“Vantage Press, one of the original ‘vanity’ publishing businesses, has closed three years after its acquisition by media investment banker David Lamb.” Says a lawyer’s letter to creditors, “Vantage does not have sufficient revenue to sustain itself as a going concern. It has, therefore, ceased all business operations.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Free Admission At India’s First Art Biennale Scrapped
“The government is happy that it rakes in revenue by way of tourism and culture promotion. But the Kochi Biennale Foundation is broke and individual artists, who strived for the event, have incurred huge personal debts. … Badly off, the KBF has decided to charge from visitors an entry fee of Rs.50 per adult [slightly less than $1] and Rs.10 per student.”
Why Creating A Perfect Language Is Impossible (It’ll Never Stay That Way)
Amateur linguist John Quijada spent three decades creating a new language that was as perfectly logical, consistent and precise as possible. When he published his manual on the Web in 2004, specialists hailed his achievement. Then enthusiasts started using the language – and requesting changes. Then they started making the changes themselves.
Where Some Dancers Go After They Retire
“They go to Stanford. They go to medical school. Some even go on missions to outer space.”
Right-Wing Freakout Over Tarantino’s Django Unchained
“You’d think that maybe the one time scared conservatives could stomach the sight of a black man killing white men is in the context of vengeance for an unspeakable crime. But in the world imagined by the extreme conservative web, a world constantly under the threat of race war, there is no acceptable space for righteous black violence.”
Quentin Tarantino On Being A Middle-School Dropout
“The fact that I would quit in middle school just shows how little of the world that I knew. I thought the way it was in middle school would be the way it was going to be forever. I didn’t even realize that college would be different from ninth grade. I just thought it was more school.”
Meet Britain’s Longest-Serving Pantomime Dame
Berwick Kaler: “I’m a man dressed as a woman who you think doesn’t really want to be dressed as a woman. … In fact it’s not the children who would be embarrassed by a dame if he was effeminate or wore really wonderful [flamboyant] Danny La Rue-type costumes. It’s the men. They would feel uncomfortable.”
When Nativity Scenes Go Minimalist
“The scene of the holy couple, shepherds, wise men and attendant livestock – which is not in fact biblically accurate – has become so widely reproduced that it can now be understood even by a simple arrangement of blocks, as a recent wave of minimalist nativity sets has shown.”
India Hosts Its First Art Biennale
In a bid to expand the country’s contemporary art scene beyond the commercially oriented events in Delhi and Mumbai, a new international exhibition has been launched in Kochi, in Kerala on India’s southwest coast.
Works By Foreign Artists Vandalized At Kochi Biennale
“Miscreants vandalised works by two foreign artists who are participating at the ongoing Kochi Muziris Biennale here, an act seen by the organisers as a conspiracy to derail the art event.” Throughout the lead-up to the Biennale, some locals have been protesting what they see as a focus on outsiders at the expense of Indian and Kerala artists.