“The London games will start on the same weekend Edinburgh’s festivals season starts and will continue until the end of the second weekend of the Fringe, by which time the EIF will also be up and running. Fringe venue operators say ticket-sale fears are based on recent experience when the festival coincided with the Athens and Beijing Olympics. However, a special taskforce has been set up to work out how Edinburgh can capitalise on the 2012 Olympics….”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
At Brooklyn Library, Tintin Violates Community Standards
“[I]f you go to the Brooklyn Public Library seeking a copy of ‘Tintin au Congo,’ Hergé’s second book in a series, prepare to make an appointment and wait days to see the book. ‘It’s not for the public,’ a librarian in the children’s room said this month when a patron asked to see it. The book, published 79 years ago,” has been “held under lock and key” since 2007, after “a patron objected, as others have, to the way Africans are depicted in the book.”
How To Knit A Poem, Literally
“[M]ore than 800 knitting enthusiasts are currently involved in knitting and crocheting individual letters to create the world’s first giant knitted poem as part of the centenary celebrations for the Poetry Society, with the as-yet secret poem set to be unveiled at the beginning of October. … With letters – average size 12 inches square, although ‘W’ takes up more room than ‘I’ – flooding in to the Poetry Society’s post room daily, the finished product is likely to take up a fair bit of space.”
Head Of Prince’s Foundation Responds To Accusations
The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment “is an educational charity which helps communities, developers and designers build places that compare favourably with Britain’s most loved neighbourhoods, towns and cities. We also run training programmes for planners, urban designers and building craftspeople. … I regularly meet other professionals to share ideas and discuss work. We certainly do not meet to review and approve one another’s plans.”
UK Museum Stores Raking In The Cash
“The National Trust says 2009 looks likely to be its commercial arm’s ‘biggest ever year’ as perfumed drawer liners and lemon curd prove to be the season’s must-haves. Its flagship stores at properties such as Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland and the Sackville-Wests’ ancestral home at Sissinghurst, Kent are proving to be the culture sector’s equivalent of Harrods and Selfridges this year…. Other leading institutions, from the Victoria & Albert Museum to the Natural History Museum, are also chalking up strong sales.”
Online, UK Museums And Galleries United In Retail Effort
“David Gilbert, chairman of the Contemporary Arts Society finance committee, has set up an initiative that aims to generate up to 30% extra revenue for UK museums and galleries–a welcome move at a time of major funding and sponsorship worries. Culture Label (www.culturelabel.com) is an online venture that unites the retail outlets of 60 British arts institutions, allowing worldwide access to their products.”
10,000 Donors Clog Website During $1M Challenge Grant
“Gridlock, furious patrons, embarrassed officials and a classic good news-bad news story that saw $3.75 million raised for local cultural groups … also left a trail of anger and frustration throughout the arts community. Technical problems Tuesday sabotaged the Community Foundation Challenge, an online $1-million matching grant program for about 75 cultural groups in metro Detroit. Scores of donors were prevented from making gifts and others wasted hours in front of their computers.”
National Geographic To Sell Photos From Its Archive
The National Geographic Society’s archive encompasses “more than 11 million images richly documenting the life of the 20th century, from Uganda to the Mississippi Delta to remote lamaseries near the Mongolian border,” a collection it is opening “to the fine-art market for the first time. National Geographic’s goal is to find private and institutional collectors for the vintage black-and-white prints and later color images.”
Leibovitz Creditor Goldman Sachs Says It Wants To Help
“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it owns part of the $24 million loan to photographer Annie Leibovitz that led to the breach-of-contract lawsuit she faces, and offered to work with her to ‘resolve her financing needs.'” It said it has “proposed to Art Capital,” the creditor pursuing the suit, “that we terminate the current loan agreement with their affiliate so that we can work directly with Ms. Leibovitz.” Art Capital denied that Goldman Sachs had made such a proposal.
Take The El Train: Chicago Puts Jazz On The Rails
On Sunday afternoon, “a new Chi-Jazz El Train will swing around the Loop, rumble up the Purple Line to Evanston and then head back downtown — with jazz musicians playing onboard all the while. The performers will hold forth in one car, the music piped in live to all the others. To ensure that everyone gets face time with the jazzmen, passengers periodically will rotate from one car to the next.”