Even as he designs a gargantuan glass house for Michael Ovitz, architect Michael Maltzan is remaking bits of Los Angeles’ skid row — not for gentrifying interlopers but for the homeless people who live there. “Here architecture is used as a tool not only for aesthetic upliftment, but also to forge both a strong sense of community and a visual presence for the poor in a city that often seems to have forgotten them.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Lethem Gets Creative With Film-Option Offer
Jonathan Lethem “will option his new novel ‘You Don’t Love Me Yet’ on May 15 to a filmmaker who agrees to give him 2 percent of the movie’s budget as a fee. … In an unprecedented move, Lethem wants the filmmaker to release ‘ancillary’ rights — such as the right to distribute the novel on the Internet or make a stage play based on it — to the public domain five years after the film’s debut.”
Who Are You Calling A Philistine?
“In recent years, excavations in Israel established that the Philistines had fine pottery, handsome architecture and cosmopolitan tastes. If anything, they were more refined than the shepherds and farmers in the nearby hills, the Israelites, who slandered them in biblical chapter and verse and rendered their name a synonym for boorish, uncultured people. Archaeologists have now found that not only were Philistines cultured, they were also literate….”
Why We Laugh When Nothing’s Funny
“Laughter, a topic that stymied philosophers for 2,000 years, is finally yielding to science.” Researchers say that “most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.”
Under Mortier, A City Opera With Greater Scope?
Gerard Mortier, incoming director of New York City Opera, “comes from a European tradition in which the opera house is the home for opera and ballet, as well as academies. … His job in Paris has required a broad perspective and the insight to encourage creative thinking about presenting the arts as a whole. What’s exciting about his impending arrival is that his sort of background brings the promise of crossing over, reaching out, collaborating with, and delving into as much as possible from his post at City Opera.”
Book-Market Bomb Aimed At Iraq’s Intellectuals
“The book market along Mutanabi Street was a throwback to the Baghdad of old…. Somehow it survived the war, until Monday, when a powerful suicide car bomb hit the market, slicing through the heart of the capital’s intellectual scene. It killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 65. … ‘There are no Americans or Iraqi politicians here — there are only Iraqi intellectuals who represent themselves and their homeland, plus stationery and book dealers,’ said Abdul Baqi Faidhullah, 61, a poet who frequently visits the street.”
National Gallery Adding Johns Proofs En Masse
“The National Gallery of Art is planning to become a destination for the study of iconic painter Jasper Johns. The gallery is set to announce today that it will be adding 1,700 proofs of Johns’s lithographs, etchings, relief prints and screen prints to its collection by the end of 2008. The works’ estimated value is in the millions of dollars and, if the fundraising is successful, the gallery will have the largest repository of Johns’s work in the country, the gallery said.”
About That Picasso You Bought On TV …
“A La Cañada Flintridge couple who ran televised art and jewelry auctions have admitted to running a scam that bilked buyers out of more than $20 million by selling bogus artworks and forging the signatures of such notables as Picasso, Chagall and Dali. … The couple admitted their operation involved the television show ‘Fine Arts Treasures Gallery,’ shown Friday and Saturday nights on channels broadcast by Direct TV and the Dish Network.”
Federal Panel Advises Shift From Textbooks To Web
“A federal advisory panel studying the high cost of college texts was offered a simple suggestion Monday for keeping down expenses: Don’t use so many books. Or, at least, not books in the conventional sense. The idea is to prod professors to develop more courses that take advantage of articles, lecture notes, study guides and other materials available for free on the Internet.” One unresolved question: “Who is to blame for textbooks that often cost more than $100?”
Help The Troops: Protect Iraqi Antiquities
“Americans are increasingly reluctant to risk American blood to save Iraqi lives. So it’s a pretty tough sell to ask people to care about a bunch of old rocks with funny writing. But what if they understood that the plunder of Iraq’s 10,000 poorly guarded archaeological sites not only deprives future generations of incomparable works of art, but also finances the insurgents? … And what if Americans understood that our failure to appreciate the importance Iraqis place on their history has added to the chaos faced by our troops?”