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

Photo Of Einstein Nets $74K At Auction

NY Man Buys Iconic Photo From NH Auctioneer. An iconic photograph of Albert Einstein was sold by a New Hampshire auction company Friday for $74,324, making it the most expensive Einstein photograph ever sold at auction, according to the auctioneers. The photograph was taken in 1951 while Einstein was celebrating his birthday at Princeton University. Photographer Arthur Sasse tried to convince Einstein to pose with a smile for the photo, but Einstein instead stuck out hi

A new exhibit on the African American experience in post-colonial Philadelphia offers a largely untold perspective on the city's rich history

A new exhibit on the African American experience in post-colonial Philadelphia offers a largely untold perspective on the city's rich history. Opening today at the African American Museum at Seventh and Arch Streets, the exhibit marks a drastic turning point in how U.S. history is typically told. "Audacious Freedom: African Americans In Philadelphia, 1776-1876" is the first permanent exhibit at the museum narrating an epic sweep stretching from slavery to the

In Athens, Museum Is an Olympian Feat (NYT)

On Monday morning, forklifts nosed through a sprawl of antiquities in the second-floor gallery of the New Acropolis Museum here, bearing marble statues and steles. Technicians tugged at bulky black cables, laborers drilled and welded, and a cleaning crew — many of its members working on hands and knees — scraped mounds of white plaster off the floor. “My apologies,” said Antonis Samaras, Greece’s culture minister, who was overseeing the final preparations for the museum’s debut on S

Six Questions for Austin Ratner about the photographer Philippe Halsman

[Scott Horton is a Contributing Editor of Harper's Magazine and writes No Comment for Harper's online (Courtesy, Harper's).] Austin Ratner has just made his debut as a novelist with a remarkable work based on the tragedy-filled life of Philippe Halsman, the iconic American photographer of the post-war years. The work documents a triumph of human spirit over tremendous adversity. I put six questions to Austin Ratner about his book. 1. Your novel focuses on Philippe Halsman, a New

Inside Hemingway's Havana House

This Havana house is more than a home, it's a time capsule. The clock stopped in the summer of 1960, when Ernest Hemingway walked out for the last time. It's amazing to look inside these rooms and imagine him here, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella. That's what it's all about - getting inside here and looking through the open door - his collection of books, his objects. For 20 years Hemingway lounged in these seats, drank from these bottles, wrote one of h

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania await word from Confederacy museum

Museum of the Confederacy executive director Waite Rawls has his hands full in Appomattox, where he wants to begin his system of museums. The negotiations in Appomattox have left Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County leaders a bit out of the loop. They said they haven't heard from Rawls in months. The private Richmond museum has the world's largest collection of Civil War artifacts and is looking to have a location here as well. Fredericksburg City Council

Saved from Lady Chatterley’s Lover (The 50th Anniversary of the Ban)

Here’s another anniversary that slipped by unnoticed: June 11 was the 50th for the decision by which Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield banned the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, from the United States mails. The book was declared to be pornographic, smutty, obscene, and filthy. (Obviously the order was drafted with the assistance of a lawyer, a species for which Roget’

Parthenon was once covered in colourful paint

The Parthenon temple in Athens was once painted with splashes of colour, according to a new study. New tests on the stone have found that the marble was once covered with shades of blue, while it also thought red, green and gold were used. By shining red light onto the marble, Dr Giovanni Verri identified an ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue, used until the year 800AD.

Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76, Heads to Court Again

The author J. D. Salinger, known as much for his cloistered ways as for his skillful pen, has sued repeatedly over the years to protect his privacy and the sanctity of his work. So when a book that describes itself on its copyright page as “An Unauthorized Fictional Examination of the Relationship Between J. D. Salinger and his Most Famous Character” was published in Britain and scheduled for release in the Untied States, a detour to court was a safe bet. “60 Years Late

UK: Coastal castles could be moved inland

Castles on the coast could be moved brick by brick and rebuilt inland as part of plans to save Britain's coastal heritage from climate change. As sea levels threaten a number of historic properties, the government is considering ways to protect them. Historic monuments that are threatened with destruction could be moved in exceptional circumstances to a "more sustainable location", according to a consultation paper released by the Department for the Environmen

"Mincemeat": a play which names the man who fooled the Nazis opens in London

Some war heroes have films made about them. Others languish in obscurity. Then there’s a third class of heroes who have films made about them even as they remain hidden from history. Which is where the homeless people’s theatre company Cardboard Citizens come in. “It seems a pity,” their director, Adrian Jackson, says, “that a man who helped us to win the Second World War hasn’t been acknowledged at all.” That man is now the hero of Mincemeat, which Jackson’s cast of professional an

Naked Mona Lisa goes on show

A naked portrayal of the Mona Lisa, which was once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, forms one of the highlights of the biggest exhibition ever held on the Renaissance genius. The mysterious portrait of a semi-nude woman, looking straight at the viewer with an enigmatic smile and with her hands crossed, bears a remarkable resemblance to Leonardo's world famous painting. Hidden for almost a century within the panelled walls of a library, the portrait appears to have been

Machu Picchu Is Mini Re-creation of a Mythic Landscape?

Peru's Machu Picchu was an Inca pilgrimage site and a scaled-down version of a mythic landscape, according to a controversial new study. The finding challenges the conventional view that Machu Picchu was a royal estate of the Inca ruler Pachacuti, who built it around A.D. 1460. "I believe that much of the sacred space of the Incas has still to be recognized as such," said study author Giulio Magli, an astrophysicist at the Polytechnic Institute in Milan, Italy

Titlenomics, or Creating Best Sellers

The release of “womenomics” (by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay) this month is just the latest example of publishers trying to knock off the title of “Freakonomics,” the best-selling 2005 book by Steven D. Levitt, an economist, and Stephen J. Dubner, a journalist. Although some critics initially complained about that book’s “annoying title,” “Freakonomics” was an instant success, generating, among other things, a column in The New York Times Magazine, a blog on the Times Web site (frea

Naked Mona Lisa goes on show in Italy

The mysterious portrait of a semi-nude woman, looking straight at the viewer with an enigmatic smile and with her hands crossed, bears a remarkable resemblance to Leonardo's world famous painting. Hidden for almost a century within the panelled walls of a library, the portrait appears to have been inspired by the Mona Lisa, which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris and was painted by the Italian master in the early 1500s. It will form one of the centrepieces of a new

"Forward to Freedom" celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement at the Museum of London

‘Forward to Freedom’ opened last Friday, June 12th, at the Museum of London to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). Showcasing posters, stickers, badges, leaflets, photographs and footage of anti-apartheid demonstrations, the display reveals the diversity of the campaigns across Britain against apartheid and minority white rule, which ranged from cultural, to sport, to consumer boycotts. The display is organised in partnership with the Anti-Apartheid Movement Archi

Robert Burns relics discovered in attic

A cache of Robert Burns family heirlooms has been unearthed in the attic of the Burns Cottage Museum in Alloway, Ayrshire. The National Trust for Scotland, which runs the museum, said the artefacts were sold to the museum in the 1930s by the bard's great-granddaughter. The 19th Century items were retrieved from two boxes during renovation work.

Greek fury at Elgin marbles 'loan deal'

Queen turns down invitation to opening of major new museum in Athens built to house Acropolis treasures. A bitter new row over ownership of the Elgin marbles has erupted, threatening to eclipse the inauguration this week of a major new museum in Athens designed to house the contested masterpieces. Just days before the opening of the €130m (£110m) New Acropolis Museum, officials in Athens and London were this weekend engaging in barbed exchanges over the classical treas

Egypt to 'prove' Germany stole Nefertiti bust

Egypt will soon provide evidence that the 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti was taken illegally out of the country by Germany, Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Sunday. The fabled bust of Nefertiti, renowned as one of history's great beauties, was brought to Berlin in 1913, a year after German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt unearthed it on the banks of the Nile. Cairo began demanding the statue in the 1930s, but successive German governments, beginning

Battle lines: 30 years of unseen 'Troubles' art in Northern Ireland

A drizzly evening on the Falls Road. From the side of the red-brick Sinn Féin office, the face of Bobby Sands – boyish and wavy-haired, like a 1980s soccer star – beams down at the traffic crashing through the puddles. It's a messianic portrait from April 1981, showing the newly elected Irish republican MP in idealised good health – a far cry from the cadaverous protester who would die three weeks later, after 66 days on hunger strike in the Maze. I turn off the main drag on the sho