“The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who created them–and he’s not talking.”
Tag: 04.20.09
Construction Resumes On Cal State Northridge PAC
“The state’s budget crisis had brought construction of the $125-million 1,700-seat [Valley] Performing Arts Center to a temporary halt in December, sparking concerns that completion might be delayed. But in March, workers were back on the job.”
Boston Public Library Joins The Deaccessioning Wave
“So far, the library’s collections committee has discussed parting with three items, according to minutes from meetings: a Crehore piano, a series of large-scale Audubon prints, and a collection of Tichnor glass printing plates that were once used to make postcards.”
Why You Won’t Be Seeing A Live Twitterfeed On NYTimes.com
Original blog post: “Telegraph.co.uk has taken the ‘brave’ decision to publish a live Twitterfall stream of #budget tags on its Budget 2009 homepage.” Update to post: “Twitterfall has now been removed from the Telegraph‘s Budget 2009 page, but not before an awful lot of tweets made it through.”
What Recession? London Book Fair Buzzing As Usual
“[A]lthough the global downturn has affected exhibitor attendance somewhat, the crowds milling around the entrance and pouring into the aisles seem as busy as ever, and the flood of new book deals struck just before and during the fair as overwhelming.”
The Producing Genius Of Donmar’s Michael Grandage
“How does Michael Grandage do it? Since he took over the artistic directorship of the Donmar Theatre in 2002, the 46-year-old has eclipsed the reputation even of his illustrious predecessor Sam Mendes,” deploying a string of seemingly unlikely hits around the world: “Piaf with Elena Roger in Argentina, Frost/Nixon, Mary Stuart and the musical Parade in the States, Guys and Dolls in Australia…. Such success only looks obvious in retrospect.”
Now In Dallas, Strick Still Owes MOCA On $500,000 Loan
Jeremy Strick, new director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, is still carrying a balance on a loan of more than $500,000 from his previous employer, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. “A written contract required him to repay any balance when his employment ended.” But when he left MOCA, those terms were changed, he said, so that “he owes the money when he sells a house that the loan helped him buy.”
Proposed Cuts Would Hit LA’s Libraries, Arts Agencies Hard
“L.A. County’s three biggest government-supported cultural institutions figure to reap $60 million in taxpayer funding for the coming 2009-10 fiscal year, their subsidies holding up well despite falling property values and other recession-spurred declines in tax receipts that are draining public coffers. Public libraries and municipal arts agencies didn’t fare as well” in recent proposals, which call for significant cuts.
The E-Book’s Impending Makeover Of Reading And Writing
“It will make it easier for us to buy books, but at the same time make it easier to stop reading them. It will expand the universe of books at our fingertips, and transform the solitary act of reading into something far more social. It will give writers and publishers the chance to sell more obscure books, but it may well end up undermining some of the core attributes that we have associated with book reading for more than 500 years.”
Coachella’s Temporary Architecture A Blueprint For Future?
“The curator of Coachella’s art programs, Philip Blaine, commissioned a number of pavilions this year that straddled the line between architecture and installation art. They also took advantage of the growing prominence of temporary structures in a world suddenly drained of capital. The short-term future of American cities, after all, involves lots of provisional and low-budget projects — and a whole lot fewer iconic towers.”