Tom MacMaster did some real damage with the blog where he pretended to be Amina Arraf, a young Syrian-American lesbian caught in Damascus when the Arab Spring arrived – especially when, about to be exposed, MacMaster posted that “Arraf” had been kidnapped. Kevin Young considers the hurt that the hoax caused to MacMaster himself, other individuals, and even the early rebellion against Bashar al-Assad.
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Jeremy Hutchinson, Who Argued Some Of The Most Important Court Cases In Britain’s Cultural History, Dead At 102
He was one of the two attorneys whose groundbreaking defense prevailed in the 1960 obscenity trial of Penguin Books for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover; eleven years later, he won a more difficult case against Paul Ableman’s The Mouth and Oral Sex, establishing the “literary merit” argument. “He added a service to the arts by ending the cultural vandalism of Mary Whitehouse, whose attempt in 1982 to prosecute the National Theatre for staging Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain collapsed after his (and the Old Bailey’s) most remarkable cross-examination.”
Old Vic Investigation Turns Up 20 Complaints Of Sexual Harassment By Kevin Spacey
“An investigation opened by the theatre, following allegations that the actor had sexually assaulted young men while working [as artistic director] there, led to 20 people coming forward to report incidents of inappropriate behaviour up to 2013. … The Old Vic said a ‘cult of personality’ had existed around Spacey during his time as director and that his stardom and status had prevented people, particularly junior staff and young actors, from speaking out.”
New York Public Library Unveils (Another) New Master Plan
“The $317 million plan, approved by the board on Wednesday, will be the largest renovation in the history of the [system’s flagship] building, which opened in 1911. … [The plan] does not dictate any specific future for the most hotly disputed unused historic space in the building: its seven football-field-size floors of stacks, which have been largely empty since 2013.”
The New Museum Of The Bible Does Its Job Very, Very Well – And Yet …
Philip Kennicott: “What it does well, it does as well or better than any museum in the country … bearing with it something that most historians and museum professionals may have thought was long discredited: the ‘master narrative’ idea of history, that there is one sweeping human story that needs to be told, a story that is still unfolding and carrying us along with it.”
Another Classical Music Critic’s Job Is Gone: David Patrick Stearns To Leave Philadelphia Inquirer
Faced with the almost-certain elimination of his position, Stearns has accepted a buyout offer from the paper after more than 17 years.
Masha Gessen, Jesmyn Ward, Robin Benway, Frank Bidart Win 2017 National Book Awards
“At a glitzy gala in New York City on Wednesday night, four writers emerged with one of the world’s most illustrious literary prizes, the National Book Award: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, won for fiction; Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, for nonfiction; Frank Bidart’s Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016, for poetry; and Robin Benway’s Far from the Tree, for young people’s literature.” (includes video of complete ceremony)
$450 Million – Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ Is Now The Most Expensive Artwork In History
“After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi sold on Wednesday night [at Christie’s] for $450.3 million with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso’s Women of Algiers, which fetched $179.4 million at Christie’s in May 2015.”
Philadelphia Orchestra Names Two Interim Co-Presidents To Succeed Allison Vulgamore
“Matthew Loden and Ryan Fleur will share administrative leadership, with the title of interim co-presidents, as the orchestra looks for a successor to … Vulgamore,” who departs Dec. 31. “Fleur and Loden are currently executive vice president for orchestra advancement and executive vice president for institutional advancement, respectively.”
Documenta Promises This Year’s Massive Deficit Won’t Derail The Next Festival
“The dates have been set for the next Documenta, the pace-setting quinquennial German contemporary art exhibition, allaying fears that the future of the show was in doubt after this year’s edition ran over budget and caused a deficit expected to be €5.4m at the end of the year. The city of Kassel is able to shoulder the extra costs incurred by the 2017 extravaganza, the mayor says.”