeous Lies,” by Martha McPhee, daughter of the award-winning essayist John McPhee.” Nando Times (AP) 10/16/02

• OOPS – MARTEL WINS THIS YEAR’S BOOKER – A WEEK EARLY: This year’s Booker Prize winner will be announced next week. But due to a mixup on the Booker website, a notice announcing that Yann Martel has won was posted. A booker spokesperson rushes to assure one and all that the winner isn’t really known yet. “The judges haven’t met yet. I can guarantee that this isn’t the actual result. There are six draft press releases for each of the shortlisted books and this is one of them.” The Guardian (UK) 10/17/02

REBUILDING THE GREAT LIBRARY: The Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed 1,500 years ago. “The original great library’s collection of some 700,000 papyrus scrolls, including works by Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles represented the first time knowledge was collected and codified by scribes.” Now it’s been rebuilt The £130m project was initiated more than a decade ago, amid high hopes that the Biblioteca Alexandrina would recapture the spirit of the city’s ancient seat of learning.” But “the new library is riven with dispute over what its content should be. Egypt’s fondness for censorship has meant that rows have already erupted over its book collection policy.” The Guardian (UK) 10/16/02

THE CASE FOR N JERSEY’S POET LAUREATE: New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka is almost certain to be removed from the job because of a controversial poem he wrote about 9/11 that is being called anti-Semitic. “The issue is ultimately one of tolerance of diverse opinion. The left gave us political correctness in the early 1990’s, and now those processes of enforcing orthodoxy have been inherited by the right and the mainstream. And the heretics only happen to be talking about the most important international questions of our time.” New York Observer 10/16/02

BOOKS FOR THE BLIND: A new law in Britain allows copies of books to be made for the blind without breaching copyright. “Only five per cent of titles published each year in the UK are currently accessible to Britain’s visually impaired people via Braille or large print.” The Scotsman 10/17/02

PUBLISH YOURSELF: Print-on-demand books are becoming popular with authors who can’t find a traditional publisher. “On-demand books are a new wrinkle in the concept of vanity publishing, in which a vanity press typically prints many copies of the book at once (and generally the author has to pay for them). Since print-on-demand publishers only issue books as needed, costs are lower and the author can even make a little money in royalties.” The New York Times 10/17/02

BUFORD TO LEAVE NYer EDITOR JOB: Bill Buford, who has been The New Yorker’s fiction editor since 1994, is leaving the job to be the magazine’s European correspondent. “In a way, it’s going from the best editing job in town to the best writing job in town-except it’s not in town.” New York Observer 10/16/02

Wednesday October 16

MR BOOKS: Martin Goff runs the Man Booker Prize. He’s also the printed word’s biggest advocate in the UK. “What distinguishes Goff from the other Hooray Henries around St James’s Square is his quixotic quest to get the philistine British to buy good novels. Selling double glazing to Afghans is child’s play by comparison.” Now “there are rumours that Goff is about to retire from masterminding the Man Booker prize. It will be a sad day.” The Guardian (UK) 10/16/02

FRANKFURT REBOUND: “Last year… there was an eerie pall over the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, a gathering of book industry professionals that has been going on since the mid-15th Century, shortly after Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type… But this year, in spite of the rumors of war, the collapse of the economy in important book markets such as Argentina (where 700 bookstores closed in the last three years), and the lingering effects of Europe’s switch to the more expensive Euro, the Frankfurt Book Fair — the largest market for international rights in the world — was bustling.” Chicago Tribune 10/16/02

MORE AMBROSE DEBATE: Some critics felt that obituaries of the historian Stephen Ambrose glossed over reports of his plagiarism, but Tim Rutten detected the opposite bias, singling out the Boston Globe as the most egregious Ambrose-basher, and pointing out that paraphrase (and footnoted paraphrase, at that) is very different from plagiarism. “All synoptic, narrative historians, which is what Ambrose was, paraphrase from other sources. If the standards laid down by his most rabid critics were applied to the four Evangelists, the three Synoptic Gospels would have to be denounced as acts of plagiarism–as would a substantial and revered part of the extant medieval corpus.” Los Angeles Times 10/16/02

Tuesday October 15

LUV ME, YA DUMMY: Who like to be insulted? And yet “publishers continue to appeal to potential book-buyers by labelling them dummies and complete idiots. And they’ve struck paydirt in the process.” The Age (Melbourne) 10/15/02

MAKING SENSE: Is literary criticism in need of some organizing principles? “It may be that much literature makes sense in the light of the current warhorses of critical analysis: Marx, Freud, textualism, postmodernism, ‘queer theory,’ and so forth. But it is equally likely that a good deal of literature (just as life itself) makes more sense in the light of evolution. Accordingly, literary critics might well profit by adding Darwinian analysis to their armamentarium.” Chronicle of Higher Education 10/14/02

THE HISTORICAL RECORD: Where is the intellectual rigor in today’s historical fiction? “That some of today’s historical novelists are talented is obvious, but equally obvious is the fact that they don’t want to aggressively interrogate the historical record in any new ways, or challenge their readers’ assumptions about how we imagine the past.” MobyLives 10/14/02

THE HIDDEN AMBROSE: Why did obituaries of author Stephen Ambrose gloss over his plagiarism? “Ambrose’s pilferage was much more than a slip-up in a ‘couple of books.’ As the Weekly Standard, Forbes.com, and New York Times proved in one damning week last January, Ambrose plagiarized all the time.” Slate 10/14/02

Monday October 14

FIGHTING IN PUBLIC: A public and rancorous debate is being carried out in public among two of England’s better known public intellectuals. “The debate is particularly English because its protagonists — the novelist Martin Amis and the Washington-based writer Christopher Hitchens — are so rooted in late 20th-century London. Both graduated from Oxford University and have carried out their quarrel in learned texts freckled with Latin. Both won renown while working at the leftist New Statesman in the 1970’s. Each had no cross word — in public at least — for the other. Until last month.” The New York Times 10/14/02

THE POISON REVIEW: You spend years researching and writing a scolarly book and then a prominent literary review sends it out to a “demon reviewer whose solitary aim is to make mincemeat of you in public. There is, of course, no row like an academic row… The Guardian (UK) 10/11/02

• Previously: CROSSFIRE: There are bad reviews. And then there are bad reviews. Jason Cowley writes that literary London is wincing at a whomping of “perhaps unprecedented hostility and malice” in the Times Literary Supplement of noted Russian scholar Orlando Figes’ new book, Natasha’s Dance, “a broad, sweeping, multidisciplinary cultural history of Russia.” Moscow-based, British academic Rachel Polonsky’s review “cites among her charges against him factual inaccuracies, misreadings, cavalier appropriation of sources and overall intellectual irresponsibility. There are even suggestions, if not of plagiarism, which remains the cardinal crime in academe, then of careless paraphrase.” The Guardian (UK) 10/03/02

WANTING WOMEN: “Women’s magazines are in a state of flux. Two high profile titles (Elle and She) closed earlier this year, and most of the others are in decline. As a result, most of the mass market major titles including Woman’s Day, New Idea, and marie claire have been changing their formula to save themselves from extinction.” The Age (Melbourne) 10/14/02

ARCHER ESCAPES PUNISHMENT: Writer, former MP (and convicted felon) Jeffrey Archer has escaped punishment for breaking prison rules and publishing a diary he wrote while in his cell. “Archer, 62, had his £12-a-day prison earnings stopped for 14 days and was banned from using the prison canteen for two weeks. The punishment was suspended for six months” if Archer doesn’t break the rules again. The Times (UK) 10/11/02

• ARCHER’S BANAL DIARY: What about Archer’s “literary” impressions of prison life? “Completely worthless from the literary point of view, and relentlessly banal in thought, observation and analysis, they are nonetheless revealing: of Lord Archer’s mind and personality rather than of the prison system. And to be privy to Archer’s mind in full cry is a depressing experience indeed.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/14/02
• Previously: LETTER FROM PRISON: Jeffrey Archer’s diary from prison describing his life there is being published and serialized in the Daily Mail next week. But prison authorities say the diary may break prison rules. “He can’t make money while he is a serving prisoner from publications and I have a duty to protect the privacy of other prisoners and members of staff. He has to respect that.” If he has broken rules, time may be added to his sentence. The Guardian (UK) 10/05/02

Sunday October 13

STEPHEN AMBROSE, 66: Stephen Ambrose, the eminent historian whose colloquial style made him a bestselling author as well as a respected researcher, has died at the age of 66 after a long battle with lung cancer. Ambrose had lately been battling charges of plagiarism in several of his works. The New York Times (AP) 10/13/02

PRODUCT PLACEMENT OR HACK-FOR-HIRE? Audiences have long since gotten used to the endless and gratuitous product placements used in movies and television shows to generate extra revenue with very little extra effort. But now, an even more insidious form of message imbedding has come to the world of books: “Two entrepreneurial exiles from Britain’s advertising universe are venturing boldly and unapologetically into this once-forbidden territory. They propose to write fiction for organizations and institutions that want their message communicated. Never mind the niceties of plot, theme and character development; let’s just turn literature into another marketing opportunity, of which the Western world is so clearly bereft.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/12/02

Friday October 11

PORTER COMES FORWARD: Peter Porter has won poetry’s biggest award – the £10,000 Forward Poetry prize. “After the acrimony of many recent poetry prizes, last night’s was a unanimous decision by the judges, for Porter’s latest collection, Max is Missing. William Sieghart, the chairman, described him as one of the most distinguished poets working in Britain – where he has lived since he left Australia 50 years ago.” The Guardian (UK) 10/10/02

Thursday October 10

KERTESZ WINS NOBEL: A Hungarian novelist whose works draw their dark inspiration from the author’s own days in two Nazi death camps has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Imre Kertesz was lauded by the Swedish Academy for “exploring how individuals can survive when subjected to ‘barbaric’ social forces.” BBC 10/10/02

GHOSTWRITTEN NOBEL? One of Spain’s most distinguished writers – Nobel winner Camilo Jose Cela – has been accused of “regularly using ghostwriters for most of his career. The allegations… include not just the recent works of Cela, who died in January at 85 and won his Nobel in 1989, but stretch back to his early classics.” The Guardian 10/09/02

ATWOOD SUES GLOBE: The Toronto Globe & Mail is being sued for libel by famed Canadian author Margaret Atwood, after the newspaper supposedly singled out Atwood as one of the more prominent signers of a strongly worded petition opposing American President George W. Bush’s plans to invade Iraq. Atwood did sign the petition, along with about 130 other Canadian artists, authors, and celebrities, but she claims that the Globe associated her with comments made at the press conference announcing the petition (notably one referring to the American administration as a group of thugs,) a press conference she did not attend. National Post (Canada) 10/10/02

Wednesday October 9

OUSTING THE POET: The New Jersey State Legislature has been working on a resolution to oust state poet laureate Amiri Baraka after Baraka read a poem suggesting that Israelis might have had something to do with the attack on the World Trade Center. Though he can’t fire Baraka, NJ Gov. James E. McGreevey “stopped payment on the $10,000 state grant Baraka was to have received as the state’s honorary poet laureate.” Newark Star-Ledger 10/08/02

SECOND CHANCES: Today’s publishing climate exerts huge pressure on writers to hit big out of the gate. And even greater pressure to follow up with another success. There’s little patience for stumbles. But “Second-Novel Syndrome has long been an occupational hazard in the world of letters, as authors struggle with writer’s block, intense scrutiny, and the self-consciousness induced by sudden celebrity.” Village Voice Literary Supplement 10/08/02

BOOKS ON WHEELS: The Internet Bookmobile is making its way across America “stopping at schools, museums and libraries, making books for kids and spreading the word about the digital library that is the Net.” It’s a “1992 Ford Aerostar equipped with mobile satellite dish, duplexing color printer, desktop binding machine and paper cutter. A sign on the outside says, “1,000,000 books inside (soon).” The van will end its cross-country trek today, parking outside the US Supreme Court, while the future of copyright law is argued inside. Salon 10/09/02

RISK-FREE: Have poets stopped experimenting with language? “Every age has its risks, innovators, uncontainable oddballs, but the 20th is the century in which experiment became the central fetish of artistic production. It may be that the recent spate of proclamations that modernism’s not dead yet, please, isn’t simply a holding action by the Citizens for Endowed Chairs for Modernists, but a recognition that we haven’t managed to come up with a criterion beyond experimentation (though raw marketability seems to have done well in the fine arts).” Village Voice Literary Supplement 10/08/02

BACK TO TELL ABOUT IT: “Gabriel García Márquez, the 1982 Nobel laureate from Colombia and the foremost author in Latin America, learned in 1999 that he had lymphatic cancer. He promptly cloistered himself with a single-minded pursuit not seen perhaps since he wrote the 1967 masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in a little more than a year, his only vice a steady supply of cigarettes provided by his wife, Mercedes.” Now he’s about to release “what may be his most-awaited book, Vivir Para Contarla, or To Live to Tell It.” The New York Times 10/09/02

CROSSFIRE: There are bad reviews. And then there are bad reviews. Jason Cowley writes that literary London is wincing at a whomping of “perhaps unprecedented hostility and malice” in the Times Literary Supplement of noted Russian scholar Orlando Figes’ new book, Natasha’s Dance, “a broad, sweeping, multidisciplinary cultural history of Russia.” Moscow-based, British academic Rachel Polonsky’s review “cites among her charges against him factual inaccuracies, misreadings, cavalier appropriation of sources and overall intellectual irresponsibility. There are even suggestions, if not of plagiarism, which remains the cardinal crime in academe, then of careless paraphrase.” The Guardian (UK) 10/03/02

• TAKING FIGES APART: Read Polonsky’s dissection of Figes’ book. Times Literary Supplement 10/04/02

Tuesday October 8

ALD – R.I.P: The popular website Arts & Letters Daily has shut down. Editor Denis Dutton has updated the site for the past year after parent company Lingua Franca went out of business. ALD and the rest of Lingua Franca‘s assets will be auctioned off in bankruptcy, but loyal ALD readers aren’t out of luck. Dutton has moved on to Philosophy & Literature, where’s he’s recreated the ALD idea. National Post 10/08/02

PAYBACK: Dave Eggers could have chosen any big publisher to produce his latest book. But he’s self publishing and distributing it through independent bookstores. For Eggers and his magazine McSweeney’s, it’s a way of rewarding those who have helped them. “Almost all small publishers depend on the support of independent bookstores. McSweeney’s books have always been sold primarily in independent bookstores, and not by choice. Typically, the chains do not order many copies of our books, leaving most of the sales to the independent stores. Therefore, we always give independent stores first dibs on our books.” Chicago Tribune 10/08/02

SERIOUS READING: Many American magazines have been struggling as the economy has worsened. But more serious magazines have seen their circulations increase significantly. Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic are newly thriving. “When everyone is feeling that the only important thing in life is the next Lexus and worship CEOs as demigods, there is little appetite for ideas or good writing, which is what our magazines are about. But the fact remains that you can get more out of good writing than you can from a 500-channel television universe that inevitably dissolves into incoherence. Writing involves thought and creates coherence, which is an appealing commodity in this atmosphere of concern.” Los Angeles Times 10/04/02

SEARCHING FOR SUBSTANCE: Writer Jonathan Franzen is back with a new book – a collection of essays that seems to be winning back some of the fans he lost last year in L’affaire Oprah. This is a serious series of writing, in which Franzen “fears that if there ever was an average American reader there no longer is, and, what is worse, that the ranks of serious readers are growing ever thinner.” Chicago Sun-Times 10/06/02

• BACK ON FRANZEN’S SIDE: “To read How to Be Alone is to see how the awkward parting of Franzen and [Oprah] Winfrey dramatized the lopsided war between the idea-mongering minority and the image-peddling majority in American culture. It is also to wish that intelligence were more fashionable.” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/07/02

Monday October 7

BOOK WORLD CONVENES IN FRANKFURT: The annual Frankfurt Book Fair begins this week “with more than 6,000 exhibitors representing 110 countries, hosting more than 2,600 events and 800 readings and interviews with authors. Although the number of countries and publishers is 5 percent lower this year than last year, the Frankfurt Book Fair remains the largest fair of its kind in the world. The most notable absentees are from the host country itself, with almost 15 percent fewer German publishers reserving space this year.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10/04/02

PUBLISHING’S GOLDEN AGE: Down with the pessimists, writes Toby Mundy. “With its over-educated, overworked, underpaid legions, publishing is an industry bedevilled by pessimism. This pessimism blinds people to the fact that we are living in a golden age of book publishing in which quantity and quality rival anything in the past, in which books have never been so well published and in which they occupy a more boisterously visible place in the general culture than ever before.” Prospect 10/02

• IN PRAISE OF PAPER: Will electronic publishing kill books? “The first steps of electronic publishing have been faltering. The e-book has not – yet – been a bestseller, or even a viable commercial proposition. One day, however, such ventures will succeed and when electronic publishing becomes the norm, the more desirable (and expensive) the traditional book will correspondingly become.” The Observer (UK) 10/06/02

WRITING ABOUT A LAND OF VIOLENCE: Since the 1980s, thousands of Zimbabwe’s writerrs journalists and artists who have criticized Robert Mugabe’s government have been “harassed, arrested and jailed.” And yet, some of the country’s most prominent writers tell the story of Zimbabwe’s political violence. “I wanted to say, This is how it was. Just that. These destructive people were created, and they roamed the land. I cannot pretend to have been unaware of the relevance now. We weren’t past this violence; we have remained in that.” The New York Times 10/07/02

Sunday October 6

IT WAS A DARK! AND STORMY! NIGHT! A Canadian publisher specializes in the early literary efforts of star writers – books they wrote when they 17 or 18. What’s the point? Some of the writing is enough to make you wince. But “look, there are things like bad spelling and lousy punctuation. Those things make you wince. But these books teach us about a writer’s recurring themes, their evolving techniques and skills. They teach us more about the evolution of these great talents.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/05/02

WHY DO WE NEED A RHYMER-IN-CHIEF? Forty US states have poets laureate. Most (none?) have been controvesial in the way that New Jersey’s Amiri Baraka has. The controversy over New Jersey’s poel laureate leads one critic to wonder – why should there even be poets laureate? Philadelphia Inquirer 10/05/02

LETTER FROM PRISON: Jeffrey Archer’s diary from prison describing his life there is being published and serialized in the Daily Mail next week. But prison authorities say the diary may break prison rules. “He can’t make money while he is a serving prisoner from publications and I have a duty to protect the privacy of other prisoners and members of staff. He has to respect that.” If he has broken rules, time may be added to his sentence. The Guardian (UK) 10/05/02

Friday October 4

SURPRISING SHORTLIST: “The shortlist of a major prize is notable as much for what is not on it as for what is. So it is this year for the ninth annual Giller Prize for fiction, whose nominees were announced yesterday at a news conference in Toronto. On the 2002 shortlist are authors Carol Shields (Unless), Austin Clarke (The Polished Hoe), Wayne Johnston (The Navigator of New York), Bill Gaston (Mount Appetite) and Lisa Moore (Open). “Surprising” and “controversial” were just some of the adjectives circulating among the crowd at the posh downtown Toronto hotel ballroom after this year’s panel of judges… presented a shortlist of five for the $25,000 prize. The winner of what has been described as both the most prestigious honour and best marketing/promotion tool in English-Canadian literature is to be named at a gala banquet Nov. 5.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/04/02

• GILLER IN PERSPECTIVE: “We in the book chat business must face it. The announcement of the short list for the Giller Prize, and the arguments over which novels should be on that list, are small potatoes compared to the blazing controversy over the proper salary for [Hockey Night in Canada presenter] Ron MacLean.” But like any other contest with national implications, the Giller is a fascinating glimpse into the world of writers and publishers, and the politics of the thing alone are enough to fascinate any observer. Toronto Star 10/04/02

RADICAL CRITIQUE: BR Myers is back with an expanded complaint about the quality of contemporary fiction. He “argues that the typical ‘literary masterpiece’ of today is usually in fact a mediocre work dolled up with trendy writerly gimmicks designed to lend an impression of artsy profundity and to obscure the author’s lack of talent. Myers’s goal, he explains, is to convey to fellow readers that they shouldn’t feel cowed into reading (and pretending to be engaged by) the latest dull and pretentious book just because the literary establishment has pronounced it ‘evocative’ and ‘compelling.’Rather, Myers emphasizes, readers should trust their own instincts, and decide for themselves what books speak to them in meaningful ways.” The Atlantic 10/02

WHERE THE SNOBBERY IS: Maurice Sendak’s illustrations are unmistakable, and his drawings for such children’s classics as Where the Wild Things Are made him a legend to generations of young readers. But like so many popular artists before and after him, Sendak has some trouble being taken as a serious artist. “Snobbery is the biggest obstacle to him being recognized as a fine artist,” says Nichols Clark, director of the new Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. “And it’s not just Sendak. There are many illustrators who are far better artists than those who consider themselves fine artists.” The Christian Science Monitor 10/04/02

Thursday October 3

A NOT-TOO-POETIC DUST-UP: A firestorm has erupted in New Jersey over a poem written by the state’s poet laureate shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Governor Jim McGreevey has called for the resignation of Imamu Amiri Baraka from the laureate post after hearing the poem, which includes the line “Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the twin towers / To stay at home that day / Why did Sharon stay away?” (For the record, there weren’t 4,000 Israelis employed at the World Trade Centers.) The 67-year-old Baraka, who was inducted last year into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, calls his critics “right-wing zealots,” but has yet to directly answer the charges of anti-Semitism stemming from the poem. Washington Post 10/03/02

TEXAS VS. HISTORY: The Texas Board of Education is choosing new textbooks, and various groups are lobbying to modify what’s included in the history books. A group called the Texas Public Policy Foundation “wants texts modified to tell how African chieftains, not Europeans, captured slaves for sale in America. It wants to emphasize the role of white Europeans in ending slavery. It objects to portrayals of President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy as civil rights supporters, noting that the brothers refused to support the movement at crucial times. The group also wants texts to say that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to own guns and that the wealthy pay a disproportionate share of income taxes.” The New York Times 10/02/02

• Previously: CLEANING UP DODGE: A Republican party “Leadership Council” in Texas is on a cultural crusade. So far it has succeeded in getting a plaster fig leaf added to a replica of a statue of David, remove some art from an Italian restaurant, “persuaded commissioners to use an Internet filter to screen computers at the library for pornography and to put plaques reading ‘In God We Trust’ in county libraries.” Houston Chronicle 09/24/02

WAITING FOR GILLER: This morning, the shortlist for the Giller Prize, Canada’s answer to the Booker, will be announced at a Toronto hotel. (The shortlist had not been released as of ArtsJournal‘s morning deadline.) “Often thought of as a lifetime achievement award, it does not go to a writer who has published some clever first novel with a small literary press in Saskatchewan, or some avant-garde novelist who is being enthusiastically championed by a professor of literature at Dalhousie… The winning novel is always a more-or-less conventional narrative, suitable for book clubs, and frequently a historical novel.” Toronto Star 10/03/02

GETTING ON THE GRID: The Library of Congress, the world’s largest library, is considering a new way to store its digital collection, which currently contains 7.5 million records. “When you’re (preserving) millions of digital entities you have to use automated processing.” Instead of keeping the data all in one computer system, the library may try grid storage. “All the digital data do not need to reside in the same physical location to be accessible and manageable by an institution charged with the mission of preserving and managing access to that digital data.” Wired 10/02/02

BARENBOIM THE PEACEMAKER: Israeli conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim, who has made waves in the Middle East twice in recent months, has co-authored a new book with Palestinian intellectual Edward Said calling for peace in the region. “The book, titled Parallels and Paradoxes, grew out of conversations between the two friends, both prominent cultural figures who first met a decade ago by chance at a London hotel… Last month, [Barenboim] and Said were named the winners of Spain’s Prince of Asturias Concord Prize for their efforts toward bringing peace to the Middle East.” Andante (AP) 10/03/02

Wednesday October 2

POETIC STANDOFF: The governor of New Jersey and the state’s poet laureate are at an impasse. The governor is angry about a poem that poet laureate Amiri Baraka wrote and read that wonders about an assertion that Jews were told in advance about the attack of the World Trade Center. The governor wants to remove Baraka because of the poem, but the poet says he’s entitled to write whatever he wants. “Under the legal technicalities of the appointment, neither [governor] McGreevey nor the five-member committee of poets who appointed him to the two-year post can remove Baraka.” Philadelphia Inquirer 10/02/02

REDISCOVERING BUDDHISM: Researchers are studying what may turn out to be some of the most important Buddhist documents ever found. “The manuscripts dated from the first century AD, and that made them the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts anywhere, and the oldest Indic manuscripts known to have survived.” The new discoveries reveal “a missing link between the birth of Buddhism in India and its later forms in China and elsewhere in Asia. Oral transmission had been the preferred or normal way – memorization, recitation, and so forth. What we’re now finding out is that, in the first and second century AD, the notion of writing things down took off in a big way.” Chronicle of Higher Education 10/04/02

MEDICAL WRITES: New York’s Bellevue Hospital publishes a literary journal and holds writing classes. “Publication of The Bellevue Review is part of a national trend in medical education for schools to use literature to teach doctors how to write better and clearer case histories and to empathize more with patients. Reading and writing literature helps doctors think more subtly, pay attention to the finer details, read between the lines, look for deeper meaning.” The New York Times 10/02/02

Tuesday October 1

WHEN A PUBLISHER FAILS: Sarah Dearing’s new book was published to glowing reviews in April. Unfortunately, it’s been almost impossible to get ahold of copies after her publisher Stoddart Publishing declared bankruptcy. So in the week that she just won the Toronto Book Award, she traveled to the Stoddart warehouse to buy some copies of her book that were being liquidated. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/01/02

LACK OF IMPORTANCE: Does the Booker choose only “safe” books? Writer Will Self says “there were very few Booker winners from the last 25 years that have ‘in any way rocked society’. Authors like Martin Amis and JG Ballard had only been nominated once while winners were not chosen if they were challenging.” BBC 10/01/02

Thursday October 31

ON THE WHOLE, I PREFER HENRY MOORE, WOT? British culture minister Kim Howells took a walk through an exhibition of artwork by those chosen as Turner Prize finalists, and didn’t hold back on his reaction to it. On a message board in the gallery at the Tate, he wrote: “It’s cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit … The attempts at contextualisation are particularly pathetic but symptomatic of a lack of conviction.” The Independent (UK) 10/31/02

A NERVOUS ART MARKET: Whenever the economy goes down, the number of artworks up for auction goes up. “While the monetary total is not unusually high, the sheer number of works for sale this fall has increased. Some is being sold by people in financial distress, but many other sellers think this is the moment to cash in. The question is whether collectors will have the appetite, never mind the means, to buy.” The New York Times 10/31/02

PLAYING KEEP-AWAY WITH RAPHAEL: “An appeal to raise £30m to save a Raphael masterpiece for the [UK] has been launched by London’s National Gallery. The current owner of Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks, the Duke of Northumberland, has agreed to sell the painting to a US gallery to prop up his estate’s ailing finances. But he is giving the National Gallery – where the painting has been on loan for the last decade – one last chance to keep it.” BBC 10/31/02

ART OF NEWS: The Newseum unveils plans for a $400 million new home located on a prominent corner of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. It’s a museum dedicated to the art of news and newsgathering… Washington Post 10/29/02

Wednesday October 30

SOTHEBY’S DRAWS BIG FINE: Sotheby’s is fined more than 20 million Euros by the European Union for “operating a price-fixing cartel during the 1990s.” Fellow partner-in-crime Christie’s escaped punishment because the company came forward to provide evidence of price fixing. “The pair handle 90% of the auction market and have been under investigation by the commission for breaking fair trade rules. They were accused of inflating commission fees and defrauding art sellers out of £290 million.” BBC 10/30/02

ANOTHER TURNER CONTROVERSY: This year’s Turner Prize shortlist follows a tradition of nominating controversial art. It includes a work that is a graphic description of a pornographic movie. “The four shortlisted artists – Fiona Banner, Liam Gillick, Keith Tyson and Catherine Yass – will learn who has won the coveted prize, and with it a £20,000 cheque, in December.” BBC 10/30/02

• THROWING UP FOR ART: With Stuckists protesting outside at the absence of traditional painters on the Turner shortlist, inside art glitterati were upchucking after watching a movie by one of the finalists (and it wasn’t the porn project). The Guardian (UK) 10/30/02
• HANDICAPPING THE TURNER: The controversy, the noise, the predictable hype… the Turner is getting a bit boring. “It is all very undignified and divisive. The art itself gets kicked around like a football, in a game in which no one knows the rules. But it doesn’t matter – the game’s the thing!” Here come this year’s entries. The Guardian (UK) 10/30/02
• WHERE’S THE BUZZ? “Truthfully, as balanced and fair and good as the 2002 list is, it is also a tiny bit dull. So that’s another thing then: when it comes to the Turner Prize, the Tate can never win.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/30/02
• DON’T CARE? This year “mention of the Turner seems to have stirred intense apathy. The Britpack caught the imagination. But once they had clicked into cultural place as neatly as the mechanisms of a semi-automatic taking dead aim at the lowest common denominator, they were commonly announced to be ‘over’. And then no one seemed much to care what was upcoming for the Turner.” The Times (UK) 10/30/02

BATTLE FOR THE BARNES: Lincoln University is a small black college with control of an art collectionworth billions of dollars. But the Barnes Collection, claiming poverty and an unworkable relationship with Lincoln has filed a petition for divorce and announced its intention to move to Philadelphia. The plan is a blow to the tiny college, and court battles over the Barnes’ right to self determination figure to drag out a long time. The New York Times 10/30/02

ART ONLINE: Many museums have resisted putting images of their artworks online for fear that they would lose control of the images. A project in California seeks to put museum collections across the state online. “Users can search 150,000 images of artifacts, paintings, manuscripts, photographs and architectural blueprints from 11 public and private museums. But with more than 2,000 museums in the state, that’s just scratching the surface. ‘Our goal is to get every museum, library and archive in California to have their collections digitized and online’.” Wired 10/30/02

SHOOT ME: An art exhibition in Soho is drawing criticism for its violent theme, particularly after the DC-area sniper attacks. “Shoot Me, by the multimedia artist Miyoung Song, features a basement shooting gallery that enables visitors to take potshots with a BB gun at random women, children and porn stars in the throes of sex as they flash by on a video screen equipped with a paper bull’s eye.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/30/02

ART IN KIDDIELAND: “Parents may not be sure about dragging children along to see Art with a capital ‘A’, but the galleries are in no doubt at all. These days, public art galleries and museums have more kids’ courses and activity weeks, more hands-on, child-friendly, interactive workshops, more family trails, more learning centres than … well, Picassos and Matisses. It has got to the point that, for an art-loving adult, no visit to a gallery is free from the vague dread that an entire primary school class may be seated in front of your favourite painting, or gangs of adolescents ostentatiously tittering at the nudes on display.” The Guardian (UK) 10/30/02

Tuesday October 29

PARIS MUSEUMS PREPARE FOR SUPERFLOOD: Paris’ leading museums, including the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay are removing thousands of precious artworks from their basement storage because of fears about a hundred-year super-flood that could happen this winter. “We’re not saying the great centennial flood is coming this winter, we’re just saying we know it will come some time soon and the signs are not encouraging. We have to make sure we can deal with it when it happens.” The Guardian (UK) 10/26/02

SCULPTOR REGRETS REMOVING CONTROVERSIAL ART: Last month sculptor Eric Fischl’s bronze sculpture of a falling body commemorating 9/11 was removed from Rockefeller Center after a few people complained. Now Fischl regrets that he allowed the piece to be taken away so quickly. “I even regret caving in to Rockefeller Center so fast and saying: ‘Yeah, take it away. I don’t want to hurt anybody.’ I’m sorry I didn’t raise a stink over it. I hate this idea that there are some people who have a right to express their suffering and others who don’t, that there are those in this hierarchy of pain who own it more than you do.” New York Times Magazine 10/27/02

MILLION £ SOUP: Andy Warhol’s screenprint of Marilyn Munroe sold for more than $17 million. But the artist’s family is selling Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s soup can for only £1 million. The Guardian (UK) 10/29/02

BRITAIN’S WOEFUL PUBLIC BUILDING RECORD: Why are public building projects in Britain so woefully carried out? “In Britain we have become so used to the idea that any major public building project will be delivered several years late and costing some multiple of the figure originally predicted that initial projections are treated rather like the boasts of an imaginative angler.” The UK has failed to invest in its educational infrastructure. What’s needed is a massive education plan for engineers and architects… The Guardian (UK) 10/29/02

Monday October 28

A RECORD WEEK: “Sixteen auction records were broken in just over two hours at the 20th-century Italian art sales in London last week. But, bullish as this sounds, the reality was more sober…” The Telegraph (UK) 10/28/02

LOOKING FOR A DIGITAL HOME: Seeing how there are museums for just about anything, is there a possibility of a museum devoted to digital art? “Efforts to establish a one-stop shop for the digital arts — a Linkin’ Center, if you will — have been, at best, modestly successful. Donors are tight fisted, especially when there are no tangible objects that they can call their own. As a result, while there are small high-tech art centers scattered around the country and virtual museums sprinkled across the Web, none fulfill the museum functions of organizing, commissioning, exhibiting, collecting, preserving art works and education. But two organizations are moving in the right direction.” The New York Times 10/28/02

INVESTING IN SCOTTISH ART: The Scottish government has come up with a plan to help museums across the country buy contemporary art. Ten musems will share £350,000 to spend on new work. The government “believes the scheme will revolutionise local museums, and also provide an opportunity for award-winning artists such as Douglas Gordon, Calum Colvin, Callum Innes and Roderick Buchanan to be represented in Scottish collections.” Glasgow Herald 10/26/02

MASS APPEAL: Over the next few years some 3.8 million new houses will be built in the UK. So “what might they look like, and what might they be like to live in? After a long sabbatical from the design of mass housing, British architects are making their way back. They are not finding it particularly easy.” The Guardian (UK) 10/28/02

YE OLDE OBELISK TRANSPORT COMPANY: In ancient times hundreds of obelisks lined the Nile. But beginning in Roman times, foreign countries made sport of taking souvenirs, and it became fashionable to remove the giant stone obelisks and bring them back for placement in leading cities. One of the last taken was transported to New York in 1881 to Central Park, where thousands of New Yorkers waited… Archaelogy 11/02

THE MAN BEHIND REM, DANIEL, ANISH… Modern architects like Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind like to dazzle with theatrical structures. But Cecil Balmond is the engineer behind them who helps make the ideas possible. “Balmond’s structures tend to look as if they have no business standing up. Instead of depending on massive walls and simple symmetry for their strength, they rely on what he presents as being a deeper understanding of nature. In his softly-spoken but determined way, Balmond is trying to shift the way that we see engineers, as well as engineering.” The Observer (UK) 10/27/02

Sunday October 27

JESUS IN ONTARIO: “A 2,000-year-old limestone box that some believe provides the first archeological evidence of the existence of Jesus will have its international public premiere next month in Canada… The rectangular ossuary, which dates from about 63 AD, was excavated by an Arab villager about 15 years ago in a cave near Jerusalem, then sold to an antiquities dealer. He in turn sold it to an Israeli collector, who, in March of this year, brought it to the attention of Sorbonne scholar André Lemaire, one of the two experts who vouched for its great age.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/26/02

THE GREATEST ARTS PATRONS OF ALL TIME: It seems safe to say that the world will never again see a family like the Medicis, who held up the financial end of artistic achievement in Europe for more than 500 years. Without the Medici family, there would have been no Michelangelo, very little of Galileo, and the Rennaissance might have been little more than an average movement in the history of art. A new exhibit in Chicago focuses on the last glory days of the Medici, with more than 200 works on display. Chicago Tribune 10/27/02

EVERYTHING (EUROPEAN) MUST GO: As part of its new mission of focusing its collection on American art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is auctioning off 34 works by Europeans artists next week, with the proceeds to be used to beef up the academy’s American collection. “The consigned works… are with several exceptions by relatively obscure and unfashionable artists, and only a few carry estimates of more than $100,000.” Philadelphia Inquirer 10/23/02

HOW MUCH IS THAT AMERICAN NEA BUDGET, AGAIN? In Austria, a country with nowhere near the wealth and resources of the U.S., governmental investment in ‘quality of life’ is a societal mainstay. From subways to buildings to the Vienna Philharmonic, public money is the key component of success. In particular, the city’s architecture, supported by government funding, is stunning, especially given how little of Vienna was left after World War II. Boston Globe 10/27/02

Friday October 25

DEFENDING THE COLLECTOR: “A group of American collectors has formed a new organisation to defend the interests of private and public collecting. They see threats to collecting coming from foreign countries, over-zealous law enforcement and a public debate, which, according to them, has been driven by the ‘retentionist’ bias of many archaeologists.” The Art Newspaper 10/25/02

ART AS GLOBAL IMPULSE: Vicente Todoli takes over this month as the Tate Modern’s new director. He observes that internationalism is an important artistic impulse. “Art has always been moved by individuals. Before businessmen, artists were the precursors in breaking down frontiers. Globalisation is the essential spirit of art. The world is wider today and art has always had an openness of viewpoints because that is its nature. The only problem today is tremendous commercialisation which is killing much creativity and controls the mind of some artists who take decisions dictated by it.” The Art Newspaper 10/25/02

BIG NEW ART PRIZE: Wales has launched the world’s most lucrative prize for visual artists. The £40,000 Artes Mundi biennial competition “will be open to artists from across the globe whose entries will in turn be shown in Cardiff at the National Museum and Gallery. The organisers are hoping the prize will give to the arts the same kind of stature that the hugely-popular Cardiff Singer of the World has given music.” BBC 10/25/02

THE GREAT COVERUP: Two sculptures that Renaissance artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini made for a church almost 350 years ago, have finally been unveiled. “The two sculptures, which represent the virtues of Truth and Charity, were designed by Bernini in the 17th Century for the chapel of a Portuguese aristocrat, Roderigo de Sylva. They have been located in the chapel since they were completed in 1663, but were deemed offensive by religious leaders two centuries later, and covered up.” BBC 10/25/02

THE PAINTING PACHYDERMS: Zookeepers have long observed that elephants like to pick up sticks and doodle in the sand. “Elephants are highly intelligent animals who don’t particularly like to stand around all day.” Now a group of Balinese elephants are painting and earning a following (and cash). “Their work has been exhibited at several museums worldwide. And recently, the handlers of a dozen or so painting pachyderms in Asia formed a website. Within two months, sales broke $100,000. Half of the profits go to elephant-rescue sanctuaries in Southeast Asia.” Christian Science Monitor 10/25/02

Thursday October 24

REVOKING FREE ADMISSION? London’s Natural History Museum saw a 70 percent increase in attendance last year after it dropped entry fees. In return for free admission, the British government promised museums more money. But “museum bosses have told MPs the extra volume of visitors is costing them £500,000 ($773,000) a year more than they receive in return for giving up charging.” So the museum is thinking about reinstating the entry fees… More museums may follow, given the government’s disappointing funding promises earlier this week. BBC 10/24/02

DEALING WITH THE BRITISH MUSEUM: The British Museum is getting a raw deal in the government’s new funding plan, writes former Culture Secretary Chris Smith. But the museum’s present predicament is not entirely a funding issue. “The museum has to put its own house in order too, and run itself more efficiently.” The Guardian (UK) 10/24/02

LOOTING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION: “Since Iraq’s defeat in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, thieves have been stealing anything they can Because Iraq’s antiquities bureaucracy collapsed after the war and even today only is a fraction of what it once was, the country’s 10,000 known ancient sites – plus many more yet to be documented – have been easy targets for the last decade. The frenzy of looting has panicked experts on ancient Mesopotamia, long seen by scholars as the cradle of the first civilizations.” Detroit News 10/23/02

STATUES DAMAGED BY CLEANERS: Four busts of Great Britons Isaac Newton, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, and John Hunter have stood watch over London’s Leicester Square in central London for almost 130 years. They have survived war, pollution and the elements. But not, apparently, a restoration cleaning in the early 1990s. “It appears the cleaners used a highly corrosive, concentrated solution of hydroflouric acid. If the busts are left outside, they will continue to deteriorate. Within two decades they could be just meaningless lumps of rock.” The Guardian (UK) 10/24/02

• STATUES IN JEOPARDY: Oslo’s famous Vigeland bronze statues are being destroyed by moisture. “At the same time, the original works are covered with a layer of dirt that cannot be removed without destroying the statues.” Aftenpost (Norway)10/16/02

Wednesday October 23

MUSEUMS ATTACK LOW FUNDING PROMISE: UK museum directors fretted yesterday after a government announcement that £70 million in funding would be allocated to the country’s museums. “A government-sponsored report found that, unless £167 million was found, many institutions with world-class exhibits would be pushed into irreversible decline. The response from museums was angry and swift.” The Guardian (UK)10/23/02

• Previously: BRITISH MUSEUM GETS CASH: The British government announces a £70 million funding package for the British Museum and regional museums. The BM’s financial crisis has been so bad it has had to close galleries and reduce hours as it deals with a large deficit. “The BM will receive £36.8m, with an extra £400,000 in 2003 to re-open the Korean Galleries and others currently closed.” BBC 10/22/02

GETTY CAN EXPAND VILLA: After the Getty Museum moved into its new home in 1997, the museum announced plans to add an outdoor theatre to the Getty’s former headquarters in its Malibu villa. Neighbors sued to block the plan. Now a judge has ruled in the Getty’s favor. In addition to the theatre, “the villa complex would grow to 210,000 square feet, including a new restaurant to replace the site’s old tea room, expansion of the bookstore and renovation of museum galleries for display of the Getty antiquities collection.” Los Angeles Times 10/23/02

MEMORIES OF EMPIRE: The British Empire is today referred to but seldom examined very closely. “Is it shame, guilt, post-colonial exhaustion or plain ignorance that has obliterated the memory of an empire that lasted 500 years and changed the face of the world? Probably all of these. But no one in Britain today can understand what has shaped our multiracial society, what links this country to the Commonwealth and what has made English the tongue of more nations than any other unless they understand the Empire.” The Times (UK) 10/23/02

Tuesday October 22

BRITISH MUSEUM GETS CASH: The British government announces a £70 million funding package for the British Museum and regional museums. The BM’s financial crisis has been so bad it has had to close galleries and reduce hours as it deals with a large deficit. “The BM will receive £36.8m, with an extra £400,000 in 2003 to re-open the Korean Galleries and others currently closed.” BBC 10/22/02

AUSSIE ARTS COUNCIL EXPLORES ARTIST TRUST ACCOUNTS: The Australian Arts Council is investigating the idea of setting up trust accounts for artists. Gallery sales would be deposited into the accounts directly for the artists. “There are a whole range of other businesses and services that require that the intermediary – the real estate agent, the travel agent, the lawyer – holds funds in a trust account. The point is, if a work has been sold then the value of that work, less the agent’s fee, is the artist’s money.” Sydney Morning Herald 10/22/02

THE GREAT PAINTING CONTEST: In the 16th Century on of the most extraordinary public art collaborations ever, teamed Michelangelo and Leonardo to paint side by side paintings in the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Art historians call the project “the turning point of the Renaissance.” But Giorgio Vasari, the famous chronicler of Renaissance painters’ lives, had the wall painted over, obliterating the art… The Guardian (UK) 10/22/02

THE VIETNAM WAR IN ART: “Vietnam had no great tradition of visual art before the 20th century, with even its sacred buildings austere compared to those of neighboring China. By the time the Vietnam War erupted, however, local artists had been shaped by two quite different imported traditions: what was known as poetic realism, introduced by French colonial teachers, and Socialist Realism, borrowed from the Communist regimes in Moscow and Beijing.” The New York Times 10/22/02

Monday October 21

WHERE’S THE QUALITY WORK? The number of art and antiques fairs has zoomed in the past decade. But some of the fairs are starting to struggle. There are “too many events and not enough dealers offering the kind of quality material demanded by collectors in the market’s present selective mood.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/21/02

THE PRADO’S INVISIBLE RENOVATIONS: Madrid’s Prado Museum is in the middle of a $45 million renovation. “The Prado will belatedly join a host of other museums, from the Louvre in Paris to the National Gallery in Washington, that have built annexes for art and assorted services. But the Prado is different: it wants its $45 million extension to go largely unnoticed.” The New York Times 10/21/02

IN PRAISE OF THE BILBAO EFFECT – FIVE YEARS ON: Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim Museum is five years old. “The Bilbao effect is viewed by many as a triumph of style over substance, a type of global branding that used to be confined to items such as fashionable shoes and whatnot. And the style itself – especially the ‘signature’ buildings whose complex, odd-looking forms could never have been designed and built without the aid of advanced computer technology – is considered highly suspect.” Washington Post 10/20/02

REMEMBERING LEWIS AND CLARK: Artist Maya Lin is designing a project to mark the voyage of Lewis and Clark across the American West. “Known as the Confluence Project, the $15 million effort scheduled to open in 2005 marks the last stops on Lewis and Clark’s epic, cross-country journey that began on the Missouri River and ended up here, along the Columbia River. There could be as many as eight sites total.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10/18/02

BEIJING’S NEW KOOLHAAS: Architect Rem Koolhaas has “just won the international competition to design the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing. The project, costed at about €600m ($585m/£377m), will be the most prestigious the capital has seen for decades. It will be [Koolhaas’s] greatest challenge to date: CCTV, the world’s biggest television network, reaches nearly 300m households, or more than 1bn people, and runs 12 channels of programmes.” Financial Times 10/21/02

Sunday October 10

IS MEXICO THE NEW CUBA? Mexico seems to be the hot place for art these days. At least that’s what it seems like as planeloads of international curators descend. They’re there, they say “because these artists have shown such wit, energy and international perspective – the sort of sophistication that the conventionally wise expect from art capitals like New York and Berlin. But these are artists schooled in skepticism, and some can’t help but wonder: What if it’s really just Mexico City’s turn to be the art world’s flavor of the month? Or worse, what if all this attention isn’t really about art at all?” Los Angeles Times 10/20/02

COWTOWN TAKES THE STAGE: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and its new 53,000 square-foot building will be the second largest museum devoted to art after World War II in the United States. What does it mean “when a place known as Cowtown suddenly takes the stage? After all, contemporary art is supposed to be a big-city sport, and Fort Worth is asking the world to rethink that concept.” Dallas Morning News 10/20/02

ODDS AND ENDS: Is Matthew Barney “the most important artist of his generation? His art can feel like a bizarre conglomeration of everything that has come before, from Celtic myths to the Baroque and on to the most recent movies, novels, conceptual art and sculpture. Barney stuffs it all in, and leaves your head spinning.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/19/02

A NEW LOOK FOR NY BUILDINGS: A big new hotel in Times Square has people thinking ugly. But perhaps it’s just a change of aesthetic coming to a city that has rarely been touted for good-looking architecture. “The city’s shifting demographic is one reason our architecture seems destined to become increasingly Latinized in the years ahead. A more important reason stems from the exhaustion of the northern European version of the Western tradition. That linear, 19th-century view of history has fallen apart as a measure of urban architecture. Post-modernism, a movement that tried to extend that line beyond its natural span, had the opposite effect of running it into the ground.” The New York Times 10/20/02

Friday October 18

POLICE RAID ART: Police in Toronto raid a gallery to investigate photographs by AA Bronson, one of Canada’s outstanding artists. “I asked to talk to an officer and he told me a concerned parent from the neighbourhood voiced a complaint and they had to bring in the sex crimes unit to take pictures of the window to determine whether it was obscene.” Toronto Star 10/18/02

NEW HISTORY MUSEUM CHIEF: Brent D. Glass, head of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The museum is “home to the original Star-Spangled Banner, Archie Bunker’s chair, Duke Ellington’s music collections and the wooden lap desk on which Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence. Opened in 1964, the museum is now the third most visited in the world.” Washington Post 10/18/02

JAPANESE SELL OFF ART: In the 1980s Japanese art collectors bought some of the world’s most expensive and high profile art. When the country’s economy tanked in the 90s, much of the high-priced art was quietly sold. “Now the Japanese recession is digging so deep that individuals and even respected museums are being forced to sell pieces acquired well before the Bubble period, including pieces officially listed as Important Art Objects.” The Art Newspaper 10/15/02

TRACKING DOWN THE QUEEN’S WHISTLERS: By the time she died, Queen Victoria owned 157 Whistler prints – more than any British museum. Then they were sold off, and some experts believe that many of the etchings ended up in American collections. So what provoked the sell-off? The Art Newspaper 10/15/02

Thursday October 17

COMMUNAL BUY: There’s a long tradition of museums sharing exhibitions and artwork for exhibitions. Now some are also sharing ownership of artwork. “Aside from economic considerations that lead museums to collaborate, the kind of art being produced today lends itself more readily to group ownership.” The New York Times 10/17/02

MAFIA TURNS TO ARCHAEOLOGY: “Mafia groups in the Ukraine are pursuing a lucrative sideline in archaeology, looting valuable artefacts to be sold on the black market, in addition to their traditional criminal enterprises such as selling drugs, prostitution and protection rackets. Their latest target is Crimea, in the southern Ukraine, which is host to vast quantities of buried treasures from Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Bronze Age settlements.” Scotland on Sunday 10/14/02

Wednesday October 16

POLL SAYS BRITS FAVOR RETURNING MARBLES: Forty per cent British respondants in a poll say that they thought Britain ought to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Only 16 percent said they should stay in the British Museum. “The figures are almost identical to a similar poll conducted in 1988.” BBC 10/16/02

NAZI LOOT ONLINE: How to track down artwork stolen by Nazis in World War II? “American museums now think that the Web can help in their attempt to uncover the Nazi loot that may still be hanging on their walls. In September 2002, the American Association of Museums received a $240,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Sciences for the creation of a Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal: a registry of objects in American museums of questionable ownership.” Salon 10/16/02

BLAME IT ON THE COMPUTERS? “The buildings of the public realm in corporate New Britain are the stuff of dreary private finance initiatives, concerned with delivering numerical targets rather than creating beautiful spaces and buildings. When you look back to a time when architects, sculptors and writers got together to mull over the direction and design of new buildings, to challenge architectural orthodoxies and plan ideal solutions for public projects, it all seems so long ago, and so improbable, that it might as well be the stuff of fiction.” The Guardian (UK) 10/14/02

Tuesday October 15

BRITISH MUSEUM CONSIDERS SELLING A BUILDING: The British Museum has a £6 million deficit after a major expansion and a decline in expected income. So the museum is considering trying to sell off one of its Central London buildings. “The building, a former post office just a couple of hundred yards from the museum’s main site, is reportedly worth some £35 million. It has been derelict for some years.” BBC 10/15/02

BUT IS IT ARCHITECTURE? The unorthodox Gateshead Millennium bridge has won this year’s Stirling Prize for Architecture. Judges for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ annual prize said the “simple and incredibly elegant £22 million bridge was not only an innovative and bold engineering challenge, but also the one piece of architecture that would be remembered by people this year.” The Guardian (UK) 10/14/02

NASTY PICTURES: The Brooklyn Museum’s show of Victorian nudes “is yet another chapter in the so-called culture wars,” writes Roger Kimball. “Over the past decade or so, it has become increasingly clear that this war is a battle about everything the Victorians are famous for: the ‘cleanliness, hard work, strict self-discipline,’ etc., that one of the people responsible for this exhibition speaks of with such contempt. Do those values, those virtues, articulate noble human aspirations? Or are they merely the repressive blind for … well, you name it: narrowness, hypocrisy, the expression of a ‘white, patriarchal, capitalist, hegemonic,’ blah, blah, blah?” New Criterion 10/02

EXPANDING MASS MOCA: The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, (MASS MoCA), in North Adams, is expanding. The museum is renovating the complex at the former Sprague Electric Co. Within two years, they expect to add 45,000 square feet of commercial space at the site, and by 2008, 140,000 square feet of new galleries. Since it opened three years ago, Mass MoCA has spent $26 million of state money to open some 180,000 square feet of galleries and commercial space in a rehabilitated mill.” Boston Herald 10/15/02

FRIDA FETISH: Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is “currently the height of radical chic, and is likely to be even more in vogue when Julie Taymor’s movie Frida, starring Salma Hayek, opens next year. But it is hard not to feel that there is something distasteful and unhealthy about the way we like our artists – particularly if they are women – to suffer. Would there be half as much interest in Kahlo’s paintings if her life had been half as colourful and tragic?” The Guardian (UK) 10/14/02

Monday October 14

DEFINING MOMENT: Connecticut arts leaders were surprised when Kate Sellers resigned as director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art earlier this month in the middle of raising $120 million for an expansion. “Sellers’ walking away from what would have been a career-defining moment, at one of the most pivotal periods in the museum’s 160-year history, makes one wonder what was going on…” Hartford Courant 10/14/02

Sunday October 13

ATTACKING ART, LITERALLY: Cultural terrorism – the destruction of public art and artifacts in the name of political gain – has yet to reach American shores, but is a major concern around the world. “The shelling of the Bosnian National Library in Sarejevo in August 1992, by Serbian nationalists dug in the hills surrounding the city… and the fire it caused, destroyed thousands of priceless manuscripts and books, as well as gutting a historic and beautiful building.” And who could forget the Taliban’s destruction of the massive Bamyan Buddhas in Afghanistan as the world’s cultural leaders pleaded with them to stop? Such acts of wanton destruction are often minimized when placed alongside terrorist attacks on human life, but the cold reality is that the cultural death toll may be more permanent than the human one. Toronto Star 10/12/02

NEW TRENDS AT THE AUCTION BLOCK: The new auction season is officially on, and some interesting broadening of views on old schools of art seems to be occurring in London. A Sotheby’s auction of mainly modern masters this week “projected a new image of German Avant-garde trends in the first half of the 20th century by bringing out the continuity of mood from the Expressionism of 1908 to 1914 to the Abstractionism of the 1920s and 1930s. Most works shared an intensity in the color schemes, a thrust in the brush work, an energy bordering on fierceness and a sternness that was sometimes grim. Lighthearted subjects took on a gravitas at odds with their nature.” International Herald Tribune 10/12/02

WHO SAYS JOURNALISTS ARE NEGATIVE? “Something has clicked in the consciousness of New Yorkers. After lying down in the waters of sorrow, New Yorkers are standing up to speak about the florescence of an idea. Architecture matters. The gaping wound of Lower Manhattan could never be healed by the conventions of real-estate development, in which parcels of land are arranged like slabs of meat on a plate. They see this now with a sanguine clarity even while the grief for their hometown still lingers. What the post-Sept. 11 city needs more than ever is architecture by the world’s most intelligent creators — that is what New Yorkers have demanded and that is exactly what is about to be dished out.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/13/02

GEHRY’S BUSINESS SCHOOL: “Dedicated Wednesday, the $62 million [Frank Gehry-designed] Peter B. Lewis Building for the Weatherhead School of Management at [Cleveland’s] Case Western Reserve University is by no means a triumph like Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. But to measure every building by that epoch-defining structure is to set an almost impossibly high standard. Not every design can be a masterpiece. Some turn out to be steps along the journey rather than a final destination. This one certainly takes us on a trip. It marks a decisive break, at once flawed and fabulous, out of the typical B-School box.” Chicago Tribune 10/13/02

A JETTY REEMERGES: “The most famous work of American art that almost nobody has ever seen in the flesh is Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty’: 6,650 tons of black basalt and earth in the shape of a gigantic coil, 1,500 feet long, projecting into the remote shallows of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where the water is rose red from algae.” The visual effect is stunning, when the coil can be seen, but it has been years since the murky waters of the lake yielded up Smithson’s work to the eyes of visitors. But with drought sweeping the American West, the water level is lower than it has ever been, and the jetty has reappeared, at least for the time being. The New York Times Magazine 10/13/02

Friday October 11

ART SALES DOWN THIS YEAR: The Art Sales Index shows that the value of art sold in the past year declined 13-14 percent. “In the wake of 11 September, collapsing stock exchanges and high international tension, the art market has had a tough season, and while some stellar prices have been achieved, this has tended to obscure a very real weakness in the middle market.” The Art Newspaper 10/11/02

TURNER FAMILY MAY WANT PAINTINGS BACK: William Turner’s descendants are threatening to take back the painter’s work from London museums. “Relatives say the Tate and the National Gallery ignored the artist’s wishes that his collection, now worth an estimated £500million, should be kept in rooms specifically for his work. They are considering legal action to try to force the galleries to return the paintings.” London Evening Standard 10/10/02

TAKE ALL YOU WANT. WE’LL MAKE MORE: “Guests at the Lake Placid Lodge, a longtime wilderness camp turned year-round posh resort on the shore of Lake Placid facing Whiteface Mountain (and the singer Kate Smith’s former lakeside compound), don’t have to confine themselves to taking a towel as a souvenir of their stay. They can take the whole antlered room. It’s fine with the management. As long as they pay for it, of course. That’s because the Lake Placid Lodge — where the 34 rooms and cabins go for $350 to $950 a night with breakfast and afternoon tea — doubles as an art gallery and what the owners call the largest showplace of rustic art furniture in the country.” The New York Times 10/11/02

SCALING BACK IN L.A.: “The Children’s Museum of Los Angeles has put on hold plans to build its $60-million museum in Little Tokyo, one of two new proposed branches, because of the weak economy, the president of the museum’s board of trustees said Thursday… The decision to defer Art Park and focus the museum’s resources on Hansen Dam was made last week after months of debate by the museum’s board of governors.” Los Angeles Times 10/11/02

Thursday October 10

UK MUSEUMS LOOKING FOR PROMISED HELP: UK museums are hurting. A survey last summer uncovered “a litany closures, decaying buildings, collapsing morale and inadequate acquisition funds,” warning that “unless £167 million was found for museums outside London, the ‘brain drain’ from the provinces after years of underfunding would be hastened, driving many museums into irreversible decline.” The government promised help. But months later, that help is not assured, and some are beginning to wonder… The Guardian (UK) 10/10/02

MISSING MORE THAN A RIB: Experts at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are assessing the damage to a 15th-century statue depicting Adam eating the forbidden fruit, after the statue tumbled off its pedestal and shattered this week. Despite extensive breakage, the museum believes that it has “a good chance of returning the statue to public view with no signs of destruction visible to the untrained eye.” BBC 10/10/02

ART STANDS IN FOR REALITY: Absent a decent picture for its cover a couple weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine hired an artist to transform a blurry photo into a clear portrait. “Times policy, like that of this paper and many others, forbids the manipulation of news photos… So the magazine had one of them turned into a more striking blurry painting, on the principle that fine art can rework reality any way it pleases, without answering to issues of journalistic ethics.” But, wonders art critic Blake Gopnik, does calling it art solve the ethical issues? Washington Post 10/06/02

Wednesday October 9

SCOTLAND BUYS BEUYS: The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has scored a coup. For £605,000 – “hardly enough to buy you the pickled hind quarters of a Damien Hirst” – the gallery has purchased a major collection of the work of Joseph Beuys. “The drawings, lithographs, photographs, books and sculptures amount to a third of the German artist’s multiples, editionalised versions of his works he produced to bring his art to the widest public.” The Guardian (UK) 10/09/02

AUSTRALIA FIRST: There seems to be consensus that this year’s Melbourne Art Fair was a success. Except if you were a European gallery. There was plenty of buying, but sales were mostly by Australian artists, not Europeans. Is it parochialism? “Usually, in Europe, if you like something, you go for it, especially if it’s affordable, because you trust your taste. And then you inquire about the artist. But here (potential buyers) need five people to tell them something is good. Here, collectors have, say, three artists. They know them forever and stick to them. It’s very narrow-minded.” The Age (Melbourne) 10/09/02

THERE ONCE WAS A PAINTING FROM GHENT… In 1934 a panel painted by van Eyck was stolen from in Ghent’s St Bavo Cathedral. In the decades since, the mystery of its disappearance deepened. Was it hidden elsewhere in the church? Was it sold to a collector? Was it destroyed? Last week a taxi driver claimed to have some answers… The Guardian (UK) 10/09/02

MET STATUE CRASHES TO FLOOR: Sunday night a 15th-century marble statue of Adam by the Venetian sculptor Tullio Lombardo at the Metropolitan Museum in New York fell off its pedestal and crashed to the floor. “The museum has now tentatively concluded that the 6-foot-3-inch statue fell to the ground when one side of the 4-inch-high base of its pedestal apparently buckled, tipping over both the pedestal and statue.” The New York Times 10/09/02

RETHINKING PICASSO: Was Picasso a “selfish, miserly old goat who destroyed the lives of those closest to him?” That’s certainly been the picture painted of him. But the artist’s grandson begs to differ. He’s “tired of half-baked theories that misunderstand Picasso’s life and work.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/09/02

Tuesday October 8

FUN…BUT CONFUSING? The Seoul Media Art Biennale is opening, and organizers hope they’ve learned some lessons from the last biennale, which didn’t draw large crowds. “But a general Korean audience, the target of the exhibition, may not be ready for the experimental pieces in the show. While many of the entries use fun, high-tech gadgets – DVD technology, video games, computer monitors and hard drives, digital photography, multiple television screens – and are visually entertaining, many invoke confusion, possibly distancing art further from the general public.” Korea Herald 10/08/02

BIG DEAL: The Tate Modern is unveiling a giant sculpture created by Anish Kapoor for the museum. “The work, which measures almost 150m in length and is 10 storeys high, spans the entire entrance of the art gallery. ‘It’s a big thing because it needs to be a big thing. One hopes that it’s a deep thing’.” BBC 10/08/02

LONG ROAD AHEAD FOR THE BARNES: The Barnes Collection outside Philadelphia is trying to move inside Philadelphia. Though the Barnes has lined up plenty of support from civic leaders, funders and foundations, and though many in Philadelphia are anxious to get the Barnes to come to town, Albert Barnes’ will must be challenged in court. “This is not something that will be decided in the court of public opinion. This is going to be up to the courts, and it could be a very long process.” Washington Post 10/08/02

Monday October 7

ALTERED STATES: Just before the Royal Academy’s new show Galleries opened last month, a work by the artist collective Inventory, an “anti-imperialist tirade, sprayed directly onto the RA’s walls”, was sprayed over to cover up its anti-American references. Wasthe RA being tactful in removing “rude” material, or were the artists being censored? The Art Newspaper 10/04/02

THWARTING KHAN: The Aga Khan has been trying to buy property on the Thames in London to build a museum for his art collection – the largest collection of Islamic art in the English-speaking world. But the National Health Service wants the land (owned by King’s College) so the hospital next door can expand. Though the Aga Khan offers more than twice the money for the property, the sale is likely to be made to the Health Service, prompting some to worry that the Aga Khan might take his collection out of England. The Observer 10/06/02

ANCIENT ASTRONOMERS: Three years ago looters in Germany, “equipped with a metal detector and basic household tools…stumbled upon one of the greatest archaeological finds of this century.” It’s a disc 30 centimeters in diameter weighing approximately 2 kilograms, and thought to be around 3,600 years old. “The disc shows that northern Europeans, probably Celts, made a science of astronomy at roughly the same time as the Stonehenge astronomical cult site was built in Britain.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10/04/02

Sunday October 6

THE DRAMATIC GESTURE: Of the seven finalists for this year’s Stirling Prize for architecture, the oddsmaker’s favorite isn’t a building, but a dramatic bridge. “The Gateshead Millennium Bridge makes a great photograph, an elegant structure that perfectly marries engineering and architecture, it represents the epitome of design for the High-Tech generation.” The Telegraph (UK) 10/05/02

ART AS A CONCEPT (FIRST): For 30 years Ronald Feldman’s New York gallery has served up art that wasn’t exactly the obvious sell. “Remaining on the edge for Mr. Feldman has meant staging ambitious installations and group exhibitions that could never recoup their costs. ‘I didn’t start with a concept or a business plan — I just did it. The real challenge was to see art in your time and become an advocate for it’.” The New York Times 10/06/02

Friday October 4

TURIN FIRE WASN’T ARSON: In 1997, fire destroyed the newly-restored Chapel of the Holy Shroud. An investigation has finally conculded the fire wasn’t arson. “Twelve cathedral custodians have been accused of sounding the alarm too late. Contractors undertaking restoration in the chapel stand accused of failing to switch the electricity off at the mains, a terrible oversight which is believed to have caused the fire. Experts say the fire was started by an electrical arc flash which set fire to the restorers’ wooden scaffolding crowding the baroque chapel.” The Art Newspaper 10/04/02

SCULPTURE TO THE FORE: At Washington’s National Gallery, the sculture collection has always taken a back seat to the museum’s impressive displays of painting, possibly because of the physical and aesthetic difficulties of exhibiting large quantities of sculpture. But a suite of new galleries at the National has been carefully designed to showcase 800 three-dimensional works, and Roberta Smith, for one, is impressed. The New York Times 10/04/02

DEEP THINKING AT STANFORD: “After many nervous hours of careful maneuvering onto a pedestal Monday, The Thinker, one of the world’s most recognizable sculptures, was home again at Stanford University’s Cantor arts center after a three-year journey overseas. The contours of its freshly waxed bronze gleamed, heralding a confluence of events this week to honor not only the works of its famous creator, Auguste Rodin, but also the posthumous publication of a catalog of Rodin’s work by one of his greatest advocates, Stanford art Professor Albert Elsen.” San Jose Mercury News 10/01/02

Wednesday October 2

CUTS PLANNED FOR THE GUGGENHEIM: The Guggenheim is facing a budget crisis, even after laying off staff and closing its Soho branch last year. Now the museum is planning further staff cuts and reducing its exhibition hours in New York. “Asked to confirm reports that the museum’s operating budget was cut to $25.9 million in 2002 from $49 million in 2001,” museum officials acknowledged big cuts but were “not comfortable discussing exact numbers.” There are also rumors the Guggenheim’s Las Vegas museum might close in 2003. New York Sun 10/01/02

ITALY RETURNING PIECE OF THE PARTHENON: Italy plans to return a piece of the marble frieze from the Parthenon that it has held since the 1700s. “The fragment, held at a museum in Sicily, consists of a goddess’s foot and part of her tunic and once formed part of the frieze on the east side of the Parthenon.” Italy’s president calls the move a “gesture of friendship.” The Times (UK) 10/01/02

BRITISH MUSEUM SAYS CLAIM IS “COMPELLING”: The British Museum says there is “compelling evidence” that four Old Master drawings it owns were looted by the Nazis. The museum’s trustees described the claim as ‘detailed and compelling’. The artworks – thought to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds – are said to have been stolen between 1935 and 1945 from a collection owned by Dr Arthur Feldmann, of Brno, in the Czech Republic.” BBC 10/02/02

• BRITISH MUSEUM INVESTIGATES DRAWINGS: The British Museum is investigating claims that four Old Master drawings it owns were looted during the Nazi period. The Art Newspaper 09/27/02

WRITING’S ON THE WALL: In Milwaukee, Coca Cola is sponsoring an art contest in which winners designs are painted onto walls. But city officials aren’t happy. Some believe that the art might encourage graffiti artists. “Some businesses may welcome a winning picture as a mural on a wall, but [one official] says the presence of graffiti-style art only inspires others to express themselves on other walls without permission.” The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 10/01/02

AN AMERICANA (LAWSUIT) STORY: The Saturday Evening Post is suing a Connecticut museum to get back a painting by John Falter that was once used on the cover of the publication. The museum “got the painting as a gift in 1977 from Kenneth Stuart. The lawsuit claims that Stuart, the Post’s art director from 1942 to 1963, took the Falter piece without permission and didn’t legally own the work when he donated it. Stuart died in 1993.” Hartford Courant 10/02/02

Tuesday October 1

LOOKING FOR ART THAT MATTERS: Jed Perl wonders about a cure for the malaise that has long dogged the artworld. “Although gallerygoers are stirred by contemporary art and museumgoers are having extraordinary experiences, there is a widespread belief that nothing really adds up, either for the artists or for the audiences. No matter how eye-filling the experiences that people are having, those experiences can end up feeling disconnected, isolated, stripped of context and implication. The art may not disappoint, but there is so much disappointment and confusion built up around the very idea of art that people find themselves backing away from their own sensations.” So what is the answer? “What we find ourselves craving now is art’s immediacy, art’s particularity. But how do you build an aesthetic out of immediacy and particularity?” The New Republic 09/30/02

EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES SICILIAN MONUMENTS: Officials are toting up damages to monuments and buildings in Sicily after an earthquake September 6. Hundreds of buildings , including the home of the Sicilian parliament, have been declared unsafe. “Of about 40 damaged monuments in the province of Palermo, so far about 10 have been declared unfit for use” and the number could double, say officials. The Art Newspaper 09/27/02

CALL ON QUEEN TO RETURN RARE BRONZE: The former director of the Lagos [Nigeria] National Museum is calling on Queen Elizabeth to return a rare Benin Bronze given to her as a gift in 1973 by Nigerian President Yakubu Gowon. “General Gowon wanted to give something very valuable to The Queen and the fact it had been bought for our museum made it seem even more important. He gave the gift out of love for The Queen, but it was done out of ignorance.” The Art Newspaper 09/27/02

MORE THAN JUST A BATH: The painstaking year-long effort to clean Michelangelo’s David is a sophisticated process. “The year-long campaign will include microclimatic surveillance and gamma-ray testing to reveal the exact nature of the atmospheric deposits, staining and erosion on the statue. Working in tandem with computer-generated models of the statue in a lab in Pisa, the intervention is the largest-scale study ever of what happens to monuments over time – sort of a gerontological study of public art.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/01/02