Twitter is about to get real #spooky. 
 
 R.L. Stine, often endearingly referred to as the Stephen King of children's literature, announced that he will be writing a new scary story on Tuesday — entirely on Twitter. 
 
 See also: 36 Elaborate Halloween Costumes to Make Everyone Jealous 
 
 For Halloween, I'll be writing a story live on Twitter this evening. Hope you'll join me. — R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 28, 2014 
 
 Stine didn't reveal any further details, like timing or topic. Cliffhanger. 
 
 The author began writing scary stories for children in the late ‘90s with the Fear Street series. In 1992, he started Goosebumps, and at age 71 still continues to publish stories under that label. His next book, A Nightmare on Clown Street, is set for release this February. 
 
 But his age and propensity for physical books doesn't set Stine back in the social media world. He boasts more than 133,000 followers on Twitter. 
 
 This isn't the first time that R.L. has released a scary story on Twitter. Two Halloweens ago Stine used 13 tweets to tell the short story of a farmer being haunted by a ghost named Yost. A few months before that he tweeted a spooky tale about a family dealing with a haunted kitchen over a series of 9 tweets. 
 
 If you can't tune in tonight, you can check back with Stine on Thursday, when he takes over Scholastic’s Twitter feed for a Halloween-themed Q&A. (Scholastic publishes the Goosebumps series.) ||||| Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email 
 
 A creepy clown, whose strange appearances have spooked a town and intrigued the world, is today unmasked by the Sunday People. 
 
 We have succeeded in tracking down the man who has become a global ­sensation after dressing like horror writer Stephen King’s character Pennywise from the movie It. 
 
 His odd antics have appeared on TV news as far afield as the US, Australia, India, Canada and Japan, since he first turned up in Northampton on Friday, September 13th. 
 
 Journalists from across Europe have tried to identify him and a US couple holidaying in the UK even went to the town hoping to meet him. 
 
 Like King’s homicidal creation, the clown has been spotted standing, motionless, clutching balloons; waving or staring at disconcerted passers-by. 
 
 The only thing he says is: “Beep beep”, Pennywise’s catchphrase. 
 
 Photos of the sinister figure at the National Lift Tower, posing on Elm Street, next to a town statue and in a lake have been posted on Facebook and attracted more than 180,000 likes from all over the world. 
 
 He often teases fans about where he will turn up next by posting clues hidden in riddles on his Facebook page. 
 
 He told a local paper anonymously: “I just want to amuse people. Most people enjoy being a bit freaked out, then they laugh about it afterwards.” 
 
 Some followers are entertained but those with coulrophobia – an abnormal fear of clowns – do not see the funny side and have begged him to stop. 
 
 Today we can exclusively reveal the clown is Northampton University ­student and budding film maker Alex Powell, 22. 
 
 (Image: Matt Sprake Photography) 
 
 Following a tip off, we snapped him and Elliot Simpson, also a wannabe movie maker, and Luke Ubanski, who runs the Spot Northampton’s Clown Facebook page, walking into a town flat in their normal clothes. 
 
 Later Powell emerged dressed in the clown suit, while flanked by the pair, who checked the coast was clear before taking photos of him in a deserted car park just yards away. 
 
 Previously Powell, who was linked to a YouTube clip of a short film featuring an almost identically dressed clown, had denied he was the character. 
 
 He wrote on his own Facebook page: “There’s been lots of rumours that I’m the Northampton Clown but I am NOT! But thanks for all the interest as it’s shot my views right up.” 
 
 And he added falsely: “And I don’t live in Northampton any more.” 
 
 Yesterday the sleepy-looking joker opened the door in his pyjamas and, at first, insisted: “I am not the clown”. 
 
 But when we showed him our photos he changed his tune. 
 
 He confessed: “OK, I am the clown but I’ve been trying to keep it as ­mysterious as possible. To be discreet so people didn’t find out. 
 
 “Your pictures are from the day I went to meet a little girl who only has six months to live. 
 
 “Her mum messaged me saying she really wants to meet you before she dies. I took a picture with her and gave her a clown teddy and stuff. 
 
 “On Facebook I’ve had over a thousand death threats. It was just a bit of fun at first and a lot of people seem to enjoy it but it gets a bit hard sometimes with the death threats.” 
 
 Powell, who grew up in Paignton, Torbay, claimed a man threatened to knife him at Sixfields, Northampton Town FC’s ground. 
 
 He said: “I swear he had a knife and told me he would stab me if there were not so many people around.” 
 
 Powell said the police were initially interested in his activities but were now protective and looked out for him. 
 
 He said the death threats would not put him off dressing as the clown but added: “I had a call last night from someone who knew my name and asked if I was the clown and said if they saw me they would run me over.” 
 
 A string of fake online profiles have emerged claiming to be the clown and a vigilante rival, called The Clown Catcher, has even launched a campaign to try to track him down. 
 
 Encouraged by his fame, Powell has started handing out branded Northampton Clown T-shirts and bags. 
 
 Fans have demanded that he donate all the proceeds from his merchandise to charity and he has insisted he would not keep any of the profits. 
 
 “I’m not doing this for money,” he posted on Facebook. “None of it will come to me. 
 
 “I know this will have upset a few of you. If I get anything out of this it is going towards travel and charity! See you all soon! Beep Beep!” ||||| POSTED July 13, 2016 
 
 On June 27, when writer Dennis Cooper tried to access his blog—hosted by Blogger since 2002—he discovered that Google had deleted his fourteen-year project along with his Gmail account. Since then, readers have been greeted with a message simply stating, “Sorry, the blog at denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.” 
 
 Cooper is not certain whether Google merely disabled the blog or completely erased it. The latter would mean he has lost years of artistic output that included writings, research, and photographs, as well as a platform through which he engaged almost daily with a community of followers and fellow artists. The blog also featured Cooper’s storytelling through GIFs, which inspired his recent GIF novel, Zac’s Haunted House (Kiddiepunk, 2015), reviewed by Paige K. Bradley for bookforum.com, and the 2016 short-story collection Zac’s Control Panel. He told Lauren Cavalli of artforum.com that his latest GIF novel, which is supposed to be published this fall, was stored on the blog. “Of all the things about this that concern and worry me, losing that novel is my greatest fear,” he said. 
 
 Cooper tried reaching out to the technology giant via phone and numerous emails, but has only received a generic statement about a “violation of the terms of service agreement”; he has not been offered any precise explanation. “There seems to be some major stonewalling coming from somewhere, but I don’t know where or why,” he wrote in a Facebook post. 
 
 After consulting a French lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law and who has volunteered to help, Cooper said Google has launched internal investigations, but they have led nowhere. “It seems that the only option I have left is to sue Google,” Cooper said. “This will not be easy for me for the obvious reasons, but I’m not going to just give up ten years of my and others’ work without doing everything possible.” Cooper, who grew up in California, spent his early twenties and thirties writing poetry and short stories. He founded the literary journal Little Caesar Magazine in 1976 and Little Caesar Press in 1978. Cooper published Safe, his first book of fiction, in 1984 and also began to work on the George Miles Cycle—a series of five novels—that same year. The first in the cycle, Closer, 1989, earned him critical praise, a cult following, and a reputation as a bold and lawless writer. A contributing editor to Artforum, he also has a prominent reputation as a critic, having written numerous reviews and essays for the magazine over the years, including early takes on Vincent Fecteau (1995), Frances Stark (1997), and Ryan Trecartin (2006). Known for his graphic treatment of sex in his works, some critics consider his stories pornography, and writer David Ehrenstein, commenting on Cooper’s Facebook page, suggested that someone might have complained about Cooper’s escort series, for which the writer gathers preexisting profiles/ads from online sites where male escorts offer their services and edits them “to emphasize their accidental literary qualities and their emotional/psychological power.” (The blog features a standard warning requesting that users confirm they are eighteen or older.) Yet Cooper had posted risqué work on his blog for years, and the posts would not explain the deletion of his email address. For Tobias Carroll, Cooper’s blog was more than a “go-to-spot” for readers who appreciated experimental literature; it was a place where writers whose works are overlooked by mainstream publishers are shared and promoted. Cooper said he considers the blog “a serious work of mine.” He added, its purpose is to introduce people to various artists “whose work I think deserves attention and also to support and encourage young artists [and] writers. […] That kind of supporting of other artists and sharing interests is fundamental to who I am.” LESS 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 On June 20, South African photographer Guy Tillim was named the winner of the 2017 HCB Award, presented by the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, for his “Museum of the Revolution” project, which documents residual signs of revolution and colonialism across cities in Africa. He will receive $40,000 in support of his proposal, and will use the funds to photograph the streets of Dakar, Accra, Kampala, and Lagos. 
 
 “The history of colonialism is especially apparent in the streets and the avenues, which were often arranged at the whims of colonial power and then renamed after the countries gained independence,” Tillim said. “This paradigm—that of post-colonial societies imitating certain aspects of colonial regimes—is not unique in Africa: it is the law of history. However, the hopes and aspirations of recent generations who do not have a colonial past provide opportunities for societies to overcome the mistakes of the past.” 
 
 Born in Johannesburg in 1962, Tillim started working in photography in 1986 and was a member of the Afrapix collective until 1990. During apartheid, in the late 1980s, Tillim served as a freelance photographer for local and foreign press. Tillim’s works have been presented at the Photographic Center of Ile-de-France, Paris; the Huis Marseille Museum of Photography, Amsterdam; the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation; the Museu Serralves, Porto; FOAM_Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. 
 
 In a review of Tillim’s 2009 exhibition at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum on artforum.com, Leora Maltz-Leca writes: “Scraping away at the stereotypes of the postcolonial African city, Tillim mines the cryptic silence of peeling time to pose questions about the assumptions we make about blown-out windows, empty offices, and fallen monuments: Whether these abandoned structures gesture to the dissolution of the African city or a local rejection of the colonial past and its architecture; whether they reveal the failed utopianism of Lumumba’s generation or a cyclic repetition of the violent histories he sought to overcome, all remains uncomfortably ambiguous.” The HCB Award jury comprised Clément Chéroux, the director of the department of photography at SF MoMA; Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès; Lorenza Bravetta, an adviser to Italy’s Culture Minister Dario Franceschini; Florian Ebner, the director of the office of photography at the Center Pompidou; Nathalie Giraudeau, the director of Ile de France Photography Center in Paris; Thyago Nogueira, the director of the department of contemporary photography at Instituto Moreira Salles and publisher of ZUM magazine in São Paulo; and Agnès Sire, director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. LESS 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 Mapping Paintings, a new open-source website spearheaded by Boston University professor Jodi Cranston, tracks artworks and allows users to map out provenance information, Claire Voon of Hyperallergic reports. The initiative aims to make researching histories of individual works, including details of owners and past transactions, easier for art historians. 
 
 The website was inspired by one of Cranston’s past projects, Mapping Titian. “Provenance information is in printed catalogues and on some museum websites, but visualizing the movement of these artworks allows users to recognize their objecthood and also not to get bogged down in concerns about authenticity and pedigree that often come with provenance information,” Cranston said.” Sometimes seeing that an artwork went somewhere unexpected is more impactful than reading it in a long list of text.” 
 
 Users will be able to make individual entries on the website as well as publish their own projects. These submissions will be reviewed for accuracy purposes and then added to the site by an administrator. The Kress Collection, comprising more than three thousand works of European art amassed by Samuel H. Kress between 1929 and 1961, will be added to the platform this fall. 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 London’s mayor Sadiq Khan announced on Friday that the city is organizing a new cultural contest designed to bolster support for the arts and promote creativity across its thirty-two boroughs. The competition will name one of London’s communities its first-ever Borough of Culture. The winner will receive a $1.3 million grant. In addition, $780,000 will be dispersed among other notable projects. 
 
 During a press conference held on June 30, Khan remarked that the competition reflects the commitments outlined in his manifesto. “Not all Londoners are able to enjoy the full benefits of our cultural riches, and as mayor I am determined to change this,” Khan said. “It’s about helping to bring culture to all Londoners of every faith, ethnicity, and background, regardless of where you live and what you earn.” 
 
 Applicants will have five months to prepare their bids. Since the cultural sector in London rakes in $55 million each year, the incentives for entering the competition include boosting tourism to all the boroughs and growing their local economies. 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 Heidi Weber, a friend and collaborator of the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, a pioneer of modernism and proponent of the international school of architecture, is suing Zurich’s culture minister for defamation after he allegedly made derogatory remarks about her while on a radio show, Henri Neuendorf of Artnet reports. 
 
 The legal dispute was sparked by the city’s decision to rename the museum Le Corbusier designed on Zurich’s lakefront in 1964. Originally christened, the Center Le Corbusier Heidi Weber Museum, the building was not completed until 1967, after his death. 
 
 After spearheading the project, Weber managed the institution for fifty years and then turned the building over to the city, which was one of the conditions that she had to agree to in order to get permission from Zurich’s city council to build the exhibition space. Two years after Weber handed the reigns over to the city, it rebranded the museum the Pavilion Le Corbusier. 
 
 Another stipulation of the city and Weber’s original agreement was that she had to sell the museum for only $1.5 million even though the artistic value of the building might be as high as $73 million. Her son, Bernard Weber, called the city’s decision to remove her name disrespectful. “My mother did hard work to bring Le Corbusier to Zurich in the first place,” he told |uerich/str|Limmattaler Zeitung|. “She was an impoverished single mother and she kept the museum going by herself for over fifty years.” The perceived slight prompted Weber to end the loan of her entire collection of Le Corbusier works and objects to the city in 2016. The dispute escalated when the culture minister said that ”over the course of her life, [Weber] has fallen out with very many people,” while speaking with a radio show host. After Weber’s responsibilities at the museum came to an end, she secured an agreement to replicate the building. Weber intends to build more Heidi Weber/Le Corbusier centers in China and Chile. LESS 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 Xavier Douroux, the founder of Les Presses du Réel and the Consortium in Dijon, died on June 28 at the age of sixty-one years old, Judicaël Lavrador of Libération reports. 
 
 Born in Dôle, in the Jura region of France, in 1956, Douroux studied art history at the University of Burgundy before becoming an associate lecturer of contemporary art at the institution. In 1977, Douroux and Franck Gautherot founded Le Coin de Miroir association, in Dijon, which in 1982 became Le Consortium, the first institution dedicated to contemporary art to be established outside of Paris. The arts space consists of an exhibition space, a publishing house, and a design studio. It also oversees the activities of a Paris-based film studio, Anna Sanders Film. 
 
 Since 1991, the arts space has been a mediator of the Fondation de France Nouveaux Commanditaires, which helps individuals and organizations commission works of art. In 2011, Le Consortium reopened after undergoing a redesign led by Shigeru Ban, that same year Douroux announced that Le Consortium planned to give its holdings of 350 works to the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Dijon. “We would like this collection, which came mostly from the artists’ generosity, to be publicly owned,” Douroux said. “For us a donation is the ultimate revolutionary gesture.” 
 
 Douroux has curated a number of major exhibitions including “This is Yesterday” at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Seville (1999); the French pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennale; and “It Happened Tomorrow,” at the 2003 Lyon Biennale. LESS 
 
 June 30, 2017 
 
 The Philadelphia contemporary art space and artist collective Vox Populi has temporarily closed after a fire broke out in the stairwell of its building Tuesday morning, John Timpane of philly.com reports. 
 
 While no one was injured by the small blaze, which started around 1:45 AM, the building has significant smoke and water damage. Karen Guss, a spokeswoman for the Department of Licenses and Inspections said that the building will remain closed until the damages and any code violations can be addressed. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation. 
 
 Located at 319 N. Eleventh Street, the building housed a number of artists, galleries, and other businesses. Several of the displaced tenants said they could not wait for a month or longer to for the building to reopen. Jeff Stockbridge, the owner of Stockbridge Fine Art Print on the fourth floor, said that he was concerned about not being able to deliver works to his clients. “We really rely on our creative spaces that we’ve cultivated here over many years,” he said. “Now we’re wondering where to go from here.” 
 
 Vox Populi was founded in 1988 by Ann Karlen, who served as director of the space from 1997 to 2000; Mark Forsythe; Jennie Shanker; Julie Marquart; Jennie Desnouee; Michael Frechette; and Beth Rhoades. According to the gallery’s website, the group of Philadelphia-based artists met for drinks at a bar called Dirty Franks where they discussed the non-existent artistic opportunities in the city and proposed to remedy this through self-organization. During the first meeting organized by the artists, Vox Populi was formed, and thirty members joined the new collective. The gallery aims to support the work of experimental and under-represented artists with a monthly exhibition program, gallery talks, performances, and other events. LESS 
 
 June 29, 2017 
 
 After four years of construction, Canada’s new modern and contemporary art museum, the Remai Modern, is set to open its doors on October 21. Named after the local philanthropist and its head patron, Ellen Remai, the nearly one-hundred-and-twenty-four-thousand-square-foot building is located along the river in the growing city of Saskatoon, a growing city in the Canadian Prairies, a western region of Canada comprising the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. 
 
 Designed by Canadian architect Bruce Kuwabara, the museum will boast of flexible galleries, spaces for public gatherings, and a 150-seat theater. Construction costs have amounted to $71 million, but the final cost of the institution has yet to be determined. The museum will house eight-thousand works that were inherited from the Mendel Art Gallery, which was established in 1964 by a collector who fled Nazi Germany. The extensive collection includes 406 of Pablo Picasso’s linocuts as well as works by other leading modern artists including Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Dennis Oppenheim, and Nancy Spero. 
 
 The museum aims to be a leading center for contemporary indigenous art and discourse. “The art museum’s biggest challenge now is how to adapt to the massive changes resulting from the continuing aftershocks of colonization, climate change, globalization, and technological advances. The relevancy of the art museum depends on its response,” the executive director and CEO, Gregory Burke, said in a statement. 
 
 Its inaugural exhibition, “Field Guide,” will present select works from the museum’s collection alongside contemporary pieces by Canadian and international artists. Curated by Burke and the director of programs and chief curator, Sandra Guimarães, the exhibition will feature an on-site project by Thomas Hirschhorn and a collaboration between the Ontario-based indigenous artists Tanya Lukin-Linklater and Duane Linklater. According to Hannah McGivern of the Art Newspaper, Burke and Guimarães curated this exhibition in hopes of it being seen as “a primer to introduce the program’s direction.” LESS 
 
 June 29, 2017 
 
 The Terra Foundation for American Art announced today that it awarded $2.5 million in support of thirty-three grants for projects that are a part of Art Design Chicago, a year-long initiative that examines the contributions of Chicago's artists, designers, and creative producers to art and design movements. 
 
 Grant monies will go toward the creation of a diverse range of exhibitions, publications, projects, and academic and public programs. Individual grants ranged from approximately $5,000 to $200,000, depending on the format, scope, and scale of the project. The recipients include Chicago Design Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago Parks Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, South Side Community Art Center, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Video Game Art Gallery, the University of Chicago Center in Paris, and New York’s MoMA. 
 
 In total, the Terra Foundation is investing $6.5 million in bringing the initiative to fruition. This includes grants given to cultural partners as well as funds for promotional and administrative support. Organizations interested in developing public programming for Art Design Chicago currently have another opportunity to apply for funding through an application on the Terra Foundation’s website. The submission process will close in fall 2017, and the final round of Art Design Chicago grants will be announced in early 2018. 
 
 “With our fortieth anniversary approaching, we celebrate and reaffirm our commitment to our hometown in a way that recognizes its numerous and significant contributions to the creation and experience of art and design around the world,” said Elizabeth Glassman, president and CEO of the Terra Foundation. “We are honored and excited by the scholarly quality, depth, and innovative spirit of our partners’ proposals, and the enthusiasm with which so many organizations took on the opportunity to highlight the dynamic, yet lesser-known, narratives of Chicago.” Art Design Chicago will take place across more than twenty-five venues throughout 2018. The full list of 2017 grant recipients is as follows: Art Institute of Chicago 
 
 Bradley University Art Department 
 
 Caxton Club of Chicago 
 
 Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events 
 
 Chicago Design Museum 
 
 Chicago History Museum 
 
 Chicago Parks Foundation 
 
 Chicago Public Library Foundation 
 
 DePaul Art Museum at DePaul University 
 
 DuSable Museum of African American History 
 
 Elmhurst College 
 
 Graham School, University of Chicago 
 
 Illinois Executive Mansion Association 
 
 Illinois Humanities 
 
 Jane Addams Hull-House Museum 
 
 Koehnline Museum of Art at Oakton Community College 
 
 Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University 
 
 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 
 
 Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago 
 
 Museum of Modern Art, New York 
 
 National Museum of Mexican Art 
 
 National Public Housing Museum 
 
 Newberry Library 
 
 Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning & Leadership 
 
 Smart Museum of Art at University of Chicago 
 
 South Side Community Art Center 
 
 Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College 
 
 Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art 
 
 University of Chicago Arts, Public Art Program 
 
 University of Chicago Center in Paris 
 
 Video Game Art Gallery LESS 
 
 June 29, 2017 
 
 The recently released Association of Art Museum Directors’s (AAMD) 2017 salary survey reveals that employment in the museum field is strengthening. Based on responses from 219 museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as fifty different staff positions ranging from leadership and support positions in curatorial, education, advancement, communications, and security departments, the report states that the average median salary increased by 3 percent in 2016. The preceding year, the rate grew by 2.7 percent. 
 
 Highlights of the survey include a 4.6 percent increase rate in average median incomes within curatorial staffs between 2011 and 2016, a 1.6 percent growth rate in median salaries among museum directors between 2015 and 2016, and a 5.5 percent compound annual growth rate increase for chief operating manager salaries. 
 
 “The trends highlight an industry recognition of the increasing complexity of running a museum and making the arts available to the public, and the team you need to make it all happen,” said Rafi Musher, founder and CEO of Stax Inc., the company that partnered with AAMD to conduct the research.
– Fans of Goosebumps author RL Stine—and the Bustle thinks this includes "every teen, twentysomething, and thirtysomething"—will want to tune in to his Twitter feed. Stine today promised this: "For Halloween, I'll be writing a story live on Twitter this evening. Hope you'll join me." He offered no other details, including what time the story-tweeting begins. For those unfamiliar with Stine, Mashable explains that the prolific 71-year-old is referred to as the "Stephen King of children's literature."