The regional government of Calabria (the toe of the boot) has passed a law allowing a prisoner to have his sentence reduced by three days for each book he reads, up to 16 books per year.
Tag: 05.08.14
Japan’s Coming Mascot Bloodbath
“[The country’s] eclectic, and often bizarre, mascots – known as yuru-kyara (laidback characters) – are put to work promoting everything from local cuisine and sightseeing spots to tax offices, the police and military, and even prisons.” Osaka prefecture is home to 45 of them, and the authorities want to cull the least productive ones.
Admit It: We’re All Feeling Superhero Movie Fatigue
“The movies continue to dominate the global box office. They work, to varying degrees; they make money. So why have I heard from so many movie lovers who don’t know how much more they can take?”
Connoisseurs Versus The Art Restorers
While protesting since the early 1990s against the cult of “scientific” conservation and its disparagement of “subjective” aesthetic judgements, we have throughout commended a return to proper and rigorous applications of connoisseurship.
Harry Potter Is Headed For The West End
“The production won’t be a condensed run through the epic saga of the books, but rather a focus on Harry’s early years and the story of his parents, who are killed by Lord Voldemort when Harry is 15 months old.”
The Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society
It’s exactly what it sounds like, and it meets in Central Park (where such things are legal).
The Heroic Rebellion Portrayed In ‘Battleship Potemkin’? Never Happened
“[Eisenstein’s film], including its massacre scene on Odessa’s famous outdoor steps, … was in large measure a fabrication.” (What actually happened in Odessa in 1905 was rather less glorious.)
Can Getty Keep Its Prized Roman Bronze? Italy Still Hasn’t Decided
“Italy’s highest court has once more delayed a ruling on whether it will affirm a lower court’s decision ordering the Getty Museum to return one of its most prized antiquities, the so-called Getty Bronze, to Italy after 36 years as one of the foremost works on display at the Getty Villa in Malibu.”
Acropolis Gets Its Caryatids Cleaned – With Lasers
Inside a makeshift fabric booth at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, as tourists pass by and look in, conservators use laser tools that look something like blow-dryers to remove the crusty grime that built up over decades on the graceful female statues that formed porch columns at the ancient temple. (slide show)
Chuck Berry, Peter Sellars Win 2014 Polar Music Prize
“They’ve probably never shared a stage together, and they are a strange match even by the odd-pairings standards of entertainment awards. Peter Sellars, the innovative Los Angeles-based director of opera and theater, and rock pioneer Chuck Berry were named the dual recipients of the annual Polar Music Prize, one of the highest honors in the field of music.”