Category: today’s top story

“Author JD Salinger is taking legal action to block the publication of a book billed as a follow-up to his classic novel The Catcher in the Rye. According to legal papers filed in New York, the 90-year-old’s lawyers called the book a ‘rip-off pure and simple’. 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye features someone similar to Holden Caulfield from Salinger’s work, which he says only he is able to use.”

“The embattled New York City Opera lost $11.3 million in the year ending June 30, 2008, when the company still believed that Belgian Gerard Mortier would lead it into a new era. According to City Opera’s tax return, provided to Bloomberg upon request, revenue, including ticket sales and income from donations and investments, fell 23 percent to $32.9 million. Expenses jumped 11 percent to $44.2 million.”

“For the first time in its history, Mass MoCA is close to breaking even without a desperate round of fund-raising. This month, the museum celebrated an important milestone. It has been 10 years since the largest contemporary art museum in the world opened on the shuttered campus of the former Sprague Electric Co.”

“A New York judge ordered that a collector of Andy Warhol artworks be allowed to pursue claims of fraud and unjust enrichment against a foundation that authenticates the artist’s paintings and prints. Joe Simon-Whelan, owner of a Warhol self-portrait, sued the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in federal court in New York in 2007, asking to represent other buyers of the pop artist’s works that were judged to be fakes.”

“[The company] has become the first of Portland’s major arts groups pushed to the wall by the global recession. Unless [it] raises $750,000 by June 30 to cover expenses and pay creditors, it may have to close its doors.”

“Will Hollywood play a bigger role in California’s next round of fighting over same-sex marriages? That was the question for many in showbiz Tuesday after California’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on such nuptials, approved by a narrow majority of voters in November. … [T]he role of the entertainment industry — through activism, money or creative might — is likely to be greater than it was before last November’s election.”

“A Turkish author on trial after being charged with inciting religious hatred in a novel based on the birth of Islam said that his book [Daughters Of Allah] was a work of fiction … and therefore could not be called blasphemous. An Istanbul court on Tuesday adjourned the trial of the author, Nedim Gürsel, until June 25. He faces up to a year in jail if convicted.”

“Ruth Padel has ruled herself out of standing again for the Oxford professorship of poetry after she resigned the position last night. … Padel also took the opportunity to apologise to [Derek] Walcott ‘for anything I have done which can be misconstrued as being against him’.” She apologized to Oxford as well.

“The first woman to become the Oxford Professor of Poetry has resigned following questions over her role in an alleged smear campaign against a rival. But Ruth Padel said she had not engaged in smear tactics and had done ‘nothing intentional’ to lead fellow contender Derek Walcott to pull out of the vote.”

Austrian director Michael Haneke’s drama The White Ribbon has nabbed the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The black-and-white film captured the Palme d’Or. Haneke’s exquisitely shot movie delves into themes of guilt, punishment and trust among the denizens of a small German town just before the First World War starts.