If script is dying, it cannot complain that its day has been short. Its solitary reign may have been ended by the printing press, but it lived on as a citizen in the new republic of letters: official records, account books, botanical drawings, not to mention works for private circulation and personal epistles, continued to be produced by hand for centuries. Then came the typewriter, but even its keys could not strike the death knell of handwriting. Perhaps that machine’s close descendants, the keyboards of our computers and their avatars on our screens, are administering the coup de grâce. Perhaps.
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Robert Buck, 79, Former Director Of Brooklyn Museum, Knox-Albright
Mr. Buck, who died March 30 at 79 after a battle with cancer, was an instrumental figure in Buffalo’s visual arts scene, both at the gallery and in the community. His decade-long stint as director at the Albright-Knox was defined by a bookish enthusiasm for the work of contemporary American artists and an involvement in Buffalo’s burgeoning avant garde art scene that set a precedent for future directors.
Saudi Arabia To Create New $20 Billion Cultural Heritage Site
“Under the contract, France will help create a blueprint for museums, archaeological digs and conservation in the region, as well as develop transport, hotels, crafts, education and training, urban planning and other infrastructure projects. The tourism plan is described as ‘the most important ever seen in the Arab world’. The cost has not yet been determined, but a source close to the project says the whole budget could amount to more than $20bn. Saudi Arabia has pledged to finance everything, according to a diplomatic source.”
British Bookstore Chain Waterstones Is About To Be Sold To A Hedge Fund
Who knows what the hedge fund might do to the chain? (Take a quick look at the stripped and bankrupted Toys R Us, or newspapers like the Denver Post, or … ) Meanwhile: “The proximity of the sale has caused a delay to increasing the pay of senior booksellers at the chain. The situation has led to some disquiet among senior staff, who were not given a pay rise at the same time as their junior colleagues when the National Minimum Wage rose to £7.83 an hour.”
Denver Post Journalists Blast Hedge Fund Owners For Trying To Sell The Paper Off For Parts
Indeed: “The lead editorial pulled no punches, describing executives at Alden Global Capital, the paper’s hedge-fund owner, as ‘vulture capitalists.’ ‘We call for action,’ the editorial continued. It went on to make the case that ‘Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom. If Alden isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it should sell The Post to owners who will.'”
OK, This Is Cool: New York’s 19th Century Theatre Playbills Will Be Available Online
Theatre history nerds, rejoice! “These one-sheet playbills trace the history of theater in New York. They were originally posted around Manhattan to advertise Shakespeare plays, minstrel shows, new American plays and early musicals. One showcases a performance of ‘The Black Crook,’ which opened in 1866 and is often credited as the first musical. The earliest broadside in the collection advertises the Old American Company’s performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in 1785; tickets were four shillings for a gallery seat.”
A New Economic Impact Study Claims The Boston Symphony Is Pumping More Than A Quarter Of A Billion Dollars Into The Local Economy
The Fourth of July Boston Pops concerts are particularly successful, but in total, “adjusted for inflation, that’s up roughly 40 percent from a similar independent study done in 2008. A decade ago, symphony-related economic activity was pegged at $167 million.”
Bookstores In Germany Take On A Political Role, Including Protesting The Rise Of The Far Right
One man runs a bookshop in Berlin’s old Jewish Quarter, and he helped lead a protest against neo-Nazi marches in the quarter. “Braunsdorf, who has hosted German-Arabic reading events at his shop for refugee children and moderated debates about gentrification, the economy and politics, said he ‘can’t imagine running a bookstore just as a selling point.'”
Up To Ninety Percent Of Art Sold As ‘Aboriginal’ In Australian Souvenir Shops Is Fake (And Imported)
That’s (obviously?) not a good thing for actual Aboriginal artists in Australia. But there’s no law against it. The chair of Western Australia’s Aboriginal Art Hub “said the current Indigenous art code, which attempts to promote ethical trading in Aboriginal art, needed to be mandatory and better resourced.”
Imagining The World Of Fashion Publishing Without Anna Wintour (Is It Possible?)
Hmmm. “She effectively exerts her own gravitational force field, magnetized by strategically deployed invitations, introductions, magazine features and messages of support. If that disappears, particles previously held together by her atomic network will disperse and collide before renegotiating themselves into some sort of new order, which is one way of saying it would affect not just glossy magazines, but also the broader fashion establishment and the Hollywood-sports-fashion industrial complex.”