Patrick Skoff’s M.O. is simple: He abandons his paintings, one by one, in public places. “He tools around Chicago for a few hours and leaves hundreds of dollars worth of his art in random spots. He drops hints about the locations via Twitter and texts. Then he goes home.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Once Upon A Time, Artists Won Olympic Medals
“Most of the world has forgotten, but when the ancient Olympics were revived at the start of the last century, it was taken for granted that if sport was the first pillar of the event, culture was the second.”
An Evening At The Erotic Literary Salon
Its sexologist founder “envisioned the salon as a safe enclave for women, but opened to both sexes when the initial location … balked at excluding men. Now she attracts 50-50. Surprisingly, men often write and read innuendo, she said, while women lay it all – and we do mean all – out there.”
Hollywood Genuinely Gaining In Eco-Consciousness
“The industry’s routine use of use carbon-belching private jets to ferry stars, for example, doesn’t comport with a green mandate. Still, some producers are paying more than lip service to the hype, prompting equipment suppliers, vendors and film crews to change how they operate.”
The Day The Buy Buttons Disappeared
“I have several books listed on Amazon, so I flick from one to another, looking to see if perhaps, while I was sleeping, one of my titles suddenly became wildly, breathtakingly popular and sold a gazillion copies. Then, last week, something strange happened. … There was no way to ‘Add to Shopping Cart.'”
When Songwriters Were Bitten With The Space-Travel Bug
“The Industrial Revolution had a significant impact on allusions to space in music, says Sally Childs-Helton, an ethnomusicologist at Butler University. … ‘We have heard songs that date back to Tin Pan Alley and earlier, back to the turn of the 19th century.'”
Stan Wojewodski, Late Of Yale, To Head SMU Theatre Dept.
Having spent 11 years as dean of the Yale School of Drama and artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, Stan Wojewodski, Jr., wasn’t eager to “go back into administration,” the dean of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts said. “He came here because he could direct again.”
The Era Of The Artful Video Game Has Begun
“At their core, they’re still games. You can blast your way through BioShock II or Mass Effect II if you wish, ignoring the political and aesthetic accouterments that set them apart from their predecessors. It would be like watching ‘The Sopranos’ as merely an entertaining mafioso epic.”
How Architecture For Humanity Is Helping In Haiti
“Architecture for Humanity works with groups around the world to rebuild communities struck by natural and man-made disasters.” Now the “organization is helping to reconstruct the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The first task is to build disaster recovery centers that will serve other relief groups.”
Report: Peter Alward To Take Over Salzburg Easter Festival
Alward, the British former head of classical music at EMI Group Ltd., “will replace Michael Dewitte, the festival’s managing director until December, who is now under investigation for fraud and embezzlement, [the Austrian magazine] News reported in a preview of tomorrow’s edition.”