What are the great museums for? Talk to the directors of those museums and you get some very different ideas. The British museum, for example…
Tag: 11.27.03
Lloyd Webber To Buy Warner Chappell?
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is apparently going to try to buy Warner Chappell, the music publishing business of Time Warner. The company is valued at about $1 billion. “Andrew is seriously interested. He is confident he can get a consortium together.”
Court: Bolshoi Dancer Illegally Fired
Russian ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, who was fired in September for being “too big,” has won her case in court appealing the dismissal. “The court ruled that she was illegally dismissed and ordered the Bolshoi to pay the equivalent of $6,400 in damages. The Bolshoi’s lawyer said the Theatre would appeal the court’s decision.”
Record Album Sales (But Lower Revenues)
Better music in the past year helped sell 232 million albums last year, a record amount. But “heavy discounting by stores has seen the total value of music sales drop 4.6%, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Singles sales fell 31% in the 12 months up to September, the BPI said.”
Zephaniah: Why I Don’t Want Royal Honor
Poet Benjamin Zephaniah doesn’t want the Royal honor for which he has been put forward. “This OBE thing is supposed to be for my services to literature, but there are a whole lot of writers who are better than me, and they’re not involved in the things that I’m involved in. All they do is write; I spend most of my time doing other things. If they want to give me one of these empire things, why can’t they give me one for my work in animal rights? Why can’t they give me one for my struggle against racism? What about giving me one for all the letters I write to innocent people in prisons who have been framed? I may just consider accepting some kind of award for my services on behalf of the millions of people who have stood up against the war in Iraq. It’s such hard work – much harder than writing poems.”
Did Hirst Get Back His Best Work?
Evidently Saatchi’s sale to Hirst signals a truce between the two. “There was speculation last night that Hirst had reclaimed arguably his most powerful work, A Thousand Years, a rotting cow’s head on which flies hatch only to perish moments later on an electric trap, which had some delicate souls retching when it was first shown at the Royal Academy. The installation has been missing from the Saatchi gallery since September, as has One Little Piggy Went to Market, another example of Hirst’s taste for the grotesque.”
4th Century Italian Mosaic To Be Buried Under Parking Lot
Archaeologists in Rome are dismayed that an important mosaic from the 4th Centuery is to be covered up and buried underneath a parking lot. Along with the mosaic, Italian archaeologists found “traces of warehouses, workshops and offices, along with numerous coins, lamps and amphoras, the tall, two-handled jars that were used to transport oil, wine and garum, a salty, fish-based sauce popular in the ancient world.”