“Laredo sits on the border with Mexico. It’s a poor city filled with immigrants who don’t speak English, let alone read it. A federal survey several years ago found half the adults in the county lack basic literacy skills. Yet the bookstore,” a B. Dalton in a mall, “has become a touchstone.” And it’s slated for closure.
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
400 Years Later, Scientists Examine Caravaggio’s Remains
The painter’s bones “had been housed in a special container called an ossuary in the town of Porto Ercole in Italy. … The cause of Caravaggio’s death has been something of a mystery,” with theories including “that he was assassinated for religious reasons, and that he collapsed with malaria on a deserted beach.”
In Astor Case, Being B’way Producer Was Image Enhancer
Attorneys for Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshall, tried to make him look good by painting him as “a proud Marine who had seen combat at Iwo Jima; a distinguished former C.I.A. employee; a respected former diplomat; and a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer.”
Donald Duck, Sweden’s Peculiar Family Christmas Tradition
“Every year on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m., half of Sweden sits down in front of the television for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, ‘From All of Us to All of You.’ Or as it is known in Sverige, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul: ‘Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas.'”
Fonzie As Capt. Hook In Liverpool: Must Be Panto Season
“Pantomimes — recastings of old children’s stories with vaudeville, audience participation, puns, singing and cross-dressing — are an honorable, even essential, part of the British Christmas season. Meant to appeal to all ages, they are enduringly popular, flamboyantly silly and, if done well, hugely lucrative. They often feature big stars.”
Warhol Foundation Funds Watts Towers House-Rehab Bid
The $125,000 grant “creates the unlikely, face-to-face juxtaposition of Andy Warhol … with Simon Rodia, the Italian immigrant artisan whose single-handed creation of the hundred-foot-high, ornately sculpted and decorated Watts Towers over more than 30 years established him as one of art history’s ultimate do-it-yourselfers.”
Online Bio Embellished Past Of BU Opera Institute Head
“Though it said she performed in starring roles with several A-list companies in Europe and San Francisco, a Globe review has found that four institutions have either no record of her or cast her in minor parts. In one case, in which she is listed as principal soprano, she was actually the fifth of six flower maidens in a 1974 production of Wagner’s ‘Parsifal.'”
Egypt To Germany: Give Us Back Our Nefertiti Bust
“The diary of Ludwig Borchardt, who discovered the head in 1912, shows that he knew that the 3,400 year-old limestone bust was of Queen Nefertiti and instead listed it as a ‘painted plaster bust of a princess,'” according to the Cairo-based Supreme Council of Authority.
Was Roundabout’s Expansion Brilliance? Hubris? Both?
With the Roundabout Theatre Company “expecting to end the fiscal year with its first budget deficit since 1992,” some producers say it’s “a case study of an arts institution overextending itself financially — all the more so after a powerful board member offered the company a new theater — as well as creatively.”
Signature’s Gehry-Designed Home Looks Closer To Reality
“The Signature Theater Company is to announce on Tuesday that it has raised $41 million of the $60 million goal for its new theater on West 42nd Street, designed by Frank Gehry and developed by the Related Companies.”