“The Emma Thompson period drama Effie, about one of the Victorian era’s most infamous love triangles, is now cleared for release after winning a second copyright case in New York against a US playwright who claimed it was based on his work.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Hollywood Project Hemorrhaging Big-Name Talent
“Jude Law has become the latest big name to quit troubled production Jane Got a Gun, which has already had its director and another star exit the project. The film made headlines earlier this week when Scottish director Lynne Ramsay did not arrive on the Santa Fe set for the first day of shooting. … Michael Fassbender was the first to pull out, citing scheduling conflicts.”
Opera Star Risë Stevens, 99
“On the Met’s roster from 1938 to 1961, Ms. Stevens” – a mezzo – “was a superstar in an era when operatic superstardom was conferred mostly on sopranos and tenors. A Bronx native from a modest background, she was widely admired as a populist who help democratize the rarefied world of opera.”
Bollywood Star Ordered Back To Jail On Weapons Charge
“India’s supreme court has ordered the Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, the most high-profile of the 100 men and women who were convicted for the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings, to return to jail for a further three-and-a-half years.” Dutt was convicted of possessing illegal firearms purchased from the bombers, though he was cleared of any personal involvement with the disaster.
Public Libraries Are Not Free – So Let’s Quit Saying They Are
“It’s well-intentioned to emphasize that libraries provide materials and services without exacting immediate payment from users for each transaction. But today it is at best a mistake and at worst self-destructive to underrepresent the considerable ongoing investment that the members of a community make to have library collections, technology, personnel, and facilities available to them.”
Punchdrunk’s Long-Awaited New Show Is Ready (But They Won’t Tell Us Anything About It)
“Details are fairly scarce. What is known is that it will be called The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable; that it is based on Georg Büchner’s unfinished masterpiece, Woyzeck; that it is a co-production with the National Theatre; and most remarkably that it will be staged in a secret, disused 19,000 sq metre venue … in central London.”
Lebbeus Woods, Architecture’s Great Fantasist
“[He] devoted most of his life to creating … the T-square equivalent of science fiction.” For instance, living spaces straddling the Berlin Wall, an “Aerial Paris” suspended above the actual French capital by static electricity, and an Albert Einstein memorial projected into outer space on a beam of light.
Panthéon In Paris To Get €100M Facelift
“The Centre des Monuments Nationaux, the French body responsible for caring for state monuments, is preparing for a ten-year, €100m programme to restore the Panthéon, an 18th-century building that has become an expression of national pride. During the first phase, the structure will be covered in scaffolding with awnings featuring work by a yet-to-be-selected contemporary artist.”
Why Do Scientists Seem So Obsessed With Beauty?
“Scientists have mused on beauty at least since Pythagoras proposed that the heavens conform to the same orderly proportions as musical sounds. But some kinds of science have in recent times presented a public face that seems to be turned toward beauty 24/7. … It seems that the more theoretical and expensive the science, the more they talk about beauty.” (Exhibit A: the Higgs boson.)
Religion Without God – A Preview Of Ronald Dworkin’s Final Book
“Before he died on February 14, Ronald Dworkin sent to The New York Review a text of his new book, Religion Without God, to be published by Harvard University Press later this year. We publish here an excerpt from the first chapter.”