Each Thursday, I round up the biggest arts news of the week, recommend some longer reads and have a look over the horizon. Here are the main stories:
• The great, beloved Maurice Sendak died. The famously grumpy author gave wonderfully crotchety interview to Emma Brockes last year.
• One of those "ouch" reviews; a contender for hatchet-job of the year. Tom Holland's Shadow of the Sword was savaged by Glen Bowersock, who stopped just short of accusing the author of trying to whip up Islamophobia for gain. Tom Holland responded.
• One of Ed Vaizey's most important projects as culture minister has been to attempt to reform music education. The latest step on the journey has been this week's appointment of organisations to run "music hubs" for their locale or region. Tom Service wrote about why it's important. Meanwhile, one of the Arts Council England staff most involved in hubs, director of music Susanna Eastburn, was appointed chief executive of the troubled Sound and Music, the organisation charged with supporting composers and sound artists early in their careers. She moves there in September.
• Light relief was provided by Jaggergate: critic Mark Shenton and Bianca Jagger's spat at the opera. Leo Benedictus laid down some rules of engagement for theatre audiences. Off means off, my friends...
• Two silly things: Rem Koolhaas on the Simpsons, and a clip of David Shrigley being really rude about Anish Kapoor.
Long reads
• A disturbing piece about Ai Weiwei's imprisonment and interrogation in the Economist. I read it much the same time as I saw Collaborators at the National Theatre – John Hodge's tale of how to be an artist under a totalitarian regime is, alas, depressingly relevant.
• Cristina Ruiz covers a lot of ground visiting the new private museums of the international super-rich (£).
Coming up
On Friday the ArcelorMittal tower is ascended by journalists ahead of visitor tickets going on sale; on Monday details of the 2012 Big Dance are announced; also on Monday the government announces its response to Lord Smith's film policy review and the BFI indicates its future direction. Wednesday: the Cannes film festival begins.
