“An Istanbul court on Friday ordered a retrial for a world-renowned pianist, Fazil Say, sentenced earlier this month to 10 months in prison for blasphemy over social media posts.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Salman Rushdie On Moral Courage
“Perhaps we have seen too much, grown too cynical about the inevitable compromises of power. There are no Gandhis, no Lincolns anymore. One man’s hero (Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro) is another’s villain. We no longer easily agree on what it means to be good, or principled, or brave. … Even more strangely, we have become suspicious of those who take a stand against the abuses of power or dogma. It was not always so.”
Easter Sunday At London’s Atheist Church
“A screen above [our] heads displayed the words ‘Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.’ And then, our high priest arrived … [in] a patterned tie and pink skinny jeans. As he stood before his beaming congregation, the band struck up a tune: ‘Wild World,’ by Cat Stevens. Jones danced along for a while, gangly beneath the yellow lights. When the song ended, he welcomed us to the Sunday Assembly’s ‘Easter for Atheists’ service.”
Matthew Bourne Finally Lets Another Company Dance One Of His Full-Length Works
“‘Good stroppy walks, everyone,’ says Matthew Bourne with a smile. The dancers of Scottish Ballet smile back, because coming from the man for whom characterisation is key, this is high praise indeed.”
Amazon Offers Fourteen Original Series Pilots For Public Vote
“Amazon delivered its first bundle of original content on Friday, pilots for eight comedies (and six children’s shows) that could become series on Amazon Instant Video. The digital twist is that not only can the public see these pilots, but it can also rate and review them, information Amazon says it will weigh in deciding which series are made.”
Don DeLillo Wins New Library Of Congress Fiction Prize
“Don DeLillo, the celebrated novelist who once complained that as a young writer he ‘lacked ambition,’ has been named the first recipient of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction,” a new lifetime achievement award.
Artist’s Repurposing Of Photos Is Not Copyright Violation: Court
“Painter and photographer Richard Prince, whose works have sold for millions of dollars, did not violate copyrights with most of the paintings and collages he based on a photographer’s published works, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in a case closely watched within the art community.”
New Delhi’s Historic British Imperial Quarter Under Threat From High-Rise Developers
“Some of the stunning architecture of ‘Lutyens’ Delhi’, nearly 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of government buildings, parks and homes named after the British architect who masterminded their design, faces a new threat: a scheme by local authorities to relax planning restrictions to allow high-rise constructions.”
Poland Opens Jewish History Museum
“The Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw will try to educate people about the community’s rich past, and, say its curators, might also help dispel some of the suspicion towards Jews that still now – seven decades after the Holocaust – lingers in parts of Polish society.”
First-Ever Nora Ephron Prize Goes To –
The $25,000 award, presented by the Tribeca Film Festival to a “woman writer or director with a distinctive voice, went to filmmaker Meera Menon for Farah Goes Bang, a road comedy about three friends working on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.