“Every June for centuries, Pisa and its leaning tower have been illuminated by thousands of candles and oil lamps to celebrate its patron saint, Ranieri, in one of the most atmospheric festivals in Tuscany. But tomorrow night, for the first time, participation in the Luminara festival will be compulsory under a new city law, with police set to roam the twinkling city to slap fines of up to €500 [£420] on anyone caught without a candle in their window.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Budget Woes Force University Presses To Show Their Worth
“Chancellor Michael Martin doesn’t question the prestige the Louisiana State University Press brings to his school, with Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction and poetry, tomes on Southern history and culture and other noted works to its credit. What it doesn’t bring in is revenue, and like cash-strapped colleges across the country, LSU is getting tired of propping up its press.”
Cirque Founder Says He’ll Sue Over Biography’s Sex Claims
“[T]he once-penniless street performer behind Cirque du Soleil is involved in an intriguing legal spat over the colourful acrobatic manoeuvres that allegedly take place in his bedroom. Guy Laliberté, the billionaire impresario whose troupe will today celebrate its 25th birthday, has announced plans to sue the publishers of an unauthorised biography which depicts him as a bed-hopping scoundrel with an inexhaustible appetite for sex, drugs, and a rock and roll lifestyle.”
NY’s New Archbishop Is Quick Study In Hawking Broadway
“When Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan left Milwaukee for the Big Apple, we didn’t expect him to become a celebrity endorser of Broadway shows, but here he is waxing enthusiastic about ‘Irena’s Vow’ on the World War II drama’s website.”
Laguna Museum Seeks Secret OCMA Buyer To Talk Deal
“[W]ho’s the private collector who dealers specializing in early 20th Century California Impressionist paintings say got a fabulous buy” — $963,000 — “on 18 pieces that the Orange County Museum of Art sold in March because the museum no longer shows and collects works from that period? And who should Bolton Colburn, director of the Laguna Art Museum, which does show and collect what’s often also called plein air painting, call to beg or dicker with?”
Libraries Okay, Arts Less So In NYC Budget
As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council agreed on a budget last night, “city officials said that they were able to minimize cuts to what they said were their top priorities — firehouses, child-care workers and libraries — though they were less successful in the areas of health care, police training and the arts. … Full details are expected to be released in the next few days, and the City Council is scheduled to vote on the budget on Thursday or Friday.”
A Cultural Center Takes Root In Harlem
“The new Dwyer Cultural Center, with a series of public programs that begin Tuesday, hopes to stake its claim in the neighborhood with exhibitions, performances, workshops and other events designed specifically to showcase Harlem’s history, and to support its established and future artists. The $3 million, 7,000-square-foot Dwyer Cultural Center, at 258 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 123rd Street), is emblematic in some ways of the latest Harlem Renaissance.”
Artists Remind Google It’s Not A Cash-Strapped Start-Up
“When Google representatives recently invited dozens of prominent artists to contribute work to be featured on its new Web browser, the company enthusiastically sold the idea as an opportunity to have artwork shown to millions.” The catch: Google was not offering payment. “In the ensuing weeks, a tide of indignation toward Google swelled among illustrators,” already suffering from the downturn in print publications.
Misjudged: What’s Wrong With Court-Ordered Authorship
A judge last week sentenced former pharmaceutical executive Andrew G. Bodnar to write a book about his misdeeds. “We do see the possibility of justice in this sentence — if Dr. Bodnar hates to write. But it feels like an invitation to insincerity. In fact, it feels a little like asking an adolescent boy to explain, in front of his friends, why telling a lie is bad, bad, bad.” And there’s no sidestepping the issue of vanity.
Listening To, And Silencing, The Critic Within
“Psychologists say many of their patients are plagued by a harsh Inner Critic — including some extremely successful people who think it’s the secret to their success. An Inner Critic can indeed roust you out of bed in the morning, get you on the treadmill (literally and figuratively) and spur you to finish that book or symphony or invention. But the desire to achieve can get hijacked by harsh judgment and unrelenting fear.”