Toxic or Tonic? The Late David Koch’s Munificent Cultural Philanthropy  It remains to be seen whether his cultural benefactions will be augmented by bequests. I’m guessing that museums on the receiving end of such bequests, unless encumbered by unacceptable conditions, won’t abjure them as toxic. Nor should they. – Lee Rosenbaum
Propwatch: the photo album in ‘Appropriate’  In Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast has some advice about hoarding: Don’t hold onto anything you don’t want your kids to have to sort through once you’re gone. For the Lafayette family in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate, it’s an album stuffed with vintage photos of lynchings from the American south. – David Jays
Propwatch: the kettle in ‘The Doctor’  Is a home without a kettle even a home? It is at least the first step towards home. And in The Doctor – Robert Icke’s coruscating new play based on Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhadi – the kettle is pretty much the only step. – David Jays
A Contrary View of Brion Gysin’s Calligraphies  A painter I know had this to say about his work as an artist: “Pleasantly surprised by his watercolour. But the calligraphies … I see too much repetitive strain there.” Personally, I love Gysin’s calligraphies. I don’t see “repetitive strain” in them. Repetitive, yes. But I like the repetitions. – Jan Herman
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