“Dermot McLaughlin, chief executive of Temple Bar Cultural Trust,” which funds arts and culture organizations in the Irish capital’s cultural district, “has been suspended on full pay pending an investigation by its board of his role in offering three senior staff members redundancy packages last week, each worth €100,000 or more.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why Danny Boyle Made Trainspotting
“We wanted to make a pleasurable film out of unwatchable subject matter.”
Seattle Symphony Musicians Ratify New Contract
“After 15 months of negotiations, the Seattle Symphony players organization and the SSO board of directors have approved a new contract, through August 2015.” The terms include a “temporary” reduction in the orchestra’s size, salary concessions and a less expensive health insurance plan.
Eddie Izzard Wants To Be Mayor Of London
“The 51-year-old [comedian] is seeking the Labour nomination for Mayor of London in 2019 and if he does not get the endorsement he hopes to stand as an MP.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tense, Unhappy Relationship With Hollywood
“The prime chronicler of the jazz age – a term he coined – came up around the same time that the American movie industry did, and spent much of his career linked with Hollywood. But Fitzgerald’s intellectual snobbery and Puritanical prudery made for a strained relationship with the film world, one that began as dismissive and ended as dependent.”
‘I Got A Haircut From Ai Weiwei’
“On top of everything else, Ai Weiwei is a barber. A good one? Hm. Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start here: exactly what kind of haircuts does he give? ‘The kind that will make you want to cry,’ he said.”
Hemingway’s Cuban Archives To Become Available In US
“While most Americans have never seen Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba where he wrote some of his most famous books, a set of 2,000 recently digitized records delivered to the United States will give scholars and the public a fuller view of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist’s life.”
Barnes & Noble’s Discounted Nook Sells Out In UK
“After dropping the price of their Nook Simple Touch (I’m pretty sure it’s called the Nouk Simple Touch across the pond) from £79 to £29, Barnes & Noble has seen ‘unprecedented demand’ for the ereader and, as a result, they’re sold out in ‘almost all retail locations.'”
Putting The Kite Runner Onstage
Khaled Hosseini’s novel and its film adaptation have become emblems of present-day Afghanistan. “Now it has been adapted for stage – and the cast and crew are, unsurprisingly, feeling the weight of expectation.”
Unburied: Tamerlan Tsarnaev And The Lessons Of Greek Tragedy
“‘Bury this terrorist on U.S. soil and we will unbury him.’ So ran the bitter slogan on one of the signs borne last week by enraged protesters” at the funeral home keeping the body of the Boston Marathon bomber – “a cadaver seemingly so morally polluted that his own widow would not claim it, that no funeral director would touch it, that no cemetery would bury it.” Sophocles, of course, wrote about a similar situation.