“With individual giving and traditional corporate philanthropy drying up, museum leaders hatched an ambitious plan to create new sources of earned revenue, from boosting ticket income to lassoing corporate sponsorship.” The museum’s workshop “has generated millions of dollars building exhibits sponsored by companies such as U.S. Steel, Marathon Oil and the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis.”
Tag: 04.24.10
The Pitfalls Of Detroit Science Center’s ‘Market-Based Philanthropy’
“Some of the new money [earned by the museum’s exhibit-building workshop] is coming from [client] companies’ marketing budgets, an arrangement that implies a cozier relationship than traditional philanthropy. The danger is that the museum might subtly skew the science to satisfy a sponsor’s message.”
Gene Lees, 82, Jazz Writer, Biographer, Critic, Lyricist
He was “a jazz historian and critic known for his pugnacious, highly personal essays and biographies of such jazz greats as Oscar Peterson, Woody Herman and Johnny Mercer.” He was also a lyricist and composer and “had the distinction of collaborating with a pope: He translated poems written by Pope John Paul II when the latter was a Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla.”
Why Archie Comics’ New (Token) Gay Character Matters
“In superhero comics, [openly gay characters are] old news (and in art comics, [they’re] very, very old news). … The significant distinction here is that, unlike superhero comics, Archie comics are specifically aimed at kids…: They’re a fantasy about what high school will be like.”
Music Critic Alan Rich, 85
Jonathan Gold, posting on Twitter, calls Rich “a force at L.A. Weekly for decades; the last great critic in LA.” In addition to the Weekly, which fired Rich in 2008 after 16 years, he had written for the Herald Examiner, New West and California magazines, CityBeat, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, New York magazine, Newsweek, Daily Variety and, most recently, for Bloomberg.
The End Of Movie Stars?
“There have been anxious mutterings in Hollywood for months, but the case has never been made definitively – until now. Looking ahead to the big films of the next few months, it doesn’t seem such an outlandish idea.”
Iran Jails Prominent Film Director
“Jafar Panahi is not just one of Iran’s many political prisoners, estimated to be in the hundreds. He is one of Iran’s most internationally distinguished film directors. His films, including Offside, Crimson Gold and The White Balloon, have won acclaim in the West, including top prizes at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals, while sometimes being suppressed at home.”
Shakespeare In Love (And Oh, The Sex!)
“This complex awareness of sex and emotion is what makes Shakespeare so perennially riveting: Wells studies his increasingly subtle and multifarious treatment of it through the plays, from the exuberance and freshness of Love’s Labours Lost, through the ecstasies and agonies of Antony and Cleopatra…”
Big Budget Cuts For LA Arts Funding
“Spending for the Department of Cultural Affairs and related maintenance, utility and employee benefits included in separate budget categories would drop from $14.5 million to $10.9 million. Staffing would fall from 70 authorized positions to 41, Cultural Affairs officials said Wednesday, including 10 from encouraged early retirements.”