Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ... Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits

Novelists ask: Did pope finance the Protestant invasion of England by King Billy?

On the streets of Rome the centuries stand still. Everything seems to have been here for ever, the tightly twisting cobbled lanes, the high tenements, the gorgeous piazzas, the baroque churches; yet nothing has ever been as it appears, and intrigue succeeds intrigue down the hidden passages of the centuries, the hand of power fleetingly discerned behind the arras of history. Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti are living out this uniquely Roman déjà vu. Historical novelists who happen

Chicago fans want everyone to remember the Home of the Cubs' glory days

Mike Reischl, Chicago 10th District cop and chief of the Way Out in Left Field Society, understands if you're a die-hard Cubs fan but can't recall the Spuds, Orphans, Rainmakers, Trojans or Panamas—all former nicknames for Chicago's National League team. But that you've never heard of West Side Grounds—where the Cubs and their variants played before Wrigley Field—gets him in a lather of near Lou Piniella proportions. "If you go to the University of Pittsburgh, they

1958: The War of the Intellectuals

Much has been made of 1968 — the student uprisings in Paris, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the full flowering of youth culture. But what of its more unassuming antecedent, 1958? Fifty years ago, Eisenhower was in the White House, the country was in a recession and the American intellectual scene was crackling with energy. The year saw the advent of everything from Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Dr. Seuss’ “Yertle the Turtle” to “Doctor Zhivag

Nobel laureate Tutu celebrates award, portrait

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Archbishop Desmond Tutu pulled aside a red curtain and quickly stepped back to study the painting behind it -- a portrait of the Nobel Peace Prize winner seated in a wooden chair, hand on his chin, deep in thought. Finally, he spoke. "I think she got the nose right," Tutu said with a laugh as the crowd of nearly 100 clapped and cheered. The South African human rights activist has been awarded the Lincoln Leadership Prize. Hi

Russian Curator Subpoenaed Over Censored Art

MOSCOW — A museum director who helped organize an exhibition of censored Soviet and post-Soviet art in defense of Russian artistic freedom now faces censure himself. Prosecutors have summoned the director, Yuri V. Samodurov, to a hearing on Tuesday during which he will be charged for his role in organizing “Forbidden Art — 2006,” a March 2007 exhibition at the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow, according to a subpoena delivered to Mr. Samodurov last week. The subpoena was the

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82

Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American artist who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century, died on Monday night at his home on Captiva Island, Fla. He was 82. The cause was heart failure, said Arne Glimcher, chairman of PaceWildenstein, the Manhattan gallery that represents Mr. Rauschenberg. Mr. Rauschenberg’s work gave new meaning to sculpture. “Canyon,” for instance, consisted of a stuffed bald eagle attached to a canvas. “Monogram” was a stu

Steven Spurrier art rescued from rats

Hundreds of images by illustrator and artist Steven Spurrier spent more than three decades in the crumbling Hertfordshire barn before being re-discovered by relatives. Most of the archive, which depicted London life from the 1920s to the 1950s, had been reduced to chewed scraps of paper by the rodents. But 50 pictures that survived went on display on Monday night for a 17-day solo exhibition at Panter and Hall, a Mayfair fine art gallery.

New Indiana Jones movie embraces legend of Mayan crystal skulls

There is a legend that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls which, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth — a tale so strange and fantastic that it inspired the latest Indiana Jones movie. Experts dismiss the hundreds of existing crystal skulls as fakes that were probably made by colorful antiquities traders in the 19th century. But Mayan priests worship the skulls, even today, and real-life skull hunters still search for them. The true story of the sku

Spielberg to do Lincoln biopic

Steven Spielberg's long-rumored Abraham Lincoln biopic will go into production in 2009. It may be the director's next project after "Tintin," which is expected to go into production in September. "I want to start 'Lincoln' in early 2009, because it's Lincoln's 200th anniversary," Spielberg told German magazine Focus while doing advance press for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." (Editor's note: German-to-English translation via Goog

Victorian erotica: the original cheeky girls

Ever wondered what our great grandparents got up to behind closed doors? A new collection of erotica leaves little doubt, says Guy Kennaway 'I bought my first erotic photograph in the mid-1980s,' Danny Moynihan tells me. 'I had come across some photos of Austrian origin of rather portly looking ladies in petticoats playing with sex toys. I thought they were rather amusing.' Moynihan is an artist and a curator. He has collaborated frequently with his friend Damien Hirst

Debut of NY play about Rose Mary Woods

When an actress is giving as commanding a performance as Kristin Griffith does in “Stretch (a Fantasia),” a new play about Rose Mary Woods, there is a danger that those who share the stage with her will disappear into her shadow. So credit Evan Thompson, Eric Clem and Brian Gerard Murray with making their own distinctive contributions to this inventive work by Susan Bernfield, staged by New Georges at the Living Theater. Mr. Thompson even pulls off the difficult feat of briefly stea

Unhappy With 'Confrontational' Image, U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked

A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thoma

The writer of HBO's 'John Adams' on when it is acceptable to rewrite history

For good or ill, most people today receive their historical knowledge from television rather than the written word, especially as today's news quickly becomes tomorrow's history. In writing the HBO miniseries John Adams, my intent was not to portray the "external facts" of the American Revolution (as Thomas Jefferson phrased it in one of his late-life letters to Adams). Rather, it was to depict an internal history, an epic of thoughts and ideas refracted through the singular prism of o

When America lived in fear of ... comic books?

World War II was over, but as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, a new evil lurked in the land. The cover of David Hajdu's "Ten-Cent Plague," shown here, was drawn by Charles Burns. It attracted a youthful audience -- boys, mostly -- who fell victim to its colorful images, dripping in red, and gave money to its purveyors. Authorities took notice. The United States had a new menace, they said, one whose name started with "c" and whose firs

Pashkov House, which got an $80 million renovation, is one of Moscow’s few restoration projects lauded by preservationists

The program of Bach and Mozart, featuring Pinchas Zukerman accompanied by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, was not the usual fare for a Moscow night spot. Then again, this was not the usual night spot. But when a wealthy Russian recently wanted to show off his purchase of a 1741 Guarneri del Gesù violin, he said the most fitting site was the newly renovated Dom Pashkova, or Pashkov House, a magnet for a growing class of socially and culturally ambitious Russians. “Dom Pas

Tripping on LSD ... what was THAT about?

[Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at Dickinson College in Carlisle] In the 1960s and early '70s, when I was a youth, LSD was supposed to be more than an abusable substance. It was nonconformity and peace and truth. It was yellow submarines and profound Jimi Hendrix guitar solos. A path to God or nirvana or oneness with nature, or at any rate the Beatles and the Grateful Dead. It opened "the gates of perception." Dropping acid was an act of revolution.

"Yasukuni," a 2-hour documentary, draws right-wing protests

A major Japanese newspaper publishes an article denouncing the prime minister. Reporters hold a rally to criticize his Cabinet. The government responds by banning sales of the edition of the newspaper that carried the article, indicting its author for violation of the Newspaper Law. Rightwing agitators attack the newspaper's publisher. This blatant example of demagogic right-wing agitation instigated by a government in power took place in Japan in the summer of 1918. Th

New truth revealed about famous WWII Reichstag photo

Waltzing Matilda 'not socialist'

An outback historian is claiming to have discovered the true story behind the famous Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda. It has long been thought the anthem was intended as a socialist anthem to back the Great Shearers' Strike of 1891. But a researcher believes poet "Banjo" Paterson penned it simply to impress a local woman, Christina Macpherson. Often called Australia's unofficial national anthem, it tells the story of an itinerant making a cu

The filmmakers behind "Chevolution" explain how Che Guevara's face ended up on all those T-shirts, posters, beer bottles and bikini bottoms

You know the picture all too well: the black beret flecked with a tiny white star; the grim, resolute set of the mouth under a patchy, perpetually hip mustache; the soft-looking flyaway locks of hair lifted as if by the breezes of change. And in those upward-cast eyes? Fury, disappointment, determination ... action. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary now dead more than 40 years, is everywhere. His iconographic image -- a photograph snapped at a m