May 27, 2010

Literary Pick (**)

Kafka on the Shore -Haruki Murakami




















May 20, 2010

Cultural News



















 



5 masterpieces stolen in $123M Paris museum heist
PARIS — A broken alarm system made it as easy as 1-2-3: A masked intruder clipped a padlock, smashed a window and stole a Picasso, a Matisse and three other masterpieces from a Paris museum Thursday - a $123 million haul that is one of the world's biggest art heists.


Offloading the artwork may prove a tougher task, however, with Interpol and collectors worldwide now on high alert.


In what seemed like an art thief's fantasy, the alarm system had been broken since March in parts of the Paris Museum of Modern Art, according to the city's mayor, Bertrand Delanoe.


The museum, in a tony neighborhood across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower, reopened in 2006 after spending $18 million (euro15 million) and two years upgrading its security system. Spare parts had been ordered to fix the alarm but had not yet arrived, the mayor said in a statement.


So with no alarm to worry about, a lone masked intruder entered the museum about 3:50 a.m., said Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at Paris City Hall. The thief cut a padlock on a gate, then broke a side window and climbed inside - his movements caught on one of the museum's functioning cameras, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.


The intruder later slipped back out, carrying the canvases and leaving behind empty frames. The whole thing took 15 minutes, a police official said.


Three security guards were on duty overnight, but "they saw nothing," Girard said. A night watchman discovered the theft around 7 a.m.


The stolen works included Pablo Picasso's "Le pigeon aux petits-pois" (The Pigeon with the Peas), an ochre-toned Cubist oil painting worth an estimated $28 million (euro23 million), and "La Pastorale" (Pastoral), a pastel-hued oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Henri Matisse worth about $17.5 million (euro15 million), Girard said.


Also seized were "La femme a l'eventail" (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani, "L'olivier pres de l'Estaque" (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Georges Braque and "Nature morte aux chandeliers" (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Fernand Leger.


Estimates of the total value of the paintings varied: The prosecutor's office initially put their worth as high as $613 million (euro500 million) but later downgraded the figure to about $111 million (euro90 million). Girard said the total value was about $123 million (euro100 million).
5 masterpieces stolen in $123M Paris museum heist


The broken alarm system also renewed concerns about museum security in the French capital. There was no operating surveillance system when a thief made off with a red sketchbook of 33 Picasso drawings from the nearby Picasso Museum while it was undergoing renovations last summer.


Within hours of Thursday's heist, red-and-white tape surrounded the Museum of Modern Art and signs on the Art Deco building's ornate bronze doors said it was closed for "technical reasons."


On a cordoned-off balcony, police wearing blue gloves and face masks examined the museum's broken window and the discarded frames. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from the disassembled frames, not sliced out.


Investigators were trying to determine whether the intruder was operating alone, Girard told reporters. Stephane Thefo, a specialist at Interpol who handles international art theft investigations, expressed doubt that one person could have pulled it off the heist, even if only one person was caught on camera.


Many high-profile art thefts have ended in failure, with the artworks recovered as thieves struggle to trade their illegal bounty for cash. But some famous stolen works remain at large - such as those seized more than two decades ago from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.


Alice Farren-Bradley of the Art Loss Registry in London said the Paris theft appeared to be one of the biggest art heists ever, considering the prominence of the artists, the value of the paintings and the high profile of the museum.


However, she said it will be "virtually impossible" to sell such prominent paintings on the open market and typically stolen art fetches lower prices on the black market.


"Very often they can be used as collateral to broker other deals" involving drugs or weapons, she said. "They are not necessarily going to be bought by some great lover of the arts."


Art expert Jean-Marie Baron said the heist could have been organized by thieves who plan to sell the paintings to wealthy individuals in Russia, China or elsewhere, and "who won't verify the origins of the paintings." Another possibility was that the thieves planned to "ransom" the paintings in exchange for a big insurance payout, he said.


The FBI estimates the market for stolen art at $6 billion. The Art Loss Register has tallied up to 170,000 pieces of stolen, missing and looted art and valuables.


Picasso is the world's most stolen artist due to his prolific output and the value of his works. The Art Loss Register lists some 550 missing Picasso pieces, including paintings, lithographs, drawings and ceramics, as of 2007.


Hours after Thursday's heist, the director of the neighboring Palais de Tokyo modern art museum called the thieves "imbeciles."


"Those paintings are absolutely unsellable. First off because these are very well known paintings. And also because we are in a new civilization ... of instant global communication," Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr told AP Television News. "The entire planet has pictures of these paintings."


The loss is "like the death of a family member," lamented Flemming Friborg, manager of Copenhagen's Glyptotek museum, known for its Impressionist collection.


-The San Diego Union Tribune

Literary Quote

"Lolita, luz de mi vida, fuego de mis entrañas. Pecado mío, alma mía. Lo-li-ta: la punta de la lengua emprende un viaje de tres pasos paladar abajo hasta apoyarse, en el tercero, en el borde de los dientes. Lo. Li. Ta.
Era Lo, sencillamente Lo, por la mañana, cuando estaba derecha, con su metro cuarenta y ocho de estatura, sobre un pie enfundado en un calcetín. Era Lola cuando llevaba puestos los pantalones. Era Dolly en la escuela. Era Dolores cuando firmaba. Pero en mis brazos fue siempre Lolita.
¿Tuvo Lolita una precursora? Naturalmente que sí. En realidad, Lolita no hubiera podido existir para mí si un verano no hubiese amado a otra niña iniciática. En un principado junto al mar. ¿Cuándo? Aquel verano faltaban para que naciera Lolita casi tantos como los que yo tenía entonces. Pueden contar en que la prosa de los asesinos sea siempre elegante, vaya que lo sé.
Señoras y señores del jurado, la prueba número uno es lo que los serafines, los mal informados e ingenuos ángeles de majestuosas alas, envidiaron. Contemplen esta maraña de espinas."
Lolita— Vladimir Nabokov

May 16, 2010

Literary Pick (*)

A Brave New World
-Aldous Huxley



















May 14, 2010

Quote of the Day

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
— Ambrose Bierce

May 13, 2010

Literary Pick (*****)

Lolita
-Vladimir Nabokov

















May 9, 2010

Art of the Day

"Death Seizing a Woman."
Kathe Kollwitz, 1934.

Quote of the Day

"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."
— John Lennon

May 8, 2010

Literary Pick (***)

The Death of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories
(Leo Tolstoy)



















May 6, 2010

Literary Pick (*****)

The Odyssey  
-Homer


















May 4, 2010

Literary Quote

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)