“Best-selling children’s novelist, GP Taylor has accidentally burnt three of his original manuscripts while clearing his house before moving. Scarborough-based Graham Taylor was turning the embers on a bonfire when he noticed what was written on them.”
Blog
Carnegie International’s Friends Are Of Necessity
“When the 54th Carnegie International opened last Friday, the festivities served as a reunion for 57 people whose generosity funded nearly one quarter of the exhibit’s cost. Known as Friends of the 2004 Carnegie International, these 57 affluent donors contributed more than $700,000 to the $3 million exhibit once it became clear that no single local corporation would serve as lead sponsor.” It was the first time in recent history that a corporation failed to fill that role.
Lincoln Center Makes An Economic Case
“Lincoln Center — home to the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and the New York Philharmonic, among others — released a study Wednesday showing its significant economic contribution to the New York city, state and metropolitan area. Prepared by the Economic Development Research Group in association with Mt. Auburn Associates, the study finds Lincoln Center’s total economic contribution in 2003 to the greater metropolitan region was $1.52 billion of business sales, which in turn supported 15,200 workers with $635 million in benefits and wages.”
The O’Neill Changes Course (Again)
The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s shift to having a single artistic director oversee all of its programs was a factor in the sudden departure last year of James Houghton, the head of the prestigious O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Following the abrupt resignation last summer of J Ranelli, the center’s first overall artistic director, the O’Neill is now looking not for someone to fill that spot but simply for an artistic director for the playwrights conference. (Second item.)
Is A Harvard Rembrandt A Fake?
“In a forthcoming biography of the colorful Hollywood artist, bon vivant, and art forger John Decker, Stephen Jordan includes an account of how Decker and his friend Will Fowler forged a Rembrandt ‘Bust of Christ’ for actor (‘Stagecoach,’ ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ‘Lost Horizon’) Thomas Mitchell, an amateur art collector. ‘Not long after Mitchell passed away,’ Jordan writes, ‘the painting fetched $35,000 as an early Rembrandt. Today, the painting hangs at Harvard University’s prestigious Fogg Art Museum — hailed as a true Rembrandt.'”
Playing The Blame Game In Harlem
With a deficit of $2.3 million, Dance Theatre of Harlem is in trouble, and not for the first time. It has laid off dancers, canceled this season’s performances and lost nearly its entire board. Former board members blame company founder Arthur Mitchell’s incompetence; he blames theirs. At 70, the fiercely devoted Mitchell looks to the past — his and the company’s — to answer questions about the future.
Hemingway Home Restoration Held Up By Politics
“In what architects describe as a preservation emergency, [Ernest Hemingway’s Havana] house, known as Finca Vigía or Lookout Farm, is tumbling down. An effort to save the finca, an American cultural treasure and an important Cuban tourist attraction, seems threatened by a storm of politics.” An American foundation has offered millions to fund the restoration of the house, but the U.S. government has refused to allow the project to go forward, claiming that it would promote tourism in Cuba, thereby helping the economy of the Communist nation.
Is America’s Free Press In Danger?
From the FCC crackdown to judges who feel free to lock up reporters who refuse to reveal their sources, first amendment activists have had a lot to complain about this year. Frank Rich claims that such recent events make the Bush Administration the biggest threat to free expression since Nixon, and worries that much of the nation seems perfectly willing to accept censorship and outright media intimidation, so long as the resulting “news” coverage conforms to their political point of view.
Choosing The Conductor Of The People
North Carolina’s Asheville Symphony is looking for a new music director for the first time in 22 years, and it has narrowed its search to three candidates. Nothing unusual there, but the orchestra’s method of evaluating the finalists is something quite different from the usual behind-closed-doors insider review. “After their performances, the conductors will each be rated by the 12-member search committee and an informal board of consultants of about two dozen people in the community who are reasonably knowledgeable about music and the symphony.” In other words, the audience gets a quantifiable voice in the hiring process.
It’s Just A Memoir, People
It was big news when the first volume of legendary singer Bob Dylan’s memoirs were released earlier this week. But the way some readers (and reviewers) are reacting, you’d think that a deity had descended from the clouds and chiseled the book onto stone tablets. “Dylan is, beyond question, a seriously remarkable songwriter. He brought – not alone, but with unique success – the seriousness and jokiness of a poet to popular music… [But the] Dylan priesthood serves a cult of worshippers obsessed with every scratchy bootleg; every relic; every word, or touch, or bit of blood, or piece of his hair or his clothes. Honestly. They’re worse than Grateful Dead fans.”