The nonprofit National Comedy Center has opened in Jamestown, NY. Appalachian Jamestown is the birthplace of Lucille Ball, who left when she was 3 years old. Her family later moved to nearby Celoron, a lakeside village with a great amusement park, and young Lucy understandably preferred living there. Soon after her family went broke and moved back to Jamestown, 14-year-old Lucy left for New York City. Somehow Jamestown got the Comedy Center and Celoron got a really ugly statue of Lucy (later replaced).
More:
“The Serious Mission Behind a $50 Million Comedy Museum,” Michael Stahl, CityLab
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Top image (“National Comedy Center — artist’s conception”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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The nonprofit National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY has received a $500,000 grant from the New York State government. Appalachian Jamestown is the birthplace of Lucille Ball, who left when she was 3 years old. Her family later moved to nearby Celoron, a lakeside village with a great amusement park, and young Lucy understandably prefered living there. After her family went broke and moved back to Jamestown, 14-year-old Lucy soon left for New York City. Somehow Jamestown got the Comedy Center and Celoron got a really ugly statue of Lucy (later replaced).
It will cost $50 million to complete the Comedy Center. That’s a lot of whoopee cushions. State funding totals $14 million, the U.S. Department of Commerce kicked in $2 million, and the balance has come from private foundation sources. The center will open in 2018, but Jamestown held its annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival last week, and there seems to be a Lucy-Desi Museum there, too. If you want to pay your respects, Lucy’s remains were moved to Jamestown’s Lake View Cemetery.
More:
“Editorial: While some joke about a comedy center in Jamestown, the concept makes sense,” Buffalo News
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Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-qjB
Top image (“National Comedy Center — artist’s conception”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“’We believe that this project will help save at least $8,000 to $10,000 off the energy costs on this building alone, so it’s a very worthy effort and it’s going to save the college money in the long run,’ Brandon Robinson, communications director of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, which owns the museum, told WYMT.”
“’It is a little ironic,’ said Robinson, ‘But you know, coal and solar and all the different energy sources work hand-in-hand. And, of course, coal is still king around here.’”
— “Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Harlan County switches to solar power,” Travis M. Andrew, Washington Post
The Whitney Plantation near Wallace, Louisiana, was founded by German émigré Ambroise Heidel and his family in 1722, and his son Jean Jacques Haydel Sr. converted it to sugar cultivation in the early 1800s. The property passed through several hands before it was purchased by New Orleans attorney John Cummings, who spent 16 years and $8 million of his own money transforming it into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery in America.
“The Whitney Plantation is not a place designed to make people feel guilt, or to make people feel shame. It is a site of memory, a place that exists to further the necessary dialogue about race in America.”
— “Telling the Story of Slavery,” Kalim Armstrong, The New Yorker
More:
“Harsh world of slavery focus of Louisiana plantation museum,” Jonathan Kaminsky, Reuters
“’For some reason, cats took off, and then it’s this avalanche that just sort of keeps piling up,’ said Jason Eppink, the curator of ‘How Cats Took Over the Internet,‘ an exhibition that opens on Friday at the Museum of the Moving Image. ‘People on the web are more likely to post a cat than another animal, because it sort of perpetuates itself. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.’
The exhibition — which may well be the first mainstream museum installation entirely dedicated to cats online — is made up mostly of images, videos and GIFs of cats and is meant to be a cultural deconstruction of their enduring popularity. The show takes a high-minded look at anthropomorphism and what it calls the ‘aesthetics of cuteness‘ as well as a low-brow wallow through cheesy trends — like the LOLcats who demand cheezburger — and bad puns, like Caturday, a fad that had people posting cat pictures on Saturdays.”
” ‘How Cats Took Over the Internet’ at the Museum of the Moving Image,” Jennifer A. Kingson, New York Times
Electronic games now earn more money than recorded music or Hollywood films, about $21 Billion in 2013.
The Strong Museum collects and preserves video games and artifacts through its International Center for the History of Electronic Games. The collection includes more than 55,000 video games and artifacts, personal papers and corporate records that document the history of video games.
The Strong Museum in Rochester, home of the National Toy Hall of Fame, has announced the creation of the World Video Game Hall of Fame. “Electronic games have changed how people play, learn and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography,” said museum President G. Rollie Adams. Unsaid: Games now earn more money than recorded music or Hollywood films, about $21 Billion in 2013.
You can nominate significant arcade, console, computer, hand-held and mobile games here until March 31, 2015. An international panel will choose the annual inductees.
This year Magna Carta turns 800 years old, and the birthday party has come to Washington DC. One of the four surviving copies of the original 1215 edition of the charter of liberties is visiting here in the Nation’s Capitol. Lincoln Cathedral has lent its copy to the Library of Congress. The “Mother of All Constitutions” will be exhibited through there through January 19th.
Of course, if old documents are not your thing, head to the National Archives. They have a copy of that newfangled Magna Carta, the one from 1297.
Image (“King John Posts Magna Carta to His Facebook Wall”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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