“A group of major Detroit creditors said four investors have made tentative billion-dollar bids for the Detroit Institute of Arts – or key portions of its collection – in a move aimed at undercutting the city’s competing proposal to give the museum to a nonprofit in exchange for $816 million in outside funding that would help reduce pension cuts.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Bolshoi Ballet Director Talks About Recovery From Acid Attack
Sergei Filin can now see (just) well enough to judge a competition (which he’s doing this week). Of healing at the troubled Bolshoi, he says, “It’s primarily myself who has to heal, because I bore the main blow myself. … I think it’s those people who were creating this atmosphere for all these months which finally resulted in this terrible attack [who need a remedy]. The theater itself is quite healthy.”
Gabriel García Márquez Leaves Hospital
The 87-year-old Nobel laureate “returned to his Mexico City home on Tuesday after a week-long hospitalization for pneumonia, but officials said he remains in ‘delicate’ condition.”
UK Appoints New Culture Secretary (Very Quickly)
Not 24 hours after Maria Miller resigned over an expenses scandal, prime minister David Cameron appointed merchant banker and Treasury official Sajid Javid, 44, as the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Equalities.
What’s Maria Miller’s Legacy As Britain’s Top Culture Official? (Not A Lot)
“BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said the arts community had been ‘largely ambivalent to a culture secretary who, it suspected, wasn’t particularly interested in culture’.”
Under Pressure From Legislators, College In South Carolina Cancels Lesbian Comedy Show
The University of South Carolina Upstate in Greenville called off a performance of Butchy McDyke’s solo piece How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less following demands by a group of Republican state lawmakers led by Sen. Mike Fair, who argues – seriously – that the show constitutes “recruitment”.
The Problems Of Political Theatre In India
“Theatre played an integral role in India’s freedom struggle – what purpose does it serve in the country today? With elections now under way, two playwrights reflect on censorship, audience expectations and the new voices seeking to be heard.”
Can Books Keep Young Baghdadis From Leaving The City?
“Bathed in the rainbow-colored light of an old Baghdadi window, Ali al-Makhzomy explained his plan to get technology-obsessed young Iraqis to read books – old-fashioned books, with pages.” He says, “We really want Baghdad in the 1930s or ’40s or ’50s to return. It was more civilized. How do we know? We read about it.”
The Electrifying Muriel Spark
“She loved lightning. It wasn’t her favorite weapon – fire was, or knives. But lightning has a brutal, beautiful efficiency, and she used it to good effect, once frying alive a pair of lovers. Lightning seemed to seek her out, too. It struck her houses repeatedly, and on one occasion caused a nearby bell tower to come crashing down into her bathroom.”
In Hong Kong, Painting Just Sold For $3.7M May Have Been Thrown In Trash
“Cleaners at the city’s Grand Hyatt hotel are suspected to have dumped a painting that had just sold for more than HK$28 million with rubbish that was then taken to a landfill.”