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

Algis Valiunas: Norman Mailer: The Naked Novelist and the Dead Reputation

[Algis Valiunas, a frequent contributor to Commentary Magazine, has written this year for us about John Cheever, Edgar Allan Poe, and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.] As the second anniversary of his passing approaches, it is worth asking: How is Norman Mailer, without question the most famous American writer of the second half of the 20th century, to be remembered? It is a measure of Mailer’s effect on the culture, for better or for worse, that answering the question is a pressing and

National Gallery of Victoria Celebrates the 250th Anniversary of Wedgwood with Exhibition

From September 2009, the National Gallery of Victoria will celebrate the 250th anniversary of Wedgwood. Featuring over 70 works drawn from the NGV’s internationally acclaimed Wedgwood holdings, the display will pay tribute to one of the most famous designers of decorative arts, a leading figure in the rise of neo-classical taste in the 18th century. In 1759 Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) established his first pottery studio in Burslem, Staffordshire. During the eighteenth century the

Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to Unlock the Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC

They survived two fires, the onslaught of robbers, and the effects of four thousand years underground. Now, these masterworks from an Egyptian tomb of the Middle Kingdom (2040–1640 BC) will be on view in a special exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), from October 18, 2009, through May 16, 2010. The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC showcases funerary objects discovered in Deir el-Bersha, a necropolis in central Egypt, by the joint Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expeditio

Blackface, Reconsidered

I wrote a piece in yesterday's New York Times about Sophie Tucker, whose earliest recordings, some almost a century old, have been released for the first time in decades on a new CD. I describe Tucker's rise from the burlesque and variety stage circuit to vaudeville stardom and note her origins as a "coon shouter"—a performer of blackface songs. In Salon, Sady Doyle has written a response to my Times article titled "Can a feminist hero do blackface?" Doyle says

Mass Appeal: Leonard Bernstein's politics

Unguided Missal? Mass composer Leonard Bernstein in 1971.Last week on The New Yorker’s website, music critic Alex Ross wrote three articles based on newly released Freedom of Information Act-obtained government documents rega

'First to Fight' Book Launch

First to Fight was launched yesterday, September 1st 2009, 70 years after the German invasion of Poland. The new book is part of a project to promote the recognition of the role of the Polish armed forces in Britain’s war effort. Contributors to the book and supporters of the campaign include leading British statesmen and military leaders such as Baroness Thatcher, General The Lord Guthrie, former chief of the Defence Staff, HRH The Duke of Kent, Winston S. Churchill MP, grandson of the wartime

War poet Edmund Blunden's works go online

Rare manuscripts by war poet Edmund Blunden are being published online by Oxford University. The Edmund Blunden Collection, which is launched tomorrow, contains previously unseen material assembled from archives in the UK and the US, including his family's private collection. The collection, part of Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital Archive, contains extracts from the writer's Minute Book, a private scrapbook he put together after the war.

Film tribute to Citizen Kane director, Orson Welles

It is almost a quarter of a century since Orson Welles died in late 1985, but the small matter of dying hasn't really curbed his career. Since then, Welles manifestations have been as plentiful as ever. Fresh controversies emerged about his work; new versions of some of his movies have been released; he has been the subject of several biographies; and the quest to complete his film The Other Side Of The Wind has continued. The fascination with Welles as magician, raconteur, outrageo

See Streeton, Roberts, Rubens, Van Gogh and Indigenous in a New Light

The Art Gallery of New South Wales Grand Courts, home to Rubens, Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Hogarth, Delacroix, Leighton, Constable, Gainsborough and Australian artists, Roberts, Streeton, McCubbin, Lambert, Bunny, Phillips Fox, Gruner and Ashton, will re-open to the public in ‘grand’ style on the Gallery’s open weekend (September 12 & 13) with more than 50 free events. Some of the most significant and iconic paintings in the world hang permanently on the walls of the

Normandy 1944 - Then and Now

BERNIERES SUR MER Typical Norman house located along the beach at Juno Beach. (Photo : Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie / Archives Nationales du CANADA)

Titian: The Wheeler Dealer who Created the Goddess

Titian’s 'Venus of Urbino’ is among the world’s sexiest paintings. Who was the man behind the masterpiece? There she lies, sprawled on a bed that fills the breadth of the picture, her teenage flesh sheathed in a creamy, golden glow, wearing nothing but a ring, a bracelet and a faint smile which seems simply to be saying, “Here I am – what are you going to do about it?” This is Titian’s Venus of Urbino, one of the sexiest paintings ever created, one of the masterpieces o

Marvel's long history now part of Disney

NEW YORK — Iron Man, Captain America and Thor may be nearly invincible, but they can also be bought. In acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for about $4 billion, Walt Disney Co. inherits a bevy of comic book characters whose history is almost dramatic enough to deserve a prequel of its own. And what could be a better ending than Hulk moving in with Donald Duck? Marvel Comics, now a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment Inc., was founded in 1939, a year after Disney release

MI5 planned to intern top American director

Britain’s security services planned to intern the father of the actress Zoë Wanamaker in the event of a national emergency because of his communist links. MI5 and Special Branch, alerted by the US Embassy in London, kept a close eye on Sam Wanamaker, a successful actor and director, after he fled a crackdown on communism in the United States with his young family in 1951. The Wanamaker brief also shows that Special Branch kept a file on Michael Redgrave, the actor fat

Rare 900-Year-Old Sacred Bull Sculpture Added to National Art Collection (Australia)

The National Gallery of Australia today announced its latest acquisition The sacred bull Nandi, vehicle of Shiva, acquired with the generous assistance of Roslyn Packer AO. In the form of a humped Brahman bull, the Nandi is an important work of early Indian art from the 11th to12th centuries and is the only significant sculpture of the popular Hindu image in an Australian public collection. “We are very grateful to Roslyn Packer, who is a longstanding member of the Na

A Large, Magnificent Roman Building, c. 1,800 Years Old, was Exposed in the City of David

A spacious edifice from the Roman period (third century CE) – apparently a mansion that belonged to a wealthy individual – was recently exposed in the excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the 'Givati Car Park' at the City of David, in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park. The excavations are being conducted at the site on behalf of the IAA and in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority, and are underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation. Accordi

NASA's Most Awesomely Weird Mission Patches

Perhaps the best thing about NASA’s military provenance is that the agency picked up the armed services’ habit of making patches.We’ve long loved the Most Awesomely Bad Military P

She Loves You named as best selling Beatles track

It was only the band’s second number one, issued as Beatlemania was in its infancy, but newly compiled figures show She Loves You to be the biggest-selling Fab Four track released in the UK. The 1963 single topped a chart of the act’s greatest sales tallies pushing its follow-up, I Want To Hold Your Hand, into second spot. The Official Chart Company — which puts together the weekly Top 40 — has trawled its records to pull together an all-time bestseller list of the ba

New York City's Waterfront in Photographs on View at Museum of the City of New York

The dramatic transformation of the New York City waterfront from a hub of industry and commerce to a vestigial space reclaimed for recreation and public use will be documented in historic photographs by Berenice Abbott, Andreas Feininger, and David Robbins, and contemporary photographs by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, in an exhibition on view September 5 through November 29, 2009, at the Museum of the City of New York. The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs will spotlight, through 42 photogr

Lincoln's history revived at restored Ford's Theatre Museum

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded by an assassin's bullet more than 144 years ago. Yet standing in front of the long black double-breasted frockcoat he wore to Ford's Theatre that night in April 1865, its plain gray buttons almost within touching distance behind a thick sheet of glass, our 16th president looms larger than life. At 6 feet 4 inches, Lincoln was quite tall for his times. But it doesn't strike you just how far above his peers he towered until you'

Reopened facility adds life to Navy history

History is often a word that people associate with textbooks and professors speaking in monotones. But with the Naval Academy Museum's complete renovation and redesign, the history of the U.S. Navy has become something real and vibrant to academy visitors and midshipmen. The museum reopened two weeks ago after undergoing an $11.6 million head-to-toe makeover. "We completely gutted this building," said Scott Harmon, the museum director. The only things left sta