In response to the financial crisis, the head of the Kennedy Center and the arts’ Mr, Fixit writes, “We need an emergency grant for arts organizations in America, and we need legislation that allows unusual access to endowments. Washington must encourage foundations to increase their spending rates during this crisis, and we need immediate tax breaks for corporate giving.”
Tag: 12.29.08
It Is, It Is A Glorious Thing To Be A Pirate King
“To Hollywood executives, he’s public enemy number one. To film fans around the world, he’s a modern-day Robin Hood. As the internet’s most prolific pirate makes his 1,000th illegal film download available to the masses, Tim Walker investigates the mysterious figure known only as aXXo.”
Robert Graham, 70, Civic Sculptor
“The sculptor Robert Graham, whose massive bronze works are seen on civic monuments across the United States, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington and the Duke Ellington Memorial in New York,” has died in Los Angeles at age 70. (He is survived by his wife, actress Anjelica Huston.)
Actress Stuck In Traffic Calls Cops
“Former glamour girl Linda Lusardi dialled 999 [Britain’s 911] when heavy traffic threatened to make her late for a pantomime performance of Snow White, police said today.”
L.A. School District Suspends Arts Partnership Program
In the face of a spending freeze brought on by California’s budget crisis, the Los Angeles Unified School District has stopped all work offered by the Arts Community Partnership Network, the widely admired organization of performing arts professional that provides programs for the city’s public schools.
Last Winter’s Writers’ Strike Still Rippling Through Industry
“During the heart of last winter’s writers’ strike, the broadcast networks tried to play down the impact of the four-month walkout, insisting that the medium would suffer few long-term effects. Just the opposite has been true. With 2008 drawing to an end, broadcast is still suffering from strike hangover, and it may not get any better in 2009.”
Welsh Lit Fest May Try To Save Brecon Jazz Fest
“Wales’ top literary festival is looking at whether it can help rescue the Brecon Jazz festival. The Hay Festival, held every summer just 18 miles away, already has ties with the music event and its director Peter Florence says it wants to help. Brecon Jazz announced earlier this month it had ceased trading after suffering a ‘substantial loss’.”
In Used-Book Sales, Online Agility Is Make-Or-Break Skill
“The Wonder Book story offers the standard plot elements of successful entrepreneurial sagas: hard work, risk-taking, technical innovation, good luck. But … the story of how Chuck Roberts came to fill up those 54,000 square feet of warehouse space is also the story of how swiftly the once-sleepy business of selling used books has been remade over the past decade. To Roberts, ‘the Web book business is literally the Wild West.'”
Madoff Investor Foundations Donated $73 Million In ’07
“U.S. foundations that invested with Bernard Madoff donated more than $73 million to nonprofit organizations in 2007, according to a tally based on foundation tax returns.”
Sir Michael Levey, National Gallery Director, Dies At 81
“Sir Michael Levey, who died on Sunday aged 81, was a distinguished art historian who rose through the ranks of the National Gallery to become its director.”