“Sheepskins were traditionally prepared by fellmongers in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. But over the last decade rising costs and legislation to reduce pollution have seen fellmongery businesses close down or their machinery shipped to purpose-built joint-venture plants in China and Morocco.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Afghan National Museum Highlights Country’s Buddhist Heritage
“Dating from the second century A.D., the original artifacts in the show were hidden – many of them in secret vaults outside the museum – and protected by museum staff through 30 years of conflict.”
Do U Wnt 2 C R&J 2Nite? Then Texting Won’t Really Do
22-year-old student Alex Edwards “has transposed the whole of Romeo and Juliet’s famous Act II, Scene II into text abbreviations and produced it as Were4 rt thou Rmo? It’s a flip-page book with the text versions alternating with Shakespeare’s actual words; currently a uni project limited edition, but hopefully more widely available soon. Interestingly, the point is not to celebrate or promote the world of texting, but to show newcomers to Shakespeare how beautiful and powerful the original writing is.”
Frank H. Pearl, 68, Founder Of Perseus Book Groups
“When Mr. Pearl founded the Perseus Books Group in 1996, publishers were ‘bailing out of serious fiction and nonfiction, saying they can’t make the mid-list pay,’ New York magazine said in a profile of Mr. Pearl. Mr. Pearl, who had long held a deep interest in books, decided to create a company of his own.”
DIebenkorn’s Family: We Warned Dealer About Fakes Almost Two Decades Ago Ago
In 1993, after Richard Diebenkorn died, his family went to Knoedler & Company to check out some drawings. “‘They didn’t look quite right, and we said, “The provenance is wacky and the story behind the provenance makes no sense,”‘ said Richard Grant, the artist’s son-in-law and the executive director of the Diebenkorn Foundation. “
The Future Of Books: Seriously Depressing Reading
“The suggestion is that iTunes song tasters, or viral videos, won’t generate a buzz for novels in the same way because you can’t really taste them in snatches. Cut-price deals or Twitter raves can presumably drive them up e-book best-seller lists, but if publishers die off, their sifting role – sorting out the literary chaff – will leave readers lost for real guides to the book market.”
British Museum May Have Found 400-Year-Old ‘Lost Colony’
“For centuries, the Tidewater coast of North Carolina has held one of early America’s oldest secrets: the fate of more than 100 English colonists who vanished from their island outpost in the late 1500s. … The shroud of mystery may finally be lifting.”
Idea: Let’s Honor The Late Beastie Boy With Better Copyright Laws
“Good law should reflect and support quality artistic culture — not oppress the people who create that culture. In 1998, Congress passed a hideous law to honor mediocre musician Sonny Bono. It should use MCA’s passing as an occasion to correct that mistake and honor a truly great musician instead.”
PEN/Faulkner Prize Goes To Julie Otsuka For The Buddha in the Attic
Otsuka’s “slim prose poem about Japanese picture brides coming to America after WWI beat out works by literary giants Russell Banks, Anita Desai, Don DeLillo and Steven Millhauser.”
Copyediting Mistake (On The Cellular Level) Led To Human Brain Power
“The incomplete copy of the gene seems to have showed up just as the extinct hominin Australopithecus made room for the genus Homo, which led to modern humans. That’s also when the brains of our ancestors began to expand and when dramatic changes in cognitive abilities are likely to have emerged.”