The publisher Chrysalis is shrinking. “Chrysalis is to cut a quarter of the staff from its unprofitable books division in an attempt to improve its balance sheet. The media company revealed yesterday that 46 of the 160 jobs in its books arm would go as part of a restructuring exercise. Chrysalis employs a total of 700 staff.”
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San Francisco’s New Museum Row
San Francisco is getting three new museums on the doorstep of the SF Museum of Modern Art. “It has been a long road for the Contemporary Jewish and Mexican museums and the Museum of the African Diaspora, struggling to raise funds in the post-Sept. 11 world as well as deal with design and construction challenges that have delayed opening in the Yerba Buena area.”
Thieves Steal Fake Munch Paintings
Thieves broke in to a hotel that has 12 Edvard Munches in its collection. “Two unarmed men burst into Oslo’s Hotel Continental, threatened staff and removed three pictures from the walls. But the hotel had swapped the originals with duplicates after two real Munch works were stolen from the Munch Museum in the city almost a year ago.”
Chicago Tribune Moves Critics
The Chicago Tribune is reassigning some of its critics. “Movie critic Michael Wilmington is scaling back his reviewing duties, at least for now. Theater critic Michael Phillips will shift to reviewing films, and is being eyed as a possible permanent movie critic. Meanwhile, long-time television critic Steve Johnson will switch to writing about the Internet, according to sources at the paper.”
Fighting Over Michelangelo’s Mountain?
An Italian quarry wants to lop 300 feet off the top of a mountain. But it’s been said Michelangelo quarried marble from the place and so a dispute has ensued. The historical record, including Michelangelo’s own abundant correspondence, shows clearly that he never took any marble from Monte Altissimo. He did open two quarries farther down the Serra gorge and nearly lost his life extracting enormous columns and blocks. But he never got to use any of them; the project for which they were intended, an overambitious façade for Florence’s San Lorenzo Church, was aborted and his hard-won marble scattered and purloined.
Running With Lawsuits
“The family that raised bestselling author Augusten X. Burroughs is now suing him in advance of the movie version of Running With Scissors, Burroughs’s 2002 memoir of his years with the family. A lawsuit filed in Massachusetts claims that Burroughs ‘mercilessly and repeatedly’ defamed family members ‘so as to sensationalize his past to make the book marketable while knowingly causing harm and humiliation’ to the Turcotte family, with whom Burroughs lived after his disturbed mother turned guardianship of her boy over to her psychiatrist.”
Great Theatre vs. Middlebrow Tourism
Ontario’s popular summer theatre festivals are as vibrant as ever, and appear to have recovered nicely from an extended post-9/11 downturn. But what is the true mission of such festivals, exactly? Should Stratford and Shaw be focused on creating a nice vacation destination, or on presenting high art? At their best, the fests can serve both masters, but it’s a delicate balance.
School Shootings Coming To An XBox Near You
Protests are mounting against a new Columbine-inspired video game slated to be released by the makers of the infamous “Grand Theft Auto” series. The game, titled “Bully,” features a high school student tormented by his peers, who takes his revenge with extreme violence, killing fellow students and teachers. The company, Rockstar Games, describes the game as “humorous,” and downplays the violent aspects, but the game’s October release is likely to cause old debates about the effects of video game violence to rage anew.
The Camera Doesn’t Lie (It Just Spins A Bit)
A new exhibit at the London Portrait Gallery sheds a great deal of light on the shady world of celebrity image-making. “The show takes 10 of the most familiar faces from the photographic age, from Queen Victoria to Gandhi to Greta Garbo and Adolf Hitler, and shows how they manipulated their images in order to further their aims, whether political or artistic or megalomaniacal.” The show also points up the media’s complicity in such makeovers, noting that many celebrity photos meant to look candid were, in fact, entirely staged.
Novelists Take On Terror
Increasingly, some of the world’s more popular authors are embracing the reality of terrorism as a subject ripe with literary potential, and are advancing the way that the world thinks about the impact of specific attacks. “These writers are depicting how the air has changed in cities living with terror: the jittery feeling that comes and goes; characters who think they are adjusting, only to lose their grip on reason.”