“According to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, the library’s former archivist and an antique bookseller allegedly conspired to steal and sell over $8 million worth of rare books from the [Pittsburgh] library, including [Isaac Newton’s] Principia, valued at $900,000. The archivist, Greg Priore, and the bookseller, John Schulman, were arrested on Friday for the crime.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Scientists Say They’ve Found The Secret To Making A Hit Movie
“After analysing data from 6,147 movie scripts and filtering it through a series of algorithms, the researchers have identified the emotional arc that makes the most money, called the ‘man in a hole’ arc.”
Boston Is Still Very Much A Pre-Broadway Tryout Town – That’s The Problem
Composer Refuses State-Funded Commission Because She Was Offered 20% Less Than Male Composers (Alas, It’s Not That Simple)
Siobhán Cleary won a commission, funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, from two choral organizations; when she saw that the men who had received the same grant in previous years had been offered more money, she turned the work down. Problem is, Cleary “has actually opened a can of worms that goes well beyond the issue of gender inequality. One of the core problems with the council’s music commission scheme is that it is set up in a way that simply cannot deal with the principle of equal pay for equal work.” Michael Dervan reports.
Artists Demand Their Work Be Removed From Show After Museum Hosts Arms Company Event
“The Design Museum in London is facing a firestorm of criticism for hosting a private reception for Italian aerospace company Leonardo on July 17 in conjunction with the Farnborough International Airshow. The Campaign Against Arms Trade has called the airshow an arms fair, and has published an open letter from artists who are demanding the museum remove their work from display by the end of the month.” The museum shouldn’t be too surprised: the show in question is “Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics, 2008–2018” and includes posters for the likes of Occupy Wall Street and Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Revolution”.
‘Indecent’ – Haruki Murakami’s Latest Novel Censored In Hong Kong
“Hong Kong’s Obscene Articles Tribunal announced last week that the Chinese-language edition of Murakami’s Kishidancho Goroshi, or Killing Commendatore, had been temporarily classified as ‘Class II – indecent materials’.” This means that the book cannot be sold to minors and must be sold in a warning wrapper.
When China’s Most Expensive Film Ever Tanks While A Small Political Movie Hits It Big, The Commissars Should Worry
Asura, a big-screen historical fantasy that cost $113 million, did such lousy box office that it was pulled from theaters after three days; meanwhile, Dying to Survive, a dark comedy about smuggling low-priced medicines into the country because they’re so expensive inside the People’s Republic, “is on track to become one of China’s highest-grossing productions of all time.”
Oscar Wilde’s Final European Exile Was Not As Miserable As You Think
The conventional picture of post-prison Wilde is that of a depressed, impoverished, sick man hopelessly attached to his unworthy lover. But a new biography makes the case that – at least until his final illness – Wilde was liberated in Paris, at last able to live as he wished in a place where love between men was not a crime.
Old Misery at The Daily News
The decimation of the New York Daily News brings back memories of the two-and-a-half miserable years I worked there.
Propwatch: the drip in ‘Allelujah!’
‘I’m just taking my friend for a walk,’ says Mary, an elderly patient in Allelujah!, Alan Bennett’s fascinating bumpy ride of a new play at London’s Bridge Theatre. She refers to the drip she lugs behind her as she crosses the stage.