Blog

John Updike Considers Salman Rushdie:

“Rushdie as a literary performer suffers, I think, from being not just an author but a cause célèbre and a free-speech martyr, thanks to the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in the wake of “The Satanic Verses” (1988), a playful work that precipitated riots in India and Pakistan, and gave American and English publishers and booksellers an early taste of heightened security. The fatwa, which invited any good Muslim to kill Rushdie, was withdrawn in 1998, but a decade of living in hiding deepened this previously gregarious author’s expertise on two subjects: celebrity and human cruelty. His fascination with fame and theatricality, movies and rock music predated the fatwa, and gives his fiction a distracting glitter, like shaken tinsel.”

Museums – Bribing The Collectors?

A new show at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts that displays a collector’s boats has observers wondering about the ethics of romancing collectors for their collections. ‘Years ago, you got a little quiet thank-you note for supporting a museum. Today, they put your boats outside. But that is essentially killing philanthropy. Everybody is going to want the same thing. If he can have it, why can’t I’?”

Shakespeare – A Whole Lot Of Guessing Going On

There’s a big industry of “who was Shakespeare” theories and books, and most of it is just conjecture and guessing. “The traditional theory that Shakespeare was Shakespeare has the passive to active acceptance of the vast majority of English professors and scholars, but it also has had its skeptics, including major authors, independent scholars, lawyers, Supreme Court justices, academics and even prominent Shakespearean actors.”

Lascaux Cave Replica To Tour

A replica of the Lascaux cave in which prehistoric art was discovered, is scheduled for a world tour. “The cave, discovered by teenagers 65 years ago, has been closed to general view since 1963 to protect its rock paintings of bison and other animals, some depicting successive stages of a hunt. The 17,000-year-old images are considered among the finest surviving examples of palaeolithic art and have been described as the Sistine Chapel of the prehistoric age.”

Noted: Concert Success Isn’t Driving Album Sales

Pop stars who sell lots of high-priced concert tickets on the road are finding that their recordings aren’t selling in stores. “Scenarios abound when it comes to the disparity between chart and box office numbers — figures that rarely tell the whole story. In some cases, like with the old guys, it’s that millions and millions of records have already been sold over decades, and fans feel that they have what they need. But sometimes, as with many of the big jam bands, it’s simply the live work that truly drives the train.”

Money To Rescue “Eyes on the Prize” From Copyright

The classic civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize has been out of circulation because copyright licensing of clips in the movie had expired. “The 14-part series, which chronicles the history of the civil rights movement in America, has been blocked from television rebroadcast and DVD release by a thicket of copyright restrictions on the hundreds of photos, music tracks and video clips used in its making. But thanks to a $600,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and a philanthropist’s $250,000 donation, the process of re-licensing that material has begun.”

Sleep Deprived – What We Lose

“Most of us now sleep less than people did a century ago, or even 50 years ago. The National Sleep Foundation’s 2005 poll showed adult Americans averaging 6.8 hours of sleep on weeknights — more than an hour less than they need. Not only how much sleep, but when people sleep has changed. In the United States, six to eight million shift workers toil regularly at night, disrupting sleep patterns in ways that are not necessarily amenable to adaptation.” The question is: What are we losing by sleeping less?

Poll: Canadians Don’t Miss CBC

In Canada, the BCB has been on strike for three weeks. And a new poll says most Canadians aren’t missing the public broadcaster. “About 61 per cent of those polled said they felt no impact at all from the lockout, which began on Aug. 15, Canadian Press reports. Only 10 per cent of 1,000 surveyed by phone between Aug. 18 and 21 said it was a major inconvenience to them, while 27 per cent said it was a minor inconvenience.”

Women Artists Still have a Long Way To Go

Despite great progress for women artists, the going has been slow. And how about that list of Britain’s greatest art that didn’t include work by a single woman? “It seems that women’s art that doesn’t conform to preconceived notions of feminine loveliness still has a hard time gaining acceptance. That means we can’t be complacent about where women’s art will stand for posterity, and how a list of favourite paintings will look in 50 years’ time.”