It’s a swapping scheme, whereby you list books to share, and in return choose books to read. “At PaperBackSwap.com, members list at least nine paperbacks, earning three credits. Credits allow them to search available titles and choose up to three. Senders pay the postage. They receive one credit for each book they mail, enabling them to order other titles. The website formats a mailing wrapper. The sender then prints out the wrapper, adds stamps, and mails the book.”
Blog
American Museum Collections In Peril
“A survey of 3,370 institutions by the nonprofit group Heritage Preservation found that some 612 million artifacts – from photographs and paintings to nature specimens and pottery – are at risk of deterioration because they aren’t cared for properly. Nearly 60 percent of institutions surveyed acknowledged that light has damaged their collections, while 53 percent said moisture caused problems. And 26 percent of those surveyed have no special controls in place to protect their collections from light, temperature, and humidity. Perhaps most strikingly, 80 percent of the institutions surveyed don’t pay anyone to preserve their collections.
Woman Arrested For Complaining About Cell Phone In Cinema
An Australian woman tried to get another woman to stop talking on her cell phone during a movie in a theatre in Texas. Australian Pauline Clayton said “the woman stood up over her, started shouting expletives at her and then stormed out of the cinema, in the town of Webster, just outside Houston. A short time later two Texas police officers walked into the cinema and escorted Ms Clayton out.”
Handwriting As A Disappearing Art
“Rather than sinuous penmanship, our identities are increasingly confirmed by numbered sequences that have been imposed on us. And, if signatures are becoming increasingly irrelevant, what then is the future for handwriting in a world when one in three children has a computer in the bedroom, many more are accustomed to writing on them at home and school and, if I had a penny for every time I have heard or read parents and teachers bemoaning the poor state of pupil’s handwriting, I would have enough for a £335 Mont Blanc Meisterstück fountain pen in precious resin with a gold-plated finish?”
Bolshoi Embarks On $500 Million Makeover
“Six months after it closed on the point of collapse, reconstruction work has begun on the Bolshoi Theatre. Moscow’s famous opera and ballet venue is undergoing a $500m (£290m) makeover, due to be completed by spring 2008.”
New Miami Performing Art Center W/O Parking
“More than 10 years after PAC leaders acknowledged the crucial need for nearby parking garages, the center — which will hold 4,820 people if sold out — will open this fall with such facilities three to five years away. Maybe more. And instead of profiting from parking fees — the Los Angeles Music Center takes in $2.5 million a year from its garages — the Miami PAC could have to pay millions to upgrade the surface lots for temporary parking.”
The Rising Cost Of Donations
“While it used to be enough to just list a contributor’s name in a program book or on a wall plaque, donors expect a little more gratitude. Local arts groups are now offering donors and members gourmet dinners, complimentary tickets, cocktail parties, discounts on merchandise, subscriptions to magazines, valet parking, priority seating, and even all the cookies and coffee you can consume during an intermission.”
The Orphaned Movies
Changes of ownership of movie studios can have dire consequences for movie projects in production. “In the wake of two massive show business deals — Sony’s $4.9-billion pact with MGM and Disney’s $7.4-billion purchase of Pixar Animation Studios — the production and development on three movies have been terminated, while two finished films have been shelved with no immediate plans for release.”
After Munitz, What Next For The Getty?
“With the Getty’s big endowment, it is thus particularly important that the board be able to exercise sound, independent oversight over whoever is chosen as the next president. There were major questions surrounding the board during Mr. Munitz’s term as president–that he had recommended as board members individuals too closely tied to him through past business dealings–and so there was not the effective oversight that is especially necessary in an organization as wealthy as the Getty.”
Levine Adds Two Years To Met Contract
James Levine, “whose current contract as music director runs through the 2010-11 season, said Monday he will stay at least two additional seasons for a new staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, which will be the centerpiece of the Met’s 2013 celebration marking the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.”