“Former Walt Disney Co. chief executive Michael Eisner and his family’s Eisner Foundation are giving $1.25 million to a program at California Institute of the Arts that brings arts instruction to Los Angeles schoolchildren. The grant, to be paid in $250,000 installments over the coming five years, is the largest ever received by CalArts’ Community Arts Partnership, university officials said, and is the first grant the Eisner Foundation has made to an arts institution.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
In Interpreting Dreams, Meaning Is What You Make It
“Suppose last night you had two dreams. In one, God appears and commands you to take a year off and travel the world. In the other, God commands you to take a year off to go work in a leper colony. Which of those dreams, if either, would you consider meaningful? … Tough questions, but social scientists now have answers — and really, it’s about time.”
No Increase In Federal Funding For CBC, Minister Says
“The beleaguered CBC will not be getting any help from Ottawa to cope with its economic woes. Heritage Minister James Moore says the public broadcaster already receives substantial public funding each year and should not expect more.”
What’s With All The Flash Photography Of The Mona Lisa?
“As you enter the Louvre, big, clear signs in several languages inform you of the museum’s rules. There is to be no running, no use of mobile phones – and no flash photography. This ban could not be more clearly announced. No one can miss it. Yet in front of the Mona Lisa, one camera flash after another blasts its ugly reflection on the glass protecting the painting. I just don’t understand how the Louvre can allow this destructive camera abuse. “
Böll’s Papers Feared Lost In Cologne Archives Collapse
“For the best part of a decade, the heirs of German writer and Nobel prize laureate Heinrich Böll worked on hammering out a deal with the city of Cologne over the transfer of his private papers to the state archives.” The handover, encompassing hundreds of boxes, happened last month. “But his papers and unpublished works may have been lost for ever after the collapse of the archives building this week.”
Poe To Publishers: So Sorry About All Those Mint Juleps
“It was the bourbon that did it, or so a newly available excuse note claims. A 1842 letter from Edgar Allan Poe to his publishers apologises for his drunken behaviour while in New York, blaming his friend, the poet and lawyer William Ross Wallace, for pouring too many juleps down his throat, and begs them to buy an article he has written as he is ‘desperately pushed for money’.”
The Oliviers Need A Revamp
Michael Billington: “I’m delighted that Black Watch won four awards. But this is a show that opened in Edinburgh in the summer of 2006, has been seen all over the UK and the world, and is only now eligible for an Olivier because it did a season at the Barbican. … If we are to have London-only awards (which is debatable), they should at least be wide-ranging enough to include West End, off-West End and fringe theatres in acknowledgement of the capital’s diversity.”
Why Is Good Design Missing From Green Architecture?
“The field of architecture is experiencing a design crisis, with clients ranging from private owners to cities demanding that architects prioritize sustainability above all else — as if design itself were an obnoxious carbon-emitter. … [M]uch green architecture reflects a quality that Ford’s Edsel possessed: It looks like the future, but it doesn’t look good.”
Dubai Executive Held In Theft From Noortman Gallery
“A business executive who had been based in Dubai was being held in a Dutch jail last night after being accused of taking part in the theft of works by some of the art world’s biggest names. … The paintings include works by Pissarro and Renoir, and had apparently been stolen from one of the world’s top art dealers, Robert Noortman.”
It Wasn’t The Economy That Killed Madison Rep
“The Madison Rep’s financial and public relations problems began long before the national economy tanked. Even a beautiful gem of a new performing home in the Overture Center could not save the company from itself. The Rep has provided a template on how not to run a theater company for the surviving state arts groups.”