“Long before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which included libraries as institutions where desegregation was mandated but did not name them specifically – the national NAACP and chapters had launched small campaigns that did everything from championing the cause of a Black librarian assistant’s promotion in the New York Public Library system or, in this case, investigating Violet Wallach’s allegations about her [New Jersey] hometown library.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Yves Bonnefoy, 93, France’s Great Modern Poet And Translator Of Shakespeare
“By 1978, when his collected poems were published, Mr. Bonnefoy’s position as France’s most important poet, and one if its most influential men of letters, was secure.” In addition, “over the years, he translated 15 of [Shakespeare’s] plays, all of the sonnets, and wrote extensively on Shakespeare’s poetics. His translations of Yeats are equally well known in France.”
Should We Archive The Tweets And Social-Media Profiles Of Famous Artists For Posterity, The Way We Save Their Letters And Diaries?
“If journals, sketchbooks, letters, and scribbled-on napkins are venerated and kept for insights into great minds, there seems to be a case that tweets should be held onto, too. Then again, publicly accessible 140-character bursts can be so frivolous – and based so much on maintaining appearances – that they might seem like they don’t offer anything worth preserving.”
Two Rembrandts In One Guy’s Bedroom, And How They Ended Up At The Rijksmuseum
That guy was Éric de Rothschild, and “until now, [he] has never spoken publicly about the sale of the paintings last year to the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre for 160 million euros … in an unusual joint purchase that was arranged between the Dutch and French governments.”
Danish Museum Acknowledges Its Italian Antiquities Were Looted And Returns Them
“It took years of often tense negotiations, but on Tuesday the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen signed an agreement that includes the return of archaeological artifacts that Italy said had been looted from Italian soil.”
Louisville Orchestra’s New Music Director Wants To Make The Symphony Matter To People The Way Sports Does
“[Teddy] Abrams has been the music director of the Louisville Orchestra for two years and by his own measure has had real success engaging the local community. He’s relentlessly tried new things, both in the way he goes out into the community and in programming … He’s approached his ‘mission,’ with the conviction that in Louisville he’s got to start from scratch, he’s got to find a way to make the lifestyle of a classical musician echo the excitement of being a sports star.”
Baritone Collapses And Dies Mid-Performance
Bernard Imbert, 53 and for ten years a resident soloist at the Opéra de Nice, was taking part in a concert of Offenbach arias and ensembles at an open-air theatre near Cannes on Saturday when he passed out onstage. No cause of death has yet been determined. (in French; Google Translate version here)
Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann’s Strad Got Repossessed; Now He Has It Back
Zimmermann had been performing on the “Lady Inchiquin” Stradivarius for 13 years; it was on permanent loan from a Düsseldorf bank, WestLB. But when that bank failed last year, its successor decided to auction off all of WestLB’s artworks, including this violin. Then a savior – perhaps an unlikely one – appeared.
London’s Royal Ballet Teams Up With University’s Sports Science Program
“Academics from St. Mary’s University … will provide strength and conditioning, and sports science support to Royal Ballet dancers, as well as design a bespoke programme on performance and injury recovery. … A fully funded academic position will also be available as part of the collaboration.”
The World’s Oldest Haute Couture House? The Paris Opera Ballet’s Costume Shop
“There, in the back of the 19th-century theater, is a warren of workshops, just as there is any storied couture house, each dedicated to a specialty: tailoring, soft construction (known as ‘flou‘), knitwear, accessories, millinery and embroidery, as well as dyeing and painting. And as in the couture house ateliers, seamstresses cut and sew stiff linen mock-ups, called toiles, to perfect the design before cutting it in the final fabric, and produce embellishments, like handmade silk blossoms and gold braiding.”