“The two most prestigious awards for American children’s books went yesterday to Susan Patron, a relatively unknown author who was awarded this year’s Newbery Medal, and to David Wiesner, an illustrator who won the Caldecott Medal for the third time.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Carving A Myth In Granite
The design for New York City’s $15.5 million Frederick Douglass Circle includes “a huge quilt in granite, an array of squares, a symbol in each, supposedly part of a secret code sewn into family quilts and used along the Underground Railroad to aid slaves. Two plaques would explain this. The only problem: According to many prominent historians, the secret code … never existed.”
Sri Lanka Draws Foreign Authors For Festival
The 61 authors attending Sri Lanka’s inaugural Galle Literary Festival include “author and historian William Dalrymple, Man Booker prize winner Kiran Desai, Arthur C Clarke and chef and actress Madhur Jaffrey. That they came at all to a first and untested book festival is commendable. But to an island which appears to be sliding towards civil war in the north and east is all the more remarkable.”
The Critic As Friend/Hagiographer
“Can artists and critics ever be friends? It might be different for music or film critics, but for an art critic in Britain in the 21st century, it has become an urgent question: critics have become so close to artists, they practically do their laundry.”
Appeal Argued In ‘Da Vinci Code’ Case
“Two authors who failed to convince Britain’s High Court that New Hampshire’s Dan Brown stole their ideas for his blockbuster novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’ took their case to the Court of Appeal on Tuesday. Lawyers for Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who face a bill of more than $2 million if the earlier verdict stands, said the lower court ruling ‘was based on a misunderstanding of the law and of the claim.’ “
MacArthur To Help Chicago Nonprofits Meet Code
“Storefront theaters and other small, non-profit performing arts venues that haven’t had the means to bring their spaces up to City of Chicago building and fire codes may be eligible for help from the city’s largest philanthropy.” Arts organizations with budgets under $500,000 will be the beneficiaries of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s new $660,000 fund.
Flintridge Foundation Stops Artist Grants
“The Pasadena-based Flintridge Foundation has dropped its 10-year-old visual artists’ grant program, blaming ‘severe investment losses’ from 2002 to 2004. The foundation, founded in 1985 by the estates of Francis and Louisa Moseley, has awarded 10 to 12 grants of $25,000 every other year, distributing $1.4 million among 56 artists since 1997. In addition to ending the artist grants, foundation officials say they will stop making grants to theater organizations and conservation efforts in 2008.”
A Smaller Deborah Voigt, With Added Powers
Soprano Deborah Voigt’s much-publicized weight loss has not detracted from her voice, Mark Swed writes; rather, it’s added to her performance palette. “Until recently, she was a large woman with a lively personality who stood and belted. Now with less, she is much more.”
Netflix’s Act II: Streaming Video
“Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, lists more than five dozen personalities whose obituaries were published prematurely. Someone may want to add Netflix to that list.” Particularly, that is, now that it’s announced its second act. “Netflix is introducing a service to deliver movies and television shows directly to users’ PCs, not as downloads but as streaming video, which is not retained in computer memory.”
The Oeuvre Of An Imaginary Artist
The story of the late African-American artist Lester Hayes, whose work is seen in a current retrospective at the Harlem gallery Triple Candie, “is a familiar one, and of a kind the art world loves. Not only was he tragically unrecognized but, we now learn, he was also hugely influential.” Except that he wasn’t. “He never existed.”