An Italian quarry wants to lop 300 feet off the top of a mountain. But it’s been said Michelangelo quarried marble from the place and so a dispute has ensued. The historical record, including Michelangelo’s own abundant correspondence, shows clearly that he never took any marble from Monte Altissimo. He did open two quarries farther down the Serra gorge and nearly lost his life extracting enormous columns and blocks. But he never got to use any of them; the project for which they were intended, an overambitious façade for Florence’s San Lorenzo Church, was aborted and his hard-won marble scattered and purloined.
Tag: 08.03.05
Running With Lawsuits
“The family that raised bestselling author Augusten X. Burroughs is now suing him in advance of the movie version of Running With Scissors, Burroughs’s 2002 memoir of his years with the family. A lawsuit filed in Massachusetts claims that Burroughs ‘mercilessly and repeatedly’ defamed family members ‘so as to sensationalize his past to make the book marketable while knowingly causing harm and humiliation’ to the Turcotte family, with whom Burroughs lived after his disturbed mother turned guardianship of her boy over to her psychiatrist.”
Great Theatre vs. Middlebrow Tourism
Ontario’s popular summer theatre festivals are as vibrant as ever, and appear to have recovered nicely from an extended post-9/11 downturn. But what is the true mission of such festivals, exactly? Should Stratford and Shaw be focused on creating a nice vacation destination, or on presenting high art? At their best, the fests can serve both masters, but it’s a delicate balance.
School Shootings Coming To An XBox Near You
Protests are mounting against a new Columbine-inspired video game slated to be released by the makers of the infamous “Grand Theft Auto” series. The game, titled “Bully,” features a high school student tormented by his peers, who takes his revenge with extreme violence, killing fellow students and teachers. The company, Rockstar Games, describes the game as “humorous,” and downplays the violent aspects, but the game’s October release is likely to cause old debates about the effects of video game violence to rage anew.
The Camera Doesn’t Lie (It Just Spins A Bit)
A new exhibit at the London Portrait Gallery sheds a great deal of light on the shady world of celebrity image-making. “The show takes 10 of the most familiar faces from the photographic age, from Queen Victoria to Gandhi to Greta Garbo and Adolf Hitler, and shows how they manipulated their images in order to further their aims, whether political or artistic or megalomaniacal.” The show also points up the media’s complicity in such makeovers, noting that many celebrity photos meant to look candid were, in fact, entirely staged.
Novelists Take On Terror
Increasingly, some of the world’s more popular authors are embracing the reality of terrorism as a subject ripe with literary potential, and are advancing the way that the world thinks about the impact of specific attacks. “These writers are depicting how the air has changed in cities living with terror: the jittery feeling that comes and goes; characters who think they are adjusting, only to lose their grip on reason.”
Well, That’ll Teach ‘Em
“Movie studio Sony is to pay $1.5m to film fans who accused it of using a fake critic to praise its movies, according to the fans’ lawyer. In 2001, ads for films including Hollow Man and A Knight’s Tale quoted praise from a reviewer called David Manning, who was exposed as being invented. People who saw the films can now get a $5 refund from Sony’s pay-out.”
Language No Barrier To Harry
Translated versions of the new Harry Potter opus won’t be available for months yet, but French bookbuyers apparently see no need to wait. In fact, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince is currently the fifth-most popular purchase at Paris bookstores, despite being available exclusively in English. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is nuts for Harry, as well: illegal Chinese translations are already popping up for sale in Asia, and German readers have been posting their own translations online.
The Boom Box In The Orchestra Pit
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s decision to drop its live orchestra in favor of canned music for the upcoming season has been greeted with dismay from all sides. Musicians, dancers, and subscribers alike agree that the move will cheapen the company’s performances, and PBT officials can only say that they believe the move was an absolute last resort to keep the troupe within its $6.4 million budget. All sides are leaving the door open to the orchestra’s return, even for only a part of the 2005-06 season, if a late infusion of cash can be found.
Rattle’s Kids
Sir Simon Rattle has long had an obsession with bringing classical music to a wider audience, and his latest project is a daring effort to link two disparate sectors of German society. “Rattle’s brave determination to include some of Berlin’s most phlegmatic and recalcitrant teenagers into the orchestra’s working life, from the very start of his collaboration with the orchestra, has been captured in Rhythm Is It!, one of the most popular German documentary films for years… In a former bus depot on the edge of industrial wasteland in Berlin, the cooperation between the teenagers and an initially sceptical orchestra reaches its height in a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, attended by an audience of several thousand. “