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Was Shakespeare A Pothead?

“Several 17th-century clay pipes found at the site of William Shakespeare’s home were used to smoke marijuana, a South African anthropologist says. Although he has no proof that the Bard was the guy who smoked the pipes, he surmises that some of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays also lend credence to the possibility that the writer smoked marijuana for inspiration.”

Library Burning: War On Words In Iraq

The burning of Iraq’s National Library destroyed records of much of the country’s intellectual life. “Even if alert curators and librarians succeeded in moving significant numbers of books to safety, Baghdad’s most recent bibliographic losses are enormous. The National Library was the country’s copyright depository, like our own Library of Congress; as such it contained copies of all books published in modern Iraq. Although Cairo and Beirut are the traditional centers of Arabic publishing, Iraqis have long been recognized as great readers-and in the 20th century, particularly before Saddam Hussein took power, the country’s book trade flourished. But the library’s holdings reached back to long before the rise of the Ba’ath Party.”

The MFA’s Big Art Deal

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is after a painting – it won’t say which, but it’s rumored to be a major Degas – that would be one of the biggest purchases made by an American museum in years. To finance the deal, the MFA is hoping to sell off two Degas and a Renoir at auction, expecting to take in $17 million…

The Florida Philharmonic’s Bleak Prospects

With an annual budget of $10 million, the Florida Philharmonic is the state’s largest performing arts institution. But after failing to raise $20 million in emergency funds by last Friday, the orchestra could go out of business at the end of next week. Friday the orchestra gave itself a one-week reprieve, saying it had to raise $4 million by then to remain open. The prospects are not good.

The Real Reality: Scripted TV Shows Make Money (Lots Of It)

So you think the reality shows are going to completely take over the TV landscape? Don’t count on it. “According to a recent Morgan Stanley research report, profits from scripted shows (before syndication) have risen 36 percent over the last five years, to $3 billion this season from $2.2 billion in 1998-99 — and that’s without any new breakout hits. So despite predictions that this fall’s schedule would be flooded with low-cost reality shows, and that writers would find themselves teaching “The Art of Sitcoms” at the Learning Annex, there appear to be at least as many drama and comedy pilots in production as last year.”

Looking For Mr/Ms Right

The St. Lawrence String Quartet is one of chamber music’s rising young stars – the group has a prestigious residency, a recording contract, and plenty of concerts. But when its founding cellist decided to quit, the search for a replacement was arduous. Now, a year after taking in a new player, the group is beginning its search all over again…

Fighting Back From Injury And Weight Gain

“In late 2001, Miranda Weese, one of New York City Ballet’s most infallible and dramatically captivating dancers, underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair torn cartilage in her hip. She remained sidelined for a year, and not merely because of the time it took to regain her strength. Another nightmare occurred during her recovery: Ms Weese gained 40 pounds. Until then, she had never even gone on a diet.” It’s a long road back…

“Hairspray” Cleans Up With Drama Desk Nominations

“Hairspray” gets 14 nominations for the 48th Annual Drama Desk Awards, tying the number received in past years by “The Producers,” “Ragtime” and “The Secret Garden.” Other high scorers included the musicals “La Bohème,” “A Man of No Importance,” “Movin’ Out,” “Nine” and “Avenue A,” the new play “Take Me Out” and the revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

Pictorial Writing

Westerners have always been fascinated by “writing systems of East Asia. “Chinese, Japanese and Korean, are ‘syllabaries,’ in which each character corresponds to a syllable of sound, and in Chinese, at least, a basic unit of meaning (called a morpheme). By contrast, alphabetic systems rely on letters that by themselves are pure abstractions: a single letter represents neither a syllable of sound nor a morpheme. While alphabets tend to be small, syllabaries can be quite large: there are more than 50,000 Chinese characters, though most people can get by with knowing about 5,000. But a better understanding of Asian writing systems has not stopped Western experts from making grand claims about their virtues and limitations.”