Restorers are working on 62,000 heavily damaged rare books from a fire at the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar in September. “About 10 percent of the library’s collection of a million books has been irreparably damaged, library officials say. But the 600-piece Bible collection, including Martin Luther’s 1534 copy, and the huge Faust and Shakespeare collections have been saved or only slightly damaged. And between 25,000 and 30,000 other rare books are presumed lost, listed like missing persons in a databank on the library’s Web site.”
Tag: 11.20.04
Indianapolis Museum Director Resigns
Anthony Hirschel has resigned as director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, just shy of the opening of the museum’s $74 million renovation. Hirschel, who said he was leaving for personal reasons, had led the museum since 2001.
FCC Rejects Pay-Only-For-What-You-Use Plan For Cable TV
“Federal regulators rejected on Friday the idea that allowing cable TV subscribers to pay only for channels they want would lower high cable bills. Consumer groups said the analysis was flawed.”
How Britain Embraced The Modernists
“The past year or two has seen a total and astonishing reversal in the reputation of modernist architects. These days, who but the most blinkered retired actor would refer to Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre as Treblinka? The once mocked and scorned Colin St John Wilson has become a national treasure, knighted by the Queen, whose scion once reviled Wilson’s British Library building as resembling an academy for secret police. How come this change of heart?”
Experts To US Senate: Internet Porn Is Worse Than Crack
Witnesses before a US Senate committee testified that internet pornography is the “most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today. The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors. To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it — it’s a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind.”
National Symphony Signs New Contract
Washington DC’s National Symphony has a new four-year contract with its musicians. “The base weekly pay will remain at $1,844 for the first six months of the new agreement (retroactive to September), rising to $2,077 by the last year. (This is a minimum, with many musicians making considerably more; the orchestra’s concertmaster, Nurit Bar-Josef, earns more than $300,000 a year.) NSO musicians agreed to assume greater responsibility for health insurance costs.”
Attention Thieves: Art Is Where The Money Is
If you’re a thief, maybe banks aren’t the place you want to hit these days. Art is where the money is. “The worldwide market in stolen art and collectibles is worth an estimated $4 billion, according to Scotland Yard.”
Jonathan Miller Says Opera Career Over
“Sir Jonathan Miller, Britain’s best-known opera director, has said his career in opera is effectively over. Now 70, he told the Guardian that opera houses had turned their back on him and he was “bitter and angry” about it.”