Tag: 10.25.06

Breaking Up Iraq’s National Museum?

Leading archaeologists are worried that Baghdad’s National Museum collection might be broken up. “The initiative follows reports in Baghdad that the government is considering the possibility of “regionalising” the National Museum’s holding. In particular, there is some pressure to send antiquities excavated in the south to Basra or one of the main sites, such as Nasariyah.”

The Dismantling Of Arts Council England

“The mass exit from Arts Council England seems almost indecently hasty. Gone, in one lemming leap, are the heads of theatre, dance, literature and visual arts – four of the five art forms funded by the council – along with executive director Kim Evans, development director Pauline Tambling and the officials in charge of touring, combined arts and public affairs.”

Why Language Matters

“Language is more than a tool for expressing ourselves. It acts as a mirror to our world, reflecting back to us the way we live. It reflects our attitudes about the way we see things and how we are seen by others: in public life; in politics and commerce; in advertising and marketing; in broadcasting and journalism. Yet the prevailing wisdom about language seems to be that anything goes.”

Rent Composer Gets His Posthumous Due

The U.S. Library of Congress has inducted the personal archive of late Rent composer Jonathan Larson into its collection. (Larson, whose rock musical is one of the most successful new shows of the last two decades, died of an aneurysm shortly before the show’s Broadway premiere in 1996.) Larson is “the first of a younger cadre of Broadway songwriters to have his manuscripts, letters and other materials preserved at the library alongside those of Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein.”

New Tool In The Fight To Return Looted Art

A Vienna-based restitution organization has unveiled a massive database listing thousands of art objects which may have been looted from Austria by marauding Nazi soldiers during World War II. “The items are now in museums and collections owned by the Austrian government or the city of Vienna. The origin of most are still in question, and it remains to be determined if they were in fact looted… The fund is required by law to auction off items for which no owners or heirs are found and distribute the proceeds to Nazi victims. No deadline has yet been set for processing claims.”

Gould Theft Case Ends In Split Verdict

“A New York jury convicted a Texas college professor on Tuesday of criminal possession of items that were owned by the late classical pianist Glenn Gould and were stolen from Canada’s national library… Jurors, some of whom said the verdict was a compromise after 12 hours of deliberations over two days, acquitted Ms. Moore of stealing the items from the Canadian Library and Archives in Ottawa, as prosecutors said she had.”

Death Of Any President Bound To Cause Waves

Joanna Weiss says that the furor over the mockumentary, Death of a President, has little to do with partisan rancor or President Bush, who appears to be gunned down in the film. “Given the rise of ad hominem politics — the bald hatred of President Bush and other politicians that breezes across the Internet each day — Death of a President actually comes across as almost kind.” But that doesn’t change the innate unease that comes with imagining a sitting president assassinated.