“Founded in 1891, Princeton University’s touring musical comedy troupe … has counted among its members luminaries like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jimmy Stewart and Brooke Shields. But one man involved with the prestigious organization allegedly reached a low point and is now accused of treating the club’s purse as a piggy bank to pay off his personal debts.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Broadway Posts Record Thanksgiving Week
“Broadway had its best Thanksgiving week ever at the box office, setting a record of $31.5 million in ticket sales for the 32 musicals and plays running last week.”
Australia’s Only Major Classical Music Magazine May Close
Limelight magazine, which won the national award in its circulation category for Consumer Magazine of the Year 2013, needs to find a buyer within less than two weeks, before its current owner, Haymarket, closes its Australian operations entirely.
The Real-Life Folksters Who Inspired The Coen Brothers’ New Movie
For the dozen or so of us who don’t remember the New York folk music scene circa 1961, David Haglund provides an illustrated tip sheet for Inside Llewyn Davis.
Can You Distinguish Blue From Blue?
In a blog entry rendered entirely in verse, Robinson Meyer points us to an online quiz testing your ability to tell one shade of Silicon Valley’s favorite color from another.
For Maria Callas’s Birthday, Five Great Rumors
“In the decades since her death, rumors continue to persist about Callas’ colorful career and personal life. Here are five of the most famous anecdotes, their veracity never confirmed nor completely discounted.” (What, you never heard about the tapeworm?)
Unknown Canvas By Constable Discovered At V&A Museum
“A previously unrecorded oil sketch by British artist John Constable has been discovered at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The painting, of trees underneath an unsettled sky, was found concealed beneath a lining canvas on the back of Branch Hill Pond: Hampstead, another work by the English Romantic painter.”
America’s Oldest Book Is Now Most Expensive Printed Volume Ever
The Bay Psalm Book, a new translation from the Hebrew of the Biblical Psalms printed in Massachusetts in 1640 for the use of Puritan worshipers, was sold by Boston’s Old South Church at a Sotheby’s auction for $14.6 million.
Barnes & Noble Posts Profit Despite Falling Sales
“Barnes & Noble Inc, the largest U.S. bookstore chain, on Tuesday reported a higher than expected quarterly profit as it cut store workers’ hours scaled back its money losing Nook business, helping it offset sharp sales declines … [of] 8 percent.”
Why Arendt’s Eichmann In Jerusalem Is Still Contentious After 50 Years
Adam Kirsch: “What made, and still makes, [the book] so inflammatory to some readers is in large part Arendt’s tone; but tone, in this case, is closely connected to substance.” Rivka Galchen: “Many of the objections to her work are based on arguments [she] never made.”