Getting working capital from banks to finance a project is often a problem for artists. So the Alberta and Canadian governments have decided to help with a “Cultural Industries Guarantee Fund” that provides collateral for project financing. “Some of the book publishers or magazine publishers may be in that middle stage where they have had great initial success on a lot of their projects, and need to grow, and without that investment, just can’t. And they have a very difficult time.” – CBC
Tag: 04.26.00
ROTH FOR NOBEL?
Ten years ago, “Philip Roth was still considered a literary troublemaker, a gleeful misogynist, a self-absorbed rake who made it impossible for an entire generation to look at liver the same way again. But over the past decade, something magical has taken place. While his peers have slipped quietly into their literary dotage, Roth’s powers have steadily waxed. Since 1991, he has pumped out six books with metronomic, superhuman regularity, winning five major awards, including a Pulitzer. Now, with the imminent publication of his new novel, The Human Stain, the unthinkable has occurred: Portnoy is a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize.” – New York Magazine
BY THE BOOK
The numbers are in – what books sold well in 1999. – Publishers Weekly
UNLIMITED READ
A new hypertext book is a rabbit hole of an experience. “253” is a story of the 253 passengers (and the drive) on a train. But every sentence is filled with hypertext leading to details and subplots and descriptions of the other people on the train. No two readers are likely to read it the same way. “It’s far more work than writing an ordinary story,” says the author. In a traditional book, the author does not have to create everything around a character, everything they see. In hypertext, it’s all there: The writer has “to create interesting material that may never be read by anybody, ever.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
READING REVOLUTION
New electronic publishing technologies change not only the way we’ll be able to access words in the future, but also the way stories are written. The simple linear reading experience may be coming to an end. “This is either the dawn of a new age of writing or the end of Western civilization.” – Washington Post
AGENT FROM AFAR
Being a book agent in the US pretty well means you have to live on the east or west coasts. Of the 250 or so most influential agents, that’s where 99 percent of them live. But one small agency in a Chicago suburb is finding its way by doing business a bit differently. – Chicago Tribune
THEM THAT PRONOUNCES ON ART…
Poor Rudy. The New York mayor’s wife is starring in a racy play that flies contrary to hizzoner’s conservative tastes. “Now he’s trapped in a perfumed nightmare, his own wife soon performing orgasmic moans off-Broadway and his rival for the U.S. Senate making tsk-tsk noises at him every time he turns around.” – New York Observer
BUILDING LOBBIES
Architects on big public projects often have to deal with the petty political concerns of their politician/clients. They usually keep their disputes quiet. But the architects working on Melbourne’s landmark Federation Square have gone public with their complaints, mounting a campaign throughout Australia to lobby on their behalf. – Sydney Morning Herald
A MILLION POUNDS OF ART
Charles Saatchi just paid a million pounds for Damien Hirst’s latest: a 20-foot-high plastic model of the human body. Hirst makes a lot of junk, says one critic. But when he’s on… ” ‘Hymn’ is the first key work of British art for the new century. To risk an overused term, it is a masterpiece.” – The Telegraph (UK)
UNDUE INFLUENCE?
Sotheby’s postpones it annual meeting as its largest shareholder pushes the auction house to distance itself from its former chairman amidst growing investigations into the company’s practices. – New York Times