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

Tearful Yoko Ono defends John Lennon murder clothes exhibit

A tearful Yoko Ono has defended the inclusion of a paper bag containing the bloody clothes of murdered husband - singer John Lennon in a new exhibition. Ono received the items from the medical examiner in December 1980, when the 40-year-old former Beatle was gunned down in New York City. "It was hard to include," Ono said. "And I thought it might be criticised as well." But ultimately, Ono said she thought it was important to let people

Liverpool Museums will give Aboriginal remains back to Australia

A HUMAN skull will be the first of three sets of remains returned to the Australian nation by National Museums Liverpool this year. It will be handed over to representatives of the Ngarrindjeri indigenous people in a traditional ceremony held at World Museum Liverpool tomorrow. The event, which follows a private commemoration, involves rituals including a smoking ceremony using smouldering eucalyptus leaves in a bowl. Dates for returning the remains of two

AHR Forum: “Simon Schama’s A History of Britain”

Interestingly, the AHR Forum on “Simon Schama’s A History of Britain,” like the Roundtable, “Historians and Biography,” also deals with a genre of historical representation about which historians are somewhat ambivalent. Though it also appeared as a three-volume publication, Schama’s A History of Britain is most widely known as a BBC production in 15 episodes. We asked three historians to consider this popular program, as well as the book. Miri Rubin looks at it from the perspective of a medieva

Jon Stewart to Make History Special

Jon Stewart, who knows a thing or two about irony, will create a two-hour special on a perfect target—the U.S. naturalization process—for History Channel, to air in the fourth quarter. Stewart's show, The Naturalized, is among the highlights of History's most substantial programming investment ever. The network's robust slate of specials and series, to be announced May 14 at History's upfront presentation, ranges from a sweeping 12-part series about the creation of America, to a cri

Iran: Preservation Techniques for “Salt Men” to Be Upgraded

Iran plans to improve preservation efforts for its ancient salt men. The first step has been taken by making cases for four of them being kept at Zanjan’s Zolfaqari Museum in a critical condition. Six salt men, known as Iranian mummies, were discovered over the past 12 years at the Chehrabad Salt Mine around a place, which is surmised to be a collapsed tunnel built by the Achaemenids and was also in use during the Sassanid era. The salt mine is located in t

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio help pay nursing home fees for last Titanic survivor

Hollywood actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio have given cash to help pay the nursing home fees of the last survivor of the Titanic. Oscar winner Winslet, 33, and DiCaprio, 34, who made their international names in the 1997 film about the sinking of the liner were approached by a charity to help 97-year-old Millvina Dean. The film's director James Cameron has also made a donation. Miss Dean from the New Forest, Hampshire, was just nine weeks old when

Obit. of the author of Empire of the Sun

They own him and disown him. “My brother was in his class at school,” one might tell you. “Why did he tell those lies about us in that book” another will ask. The ageing Shanghai British, solipsistic to the last, and acutely sensitive still about their history, were thrilled to have spawned a novelist (as they were a ballet dancer, Margot Fonteyn), but they were mostly bewildered by his work in general, and angry in particular at his book about them, 1994’s Empire of the Sun. But that book is no

Greek government unveils new home for Elgin Marbles

The 270,000 sq ft museum is being established as a home for the 160-metre long strip of marble that adorned the Parthenon until 1801. The museum, which stands just 400 metres from the Parthenon, opens in June – three decades after the building was first proposed. Antonis Samaras, the minister for culture and tthletics said: "The opening of the Acropolis Museum is a major world event. June 20th will be a day of celebration for all civilised people, not for Greeks alone. I want t

Controversy over cleaning of ancient art in Utah

An archaeologist claims someone has been secretly cleaning a Utah tourist attraction. If so, the mysterious high-pressure washes may be damaging world-famous rock art in Nine Mile Canyon. A tourist-friendly development was just completed near the rock art. Fence-rails were put up, a pedestrian walkway was created, and the gravel road was moved further away from ancient Indian art called The Great Hunt Panel. It was a collaborative effort by government, industry and archeology lovers to preserve

NYT Critic: Post-9/11 Realities Warp a Soaring Memorial Design

When Santiago Calatrava unveiled his design for a luminous glass-and-steel transportation hub for ground zero in January 2004, government officials touted it as a 21st-century version of Grand Central Terminal — one of the few bright spots in a development plan crippled by politics, petty self-interests and the weight of the site’s history. We should have known better. During the next several years the project’s cost spiraled to $3.2 billion from $2 billion. The scheduled completion

Sculpture commemorates Cold War's Checkpoint Alpha

During the Cold War, Checkpoint Alpha was one of four US observation posts along the highly militarized East-West German border. Today, instead of being home to a US regiment, Point Alpha is a memorial monument. Its visitors’ center hosts a museum and foundation that commemorates the decades of that border’s existence, from 1952 to 1990. Its mandate: to keep the memory of divided Germany alive. This week, Point Alpha celebrated the opening of a sculpture installation that

The Eiffel Tower wasn't always a beloved icon

[Ms. Jonnes is the author of "Eiffel's Tower" just out from Viking Press.] On May 15, the Eiffel Tower, the world's most celebrated monument and the iconic symbol of Paris, celebrates its 120th anniversary. Strikingly, the fame and allure of this improbable wrought-iron masterpiece have only grown with the passing decades. The tower, built by railway-bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel, has become a ubiquitous global image connoting modernity and glamour, while visitors who exp

Frank Rich: The American Press on Suicide Watch

... The causes of journalism’s downfall — some self-inflicted, some beyond anyone’s control (a worldwide economic meltdown) — are well known. To time-travel back to the dawn of the technological strand of the disaster, search YouTube for “1981 primitive Internet report on KRON.” What you’ll find is a 28-year-old local television news piece from San Francisco about a “far-fetched,” pre-Web experiment by the city’s two papers, The Chronicle and The Examiner, to distribute their wares to readers wi

The Two Sides of ‘Star Trek’

... When it was created by Gene Roddenberry in 1966, “Star Trek” was meant to expand the notions of what a unified world could achieve — a mission that was deeply complicated by the turmoil of the era. And the newest incarnation of “Star Trek” arrives at a moment when the country again finds itself teetering between limitless potential and peril, yearning to boldly go in all directions but potentially stuck in neutral. The original “Star Trek” imagined the futuristic fulfillment of

Hitler 'self-portrait' might be fake

When a "self-portrait" of Adolf Hitler was sold amid much fanfare last month for 10 times its reserve price, the auctioneer's historical documents expert boasted about the amount of interest that it had received. The same "expert" has, however, now admitted that the painting, signed "A. Hitler 1910", might be a fake after Mandrake pointed out to him that it was, in fact, likely to be a painting of Clapper Bridge on Dartmoor. "It's impossible to kn

Biocides inducing resistance in Lascaux cave’s microbes

Biocides used in recent years to treat the growth of a black fungus on the cave-art-festooned walls of France’s Lascaux cave have eradicated some populations of human-introduced bacteria and fungi. However, those that remain — including some related to known human pathogens — are becoming biocide-resistant, researchers report in an upcoming issue of Naturwissenschaften. The new findings come from analyses of around a dozen samples taken from several areas in the cave between April 2

A documentary tracks a 21st-century Thor Heyerdahl's disastrous voyage across the North Atlantic.

When German adventurer Dominque Görlitz set out from New York harbor in July of 2007 to prove that a voyage in a traditional Bolivian reed boat from New Jersey to the Azores is possible, he attracted quite a bit of sceptical, if not downright snarky press. Now a new documentary airing on the National Geographic channel Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT, shows that the Cassandras who warned that the expedition was an awful big risk for negligible scientific returns were, without giving too muc

Chinese massacre film stirs debate

Although it took place more than 70 years ago, it is still remembered with anger in China, and continues to taint the country's relationship with Japan. Chinese director Lu Chuan hopes his new film about the incident, called City of Life and Death, will help heal some of those wounds. But the making of the film, and the subsequent public reaction, has revealed just how difficult it will be for the movie to achieve that goal. While it was being filmed, th

Sorry: North Carolinian returns Roman artifact 25 years later

A North Carolina woman who returned a chunk of ancient Rome to Italian authorities 25 years after her husband pocketed it said Thursday she never felt comfortable keeping the terra cotta fragment, but her eldest son's death prompted her to set things right. "Whenever I looked at it, I'd feel bad about it," said Janice Johnsen, 52, of Greensboro. "Then, a little over a year ago, our oldest son was killed suddenly. Since then, we've been struggling with some hard things

Lincoln Center: Mixed Reviews

ON May 14, 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground at Columbus Avenue and 64th Street for what would become Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, he joked that maybe the whole project was unnecessary. In a makeshift tent Leonard Bernstein had just conducted the New York Philharmonic in Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and other works. “If they can do this under a tent,” the president said, “why the square?” Turning serious, he forecast that this ambitious ende