Category: today’s top story

“The art market, in other words, is a proxy for the fate of the superrich themselves. Investors who believe that incomes and wealth will return to a more equitable state should ignore art and put their money into investments that grow alongside the overall economy, like telecoms and steel. For those who believe that the very, very rich will continue to grow at a pace that outstrips the rest of us, it seems like there’s no better investment than art.”

“The government has dropped plans to impose a cap on tax relief on philanthropic donations, which arts organisations had warned could lead to them missing out on tens of millions of pounds of private support.”

“The real estate debt contributed to a flood of red ink beginning around 2008, along with the recession, falling donations and ticket sales, and stock market losses.”

The first-time novelist “won the award for [her] gripping and touching love story between exiled princeling Patroclus and Achilles, strong, beautiful and the son of a goddess. Miller becomes the fourth consecutive US novelist to win the prize, now in its 17th and final year of being called the Orange prize, following the mobile services company’s decision to end its sponsorship earlier this month.”

“Michael Haneke’s latest movie, Amour, won the Austrian director his second top prize from Cannes in three years, following his triumph in 2009 with The White Ribbon. The film is the tenderest in a career defined by unflinching brutality, as well as arguably the least cinematic: a two-hander set in a Paris flat.”

New discoveries in German caves say early modern humans – that is, those around between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago – played the flutes and perhaps sang around their campfires at night.

“Apple argued that its foray into e-books has actually fueled demand for e-books by forcing Amazon and rivals, including Barnes & Noble Inc, to compete more aggressively, including by upgrading e-reader technology.”

“Thirteen months after entering Chapter 11, the Philadelphia Orchestra Association Wednesday night filed its plan for exiting bankruptcy. With consent – sometimes hard-won – now in place from key creditors, the orchestra’s blueprint for recovery will be considered by U.S. Bankruptcy Court.” If the plan is approved, “the orchestra expects to be out of bankruptcy by July 31.”

France’s The Intouchables has a worldwide gross of near $300 million (and it’s only just beginning its US release). “Viewers in numerous countries have eagerly devoured this feel-good fable about two men of different races and classes who forge an improbable friendship (dubbed by some wags ‘Driving Monsieur Daisy’). … At the same time, heated transatlantic debate has erupted over whether [the movie] traffics in offensive racial stereotypes.”

“The Met said an ‘outpouring of reaction’ from opera fans on the Internet caused it to change course a day after The New York Times reported that Met officials and the publishers of Opera News had decided to stop reviewing Met shows. ‘I think I made a mistake,’ said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager.”