How The Vatican Defaced Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Frescos

“Michelangelo was too eminent for his art to be damaged in such a crude way during his lifetime. But as soon as he died in 1564, one of his pupils was ordered to daub draperies over the Last Judgment’s array of genitals and buttocks. Many of these prissy curbings of Michelangelo are still there. When the painting was restored between 1980 and 1994 it was a chance to remove the additions and reveal the full glory of the resurrected flesh.”

New Arts Center In Suburban New Orleans: ‘Major Headache’

“The Jefferson Performing Arts Center [in Metairie], whether it’s called a ‘black hole’ or a ‘white elephant,’ is clearly the most colorful public conundrum in Jefferson Parish. The Parish Council spent close to an hour Wednesday voicing frustration over a building that is 79 percent over budget and almost four years behind schedule.”

Top Latin American Literature Prize Caught In Battle Over (Tangentially Related) Plagiarism

The Guadalajara Book Fair’s $150,000 FIL Prize for Literature in Romance Languages went to Peruvian author and journalist Alfredo Bryce Echenique. While the award was for his fiction, his “journalistic career has been tainted by allegations of plagiarism, prompting numerous calls for the writer to renounce the award” and an angry debate “that has divided writers and critics across Latin America.”