Maestro Downes’ Daughter On Supporting Parents’ Suicide

“Sitting last week in the London house in which she grew up surrounded by shelves lined with thousands of her father’s books, Boudicca took a deep breath and began to explain why she had supported her parents; why she had backed not just her mother, who had only a few, painful months left, but also her father, who may have lived for a decade or more.”

Boston’s Hot Ticket: The Institute Of Contemporary Art

“At a time when cultural organizations struggle to hold onto their audiences, the ICA is Boston’s greatest success story.” Since its 2006 move to a new home designed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, “attendance has boomed, making it the second most visited museum in the region. And a string of recent high-profile shows has … changed the way Bostonians, traditionally more attuned to Sargent and Monet, look at contemporary art.”

Touring Authors’ Secret Weapon: The Literary Escort

“Escorts immediately make you feel as if you had known them for decades. Their duties range from bypassing pileups on I-95 to purchasing double soy lattes to explaining why only one person showed up at your reading in Winnetka. … They are a vanishing feature of the landscape — even though most people are unaware of their existence — a testament to that amazing American ability to create niche careers where no such careers should exist.”

Reality Stars Go Literary

Books, which as objects of desire have seemed to have scant place in Hollywood’s slick, visual sensibility, have a new role in the business of television. Reality stars, who as nonunion actors are unreliably compensated (mostly in perks), have begun to see books as nearly mandatory, if they’re to cash in on their celebrity.

Hundreds Try Out For Art Reality Show

“The show, which doesn’t have a title or a broadcast date, will try to do for the contemporary art world what the cable channel has done for the worlds of fine cuisine (“Top Chef”) and fashion (“Project Runway”): discover young, or maybe even middle-aged or old, unknowns with the talent to command the attention of both a television audience and a serious audience in the creative field to which they aspire.”

The Battle To Shock

“When it comes to shock, the different arts seem to be out of phase with each other. The big shock of modernism arrived in verse, painting, music and dance at around the same time: the beginning of the 20th century. In terms of material and subject matter, though, the genres are all over the place.”