A Seattle-area publisher of sailing books has pulled his stock from Amazon.com in protest of the online retailer’s refusal to stop selling a book which directly makes the case for sexual relationships between men and prepubescent boys. Amazon says that while the book is clearly reprehensible (and the site’s in-house reviewer says as much,) it is not a pornographic work, and the retailer insists that it will not get into the censorship business.
Tag: 06.08.04
Art Historians Sue Over Vuillard Catalogues
“The authors and publishers of the Edouard Vuillard catalogue raisonné and of the exhibition catalogue of the recently touring Vuillard retrospective are being sued in French and US courts by two art historians who claim the books plagiarise their work.”
LA To Save Animation Studio Buildings
The Los Angeles city council has decided to preserve all three of the buildings that once comprised the historic Hanna-Barbera animation studio, where such TV icons as the Flintstones, Barney Rubble, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo came to life. “It was at the studio that Bill Hanna and his partner Joe Barbera perfected ‘limited animation,’ which is far cheaper than the traditional kind. It also involves far less movement of the animated characters, however, and thus is criticized by some purists. Hanna and Barbera perfected the cheap technique in the late 1950s, a time when the major studios were closing their labor-intensive animation departments, and thus some have credited them with helping save the cartooning industry.”
No Tony Winners For Republicans
Republicans won’t be seeing Broadway’s Tony winners at the convention this summer. “With thousands of Republicans set to descend on the Big Apple to nominate President Bush for re-election, convention organizers decided to treat delegates to the glitz of Broadway before they knuckled down to the business of politics. But Republican organizers, selling themselves as the family-values party, decided to buy tickets to tame shows like “42nd Street” and Disney productions like “Aida” and “The Lion King,” avoiding more offbeat fare.”
Surviving Books In A Time Of TV
“So what is the future for fiction if a hardcore of the population are joining the illiterati? While the written word can be credited with liberating the sight and consciousness of the emerging working-class in the 19th and 20th centuries, the explosion in new media has challenged that role.”
Art Of The Fake
“There isn’t a major gallery in the world that doesn’t house – and in most cases proudly display – works that “aren’t what they seem”. There is a joke among art dealers and forgery specialists that of the 324 canvases (or whatever the precise figure) painted by Corot, 562 are hanging in museums and private houses in America. The former Met director Thomas Hoving reckoned 40 per cent of the works offered to the museum were either phonies or so hypocritically restored they were no better than forgeries.”
Scottish Opera Carved In Half (And Worse)
“The long-term future of Scottish Opera was cast into doubt last night after the company and the Executive unveiled plans which will mean the firing of nearly half its staff and productions being halted for nine months. The executive promised up to £7 million in funding for a radical “restructuring” plan that it said would enable the company to live within its £7.5 million annual budget.”
Rating The Tony Show
“What started off as an embarrassment turned into a classy Tony Awards, which rewarded devoted theater fans while remaining lively and unstuffy.”
The Great Arts Confab
Five thousand performing arts professionals are converging on Pittsburgh this week in the first-ever joint meeting of America’s performing arts organizations. “The idea behind the project was to give performing-arts people across the country a chance to share their thoughts on important industry problems and pool their strength. There were real, fieldwide issues that were not subject to solution by any single art form. I had the feeling that we would always be minor-league players while we operated in our silos.”
Romano At BookExpo: A Report
A visit to the annual BookExpo in Chicago is an opportunity to see what the buzz in the outside world is (and is going to be) says Carlin Romano. This year’s event (attended by 10,000 book people) was a reflection of politics and issues beyond the convention center.