Aspiring writers everywhere have submited fiction to The New Yorker in hopes of getting published. Indeed, the magazine gets some 4000 unsolicited manuscripts every month. So will submissions to the slush pile have a shot at getting into the NYer under new fiction editor Deborah Treisman? “Someone who’s submitting themselves directly to the fiction editor probably isn’t all that savvy about publishing and probably not about writing either.” Hmmmn…guess not.
Blog
The Rembrandt Behind The Paint
Researchers have discovered a Rembrandt self-portrait that was altered by an assistant 300 years ago. “The original portrait from 1634, painted when Rembrandt was 28, was later painted over, apparently by a student in Rembrandt’s studio. The student added earrings, a goatee, shoulder-length hair and a velvet cap to make it appear to be a Russian aristocrat. The restored portrait shows the Dutch master with medium-length curly hair, a slightly upturned mustache and a beret. In it, Rembrandt’s portrait has the familiar round chin and gentle eyes of many other self studies.”
Chicago Art Institute Cancels Nazi Loot Show
The Art Institute of Chicago has canceled a show on ths history of Nazi art looting. Why? “We had hoped to present the topic in a way that would be informative and beneficial to the public, but we realized that if we couldn’t do it properly, given the importance of the subject, we should not proceed.”
Limits Of Nurture
“I have never encountered anybody who claims that will, education, and culture cannot change many, if not all, of our genetically inherited traits. My genetic tendency to myopia is canceled by the eyeglasses I wear (but I do have to want to wear them); and many of those who would otherwise suffer from one genetic disease or another can have the symptoms postponed indefinitely by being educated about the importance of a particular diet, or by the culture-borne gift of one prescription medicine or another.” However, “If we have been raised and educated in a particular cultural environment, then the traits imposed on us by that environment are ineluctable. We may at best channel them, but we cannot change them either by will, further education, or by adopting a different culture.”
Would Frequent-Goer Discounts Bring More People Into the Theatre?
How about this for a plan? It works for airline tickets – People who buy their theatre tickets well in advance get big discounts. The founder of EasyJet, the discount airline, says: “I am sure that going to the theatre is as price-elastic as going to the movies. If you reduce the price, more people will go. Someone should try it with the theatre some day.”
Star Power
Is casting Hollywood celebrities in plays a good thing beyond goosing up the box office? “On the whole, I think the impact of these star performances on London theatre has been overwhelmingly positive. It creates a buzz, it attracts new audiences, it gets theatre talked about. Of course, you do have to make a distinction between what I would call celebrity casting – where you just take some minor celeb and try to use the name to sell tickets – and real star casting, where you’re featuring people whose fame has to do with their quality as actors.” So maybe it would help revive Scottish theatre?
Scottish Arts Exec Calls For Arts Funding Inquiry
After a disappointing announcement of flat funding for the arts by the Scottish government, “the chairman of the Scottish Arts Council has called for a public inquiry to stave off financial catastrophe in the arts and to nurture the sector for future generations.”
Inside Nureyev
Robert Tracy was Nureyev’s lover for seven year before Nureyev’s death, and for the past 10 years has refused to talk about his friend. Now he is. “He heard Nureyev talk in private about his anxieties over his fading youthfulness, about the women he had slept with, about his longing to have fathered a son. On January 6 1993, Nureyev died at the age of 53 from Aids, a diagnosis which was kept secret until the morning after his death. Tracy has never accepted this diagnosis. He believes his friend, like other gays, was the victim of poisoning by governments.”
Shakespeare In Tehran
Director Dominic Hill was invited to Iran with his production of Shakespeare. It’s been 25 years since the Bard was performed in Tehran. “This reverent attitude towards our national playwright was to crop up again and again during the many interviews I had with journalists and critics. The Persians, as they call themselves, are a cultured, strongly opinioned, passionate people – one mention that I had a degree in English literature and I was treated to a 30-minute lecture on the great Persian poets. Shakespeare is up there with them, and therefore to produce him in modern dress seemed, to the intellectuals and directors I spoke to, incomprehensible, insulting and doomed to failure.”
Computer-Generated Potter Elf Based On Russian President?
Was the computer-generated elf Doby in the latest Harry Potter movie based on Russian president Vladimir Putin? “A Russian law firm is reportedly drawing up legal action against the special effects people who dreamt up Dobby, arguing that the ugly but caring elf has been modelled on Mr Putin. The Kremlin and Warner Bros, producer of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, have declined to comment but the controversy has stirred emotions in Russia.”