Blog

Strand Bookstore Puts Out SOS, Is Overwhelmed With Support

Owner Nancy Wyden said “the call for help produced a boom in business on Saturday: a single-day record of 10,000 online orders, so many that the website crashed. That day was also the best single day in the month of October that the flagship store, near Union Square, has ever had, and the best day ever at the Strand’s Upper West Side branch, which opened earlier this year. In the 48 hours since the plea went out, the store processed 25,000 online orders, compared with about 600 in a typical two-day period.” – The New York Times

Entire Hong Kong Philharmonic Trapped In Island Quarantine

Ever since the bass clarinetist tested positive for the coronavirus, “they have been placed in the same section of the 1,080-room camp [on Lantau Island], each minimally furnished room the size of a standard shipping container. Jamming and group rehearsals are banned, obviously, given that nobody can leave their own rooms.” Here’s how they’re getting through the days. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Pathbreaking Set Designer Ming Cho Lee Dead At 90

As his biographer puts it, “In the 1960s and ’70s Lee radically and almost single-handedly transformed the American approach to stage design.” His work for spoken theater, dance, and opera won him numerous awards, including two Tonys and the National Medal of Arts; he had an equally great impact during his 48-year career teaching stage design at Yale. – The New York Times

African Activist Arrested For Trying To Take Asian Artifact From Louvre

Just a week after he was given a fine but no jail time for attempting to take pieces of African art from another Paris museum, Mwazulu Diyabanza — who calls his acts political protests demanding the return to Africa of artworks looted by European colonizers — was stopped by Louvre guards after lifting and carrying off a sculpture. In a video of the incident, Diyabanza declares, “I came here … to take back what was pillaged from Africa.” The sculpture is from the Indonesian island of Flores. – Artnet

Curator Of Hay Festival Abu Dhabi Accuses Royal of Sexual Assault

“Caitlin McNamara was the curator of the first sister festival in Abu Dhabi, which was feted as an opportunity to promote freedom of expression, human rights and women’s rights in the UAE. … She [has] accused Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan” — the Emirates’ minister of tolerance — “of sexually assaulting her on 14 February, 11 days before the festival began.” – The Guardian

Eight Small Theaters Sue New York State And City For Right To Reopen

“The lawsuit, filed Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, argues that the orders shutting down theaters ‘shock the conscience and interfere with plaintiffs’ deeply-rooted liberty and property rights, including the right to work, right to contract, and right to engage in commerce.’ The theaters filing suit … have 199 seats or fewer, and most of [them] are commercial operations.” – The New York Times

The End Of Fashion Photography As We Know It

The fashion world is in crisis: It is producing too much, moving too fast, and, with worrying frequency, offending consumers due to an inability to pivot convincingly from a position that champions a censoriously narrow vision of beauty. Brands are closing, and magazines are folding or becoming fully digital. Can the fashion photograph, of the sort that has littered bedroom walls and been reposted again and again on Instagram or Tumblr, survive? – The New York Times