Last year, a legal aid lawyer sent to an incarcerated client a copy of Slavery by Another Name, “Douglas Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning account of how the South instituted a form of de-facto slavery by mass arresting black men on nonsense charges and ‘selling’ them to plantations, turpentine farms and other places of back-breaking labor.” Prison officials thought the book “too dangerous” to have around.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Twickenham Film Studios Goes Bankrupt
“Twickenham Film Studios, which have been used for films as diverse as Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and current Oscars hopeful My Week with Marilyn, are to be closed just one year ahead of the facility’s centennial anniversary.”
The Trouble At/With English National Ballet
Judith Mackrell, commenting on Wayne Eagling’s sudden resignation as artistic director: “ENB has always had a tricky position to maintain within the UK’s dance culture: funded at a much lower level than the Royal Ballet, for example, and with a remit to tour widely, it has very little leeway for risk-taking.”
Munch’s Scream Could Sell For $80M At Auction
“Sotheby’s will offer the only privately owned version of Edvard Munch’s haunting work The Scream at an auction in New York on May 2 where it expects to fetch over $80 million, the highest pre-sale value the auctioneer has ever put on a work of art.”
Can Society Get The Benefits Of Religion Without The Faith?
Alain de Botton: “How did religion once enhance the spirit of community? More practically, can secular society ever recover that spirit without returning to the theological principles that were entwined with it? I, for one, believe that it is possible to reclaim our sense of community – and that we can do so, moreover, without having to build upon a religious foundation.”
Monica Mason Looks Back At 54 Years With Royal Ballet
The retiring director of British dance’s flagship company remember highlights of her long career.
Edmonton Considers A New Performing Arts Centre
“The idea, recommended by Mayor Stephen Mandel’s arts visioning committee, last fall would see three theatres constructed with a total of 2,800 seats – 400 more than the Jubilee [Auditorium] – orchestra pits, rehearsal space and room in the wings.”
China Loosens Restrictions On Foreign Films
“China has agreed to ease restrictions on the number of foreign films shown there, and to increase the amount film studios can make from ticket sales. A quota of 20 foreign movies, which are mostly US exports, remains. A further 14 Imax or 3D films will be allowed.”
Ai Weiwei Documentary To Hit Theaters This Summer
“Alison Klayman’s documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, an award-winning chronicle of that provocative Chinese artist who was detained by his country’s government for three months last year, has been acquired for North American distribution by Sundance Selects and will receive a theatrical release this summer.”
Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Life As Copy Editor
The author of All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men edited a new biography, by his friend Lawrence M. Krauss, of physicist Richard Feynman. McCarthy’s advice? Remove all exclamation points and semicolons.