“Reacting to museums’ complaints of sharp declines in art donations, a bill announced Friday by Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, could revive the practice of so-called fractional gifts by making the process easier and more tax-advantageous. Before the 2006 Pension Protection Act, collectors were allowed a tax break when they donated a work of art incrementally, giving away a certain percentage of rights to the work each year.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Perusing Leonard Bernstein’s 800-Page FBI File
“During the long reign of J. Edgar Hoover, Leonard Bernstein was a person of considerable interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His file has not yet appeared in the F.B.I.’s Electronic Reading Room–an interesting place to while away an afternoon–but the Bureau sent me a copy on request.”
Authors Guild: Google Settlement Still A Good Thing
“After the New York Times reported that the William Morris Endeavor agency would be officially advising clients to opt out of the Google settlement, the Authors Guild issued a statement of its own Monday afternoon claiming the agency was off base in its assessment and recommendation. In an open memo to agents and authors, the Guild … said WME’s advice to clients ‘contains several errors that are likely to sow some confusion.'”
London’s Roundhouse As A Musical Instrument
“London’s iconic music venue Roundhouse … has been transformed into a giant steampunk musical instrument by Talking Heads founder David Byrne. An old pump organ in the centre of the circular hall is linked to the Roundhouse’s metal beams, cast iron pillars and plumping pipes, via a sprawling mass of cables. Visitors can ‘play’ the building by pressing the keyboard to make tuneful sounds and vibrations.”
Stephen Adly Guirgis On Ojai’s Smart, Sexy Playwrights
Guirgis blogs from the Ojai Playwrights Conference: “I have already fallen head over heels for the brilliant, hot and award-winning playwright Lisa Kron — and the fact that she is a lesbian only means I’ll have to work a little harder to figure out a way to turn myself into a gay woman. … The truth is that everybody here is pretty brilliant and hot.”
Shepard Fairey Critiques Obama Joker Art
“Shepard Fairey is all for free speech and creating a political dialogue. But the man who created the instantly recognizable posters for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has some choice words for the anonymous artist who made the Obama Joker artwork. ‘I have my doubts about the person’s intelligence,’ Fairey said on the phone from Pittsburgh.”
At Sweet 16, Guest-Conducting The Atlanta Symphony
“Outstanding young violinists or chess masters or tennis pros are common. Conducting prodigies are extremely rare, however, because leading an orchestra is a cumulative art that’s rewarded by life experience. It’s about persuading 100 independent-minded virtuoso musicians to take direction and inspiration from the tip of a slender little baton. … Now meet Ilyich Rivas, 16.”
Why Sitting Down To Read Isn’t So Easy Anymore (Tweet!)
“We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. … In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise. Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted.”
Racial Outrage Prompts New Cover For Children’s Book
Justine Larbalestier’s Liar, to be published in October, is getting a redesign. “Bloggers, commentors and the author herself had criticized the publisher’s choice of a white girl with long, straight tresses for [the cover of] a novel about an African-American girl with ‘nappy’ hair.” Bloomsbury Children’s Books said the original design “was intended to symbolically reflect the narrator’s complex psychological makeup.”
MoCA China Founder Spent, Opened, And Fled
“The founder of the short-lived Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) China in Hong Kong left the country soon after the museum opened last autumn, leaving behind massive debts, several sources confirm. Jeffrey du Vallier d’Aragon Aranita, a realist painter, registered the non-profit in 2007 and announced plans to establish a network of non-profit MoCAs throughout China that would share collections and programming.”