The New Museum of Contemporary Art’s upcoming exhibition of industrialist Dakis Joannou’s collection “is generating anticipatory chatter in the art world. But it is also leading to buzz of a different kind, about the propriety of turning over a public museum to a private collector who also happens to be a museum trustee and a chief patron of the curator.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Bronx English Teacher Suspended Over Palahniuk Story
“A beloved city schoolteacher has been suspended by the Department of Education after giving his 11th-grade students a copy of a graphic short story about masturbation written by ‘Fight Club’ author Chuck Palahniuk.”
Does Information Really Want To Be Free?
A survey of 100 people on the street, opining on whether and how much they’d pay for digital music, news and books. Fourteen of them said they’d pay for subway musicians if they had to.
Didn’t Waterstone’s Used To Be One Of The Good Guys?
“So the argument goes: in going big, Waterstone’s lost its soul. It gains credence if you consider what is happening in the US” — the discount wars, that is. Nicholas Spice, publisher of the London Review of Books, says: “Waterstone’s has really already done to British bookselling just the kind of things that we’re seeing in the US.”
British Curator Murdered With His Daughter In Sydney
“A British art curator and his daughter have been found dead of multiple stab wounds alongside an injured toddler at a million-dollar home in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs.” Police “found the bodies of Nick Waterlow, 68, and his daughter Chloe, 37, a cookbook author, on Monday night.” Nick Waterlow’s mentally ill son is said to be the suspect.
Musicians Say Off-B’way Producers Locked Them Out
“The union contends the producers locked out the musicians beginning with the Oct. 17 performance [of ‘Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding’], replacing them with recorded music.” It argues the show’s “producers are bound by a labor contract that was struck with the old producers, a deal that does not expire until 2011.”
Same-Sex Couples Come To The Fore As Arts Donors
“It’s no surprise that gays and lesbians are strong supporters of the arts. What has changed in recent years is that they are choosing to be recognized as couples. Quietly in some cases, more publicly in others, these philanthropists are providing vital support and spurring the organizations to recruit other like-minded couples….”
Chia Obama, A Singular Tribute (Um: ‘It’s Not A Pet’)
“If RNC Chairman Michael Steele doesn’t have one of these in his den, I’ll eat Rush Limbaugh’s shorts. The staggering truth: Chia Obama is a real product, and its creator … means it to be a sincere tribute to Obama, who he says has inherited ‘the biggest can of worms ever put on a president.'”
When Sesame Street Was New
“Educators were thrilled that children were entering school with a grasp of letters, colors and elementary numbers. Later, the show was criticized as too winsome, leading children to expect that the elements of reading and math would bounce in bright colors across the classroom. Nowadays, teachers are probably just grateful if kindergartners aren’t texting in class.”
Nabokov’s Would-Be Novel Is A Violation Of The Author
“The Original of Laura can’t escape the musty air of an estate sale: The trinkets that piled up in the attic; the damp books from the basement; the old man’s stained cravat…. It would be ridiculous, of course, to blame the deceased for the estate sale.” Nabokov is a victim here.