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

Source: Kingston Whig-Standard
Apr 16, 2009

A history video game?

A grant from one of the largest foundations in the United States is allowing a group from Queen's University to complete a video game focusing on Canadian history. The $150,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation will mean that the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's will be able to finish the last two chapters of the educational game, which focus on building Canada through Sir John A. Macdonald. Modelled after the popular game Civilization, the Queen's think-tank pl

Source: AP
Apr 16, 2009

Capone's last hit ... a song?

He never sang to the feds, but it turns out Al Capone had a song in his heart. All it took was a stint in Alcatraz to bring it out. Now, more than 70 years later, the tender love song that the ruthless crime boss penned while sitting in the pen is being recorded and released on CD. And an inscribed copy of the music and lyrics to "Madonna Mia" is up for sale at $65,000. "It's a beautiful song, a tearjerker," said Rich Larsen of Caponefanclub.com, wh

Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 16, 2009

Young Queen pictured in major retrospective of Sir Cecil Beaton's photographs

Beaton captured a myriad of actors, pop stars and leading members of the Royal family over half a century until his death in 1980, becoming a major influence on younger photographers such as David Bailey. Among the images is a touching portrait of the Queen, when she was HRH Princess Elizabeth, taken in 1942 on the occasion of her becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards. Another is a delicate picture of Julie Andrews, the actress, her girlish features refle

Source: Robert McHenry at the Britannica Blog
Apr 16, 2009

A Stamp of Disapproval (Stamp Collecting’s Fate in the Internet Age)

One of the innocent victims of our Brave New Electronic Age has been, I suspect, the hobby of stamp collecting. I’d give odds that there are a great many young people who are only dimly aware of the existence of the institution known as the Post Office. Who needs the Post Office when there is email and texting and tweeting and heaven only knows what else, for I don’t? Far less, then, are they likely to notice those little gummy rectangles pasted on the outside of what is snarkily called “snail m

Source: Times (UK)
Apr 16, 2009

Soviet Bunker - the strangest tourist trap in Europe (Lithuania)

As a German shepherd barks and lunges towards them, two dozen audience members scurry down a dimly lit hallway. An army officer, in a camouflage green wool overcoat and cap, menacingly directs them into a room that reeks of mildew and stale cigarettes. Once inside they are forced to face a wall — with their hands behind their backs — covered with a huge red and white Cyrillic banner that reads, “You should be careful and watchful.” At first there is a smattering of tense giggles an

Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 16, 2009

Viggo Mortensen in role as professor corrupted by the Nazis in 'Good'

Viggo Mortensen's starring role in his new film Good is being hailed by its distributors as an extraordinary change of pace – a fact that makes him sigh resignedly. One can see why. In Good, adapted from the acclaimed 1981 stage play by C P Taylor, Mortensen plays John Halder, a mild-mannered German literature professor in the Thirties who writes a novel that advocates compassionate euthanasia. The book is seized on eagerly by senior figures in the Third Reich, who use it for propa

Source: NYT
Apr 15, 2009

W.P.A. Projects Left Their Stamp on the NY Region

WHEN the world’s finest male golfers find themselves struggling to break par at this year’s United States Open at Bethpage State Park in June, chances are they won’t blame their plight on stimulus spending. But perhaps they should. After all, the rolling hills of the Bethpage Black golf course in Nassau County are a legacy of government efforts to create jobs and public works projects during the Great Depression. And when young professionals in search of housing tour a lovely Art De

Source: BBC
Apr 15, 2009

Cruise to mark Titanic centenary

A travel company is to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a cruise following the route, it has announced. The Titanic, built in the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff, sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. The Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, whose parent company now owns H&W, will recreate the voyage. The 97th anniversary of the sinking was marked with a ceremony

Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 15, 2009

Newly-discovered painting of John Dryden, the first Poet Laureate

The oil is believed to have been painted when Dryden was appointed in 1668, to celebrate the creation of the post. Dryden, aged then in his mid-30s and at the peak of his career, appears with a slight smile, wearing a wig and surrounded by a decorative oval surround and wreath. Short quotations on the surround by six Roman poets, Virgil, Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Ovid and Statius, refer to the tradition of wreathing poets with laurels, ivy, oak or olive, and the main in

Source: LAT
Apr 15, 2009

Memories fading on Vegas icon Liberace

A town that lives in the present has little use for its past. We blow up the buildings, rename the theaters and replace the marquees. Of course, at any given time, Las Vegas had performers who in different ways came to symbolize the Las Vegas of a certain period, Old Vegas is best captured by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and, of course, Liberace. Of those three, only Liberace has failed to leave an extensive legacy that attracts new generations of fans. In the future, this will cert

Source: AFP
Apr 14, 2009

One man's bid to keep China's ancient music alive

An obsessive passion to revive a nearly forgotten music enjoyed by China's elite more than a thousand years ago has cost Li Kai his wife, his job and most of his savings. But the energetic, ever-smiling 57-year-old insists he has no regrets. "When I play the music, I'm happy -- I don't feel tired, I don't feel hungry, and I'm not bored," he said as he introduced the ensemble he set up almost a decade ago. "I've been doing this for years, and

Source: NYT
Apr 14, 2009

Architects Chosen for Black History Museum

A dream almost a century old moved another step closer to reality on Tuesday as the Smithsonian Institution chose a team led by David Adjaye, the celebrated Tanzanian-born architect, to design the National Museum of African American History and Culture, scheduled to open on the National Mall in Washington in 2015. The winners of the design competition — which also include the Freelon Group, Davis Brody Bond and SmithGroup — were chosen over five others, including well-known architec

Source: National Security Archive
Apr 14, 2009

"Torturing Democracy" Wins RFK Journalism Award

Washington, DC - Today, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that "Torturing Democracy" has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for domestic television and is a finalist for the grand prize. Produced and written by eight-time Emmy winner and National Security Archive fellow Sherry Jones, the RFK Center called the documentary film on the Bush administration's interrogation and detention policies "the definitive broadcast account of a deeply troub

Source: TheDailyBeast.com
Apr 14, 2009

HBO orders 2008 election film

This is sooner than expected: HBO has optioned the upcoming book by Time Editor-at-Large Mark Halperin, and New York writer Jacob Heilemann about the 2008 election. The network has hired Blood Diamond writer Charles Leavitt to adapt Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. "It's funny to call Obama and Hillary characters, but that's how I have to look at them," Leavitt said. "To me, the primary was one of the greatest title fights

Source: Times (UK)
Apr 14, 2009

Textile Conservation experts face the sack in a material world (UK)

Bagpuss, Freddie Mercury’s fake leather trousers and Henry VIII’s football boots would all be in a much worse state without a British group of conservation experts. Now the Textile Conservation Centre, which has restored thousands of historically significant bits of fabric and trained about half the leading textile conservators in the world, faces becoming history itself. The centre at the University of Southampton is to shut its doors on October 31. The university, w

Source: BBC
Apr 14, 2009

Grapes of Wrath, a classic for today?

Steinbeck's epic novel, which traces the harrowing exodus of Tom Joad and his family from blighted Oklahoma (where they are evicted from their farm), across the rugged American south-west via Highway 66, and on to what they mistakenly hope will be a more promising future in California, is considered by many readers to be the quintessential Depression-era story, and an ironic reversal of the rags-to-riches tale favoured by many optimistic Americans. The Grapes of Wrath treats as a n

Source: http://www.editorandpublisher.com
Apr 13, 2009

Eddie Haskell and Howard Beale -- Go Home! Journos Are Alienating Readers With 'Retro' References

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is often compared to Eddie Haskell. This is fine if you realize that Haskell was the know-it-all neighbor of Beaver Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver." Those who grew up watching that show might also get the recent Los Angeles Times reference to the “Cleaverization” of Michelle Obama, or Rachel Maddow’s characterization of herself as “a bit of a Wally Cleaver.” Members of an even earlier generation may even know what one auto industry analyst m

Source: Jean Loh at China Beat (blog)
Apr 13, 2009

Startling photographs of the Cultural Revolution by Solange Brand

In 2002, the cofounder of the Pingyao International Photography Festival, Alain Jullien, invited an unknown amateur photographer to participate in the annual visual feast that went on to become the landmark of Chinese photography today. Solange Brand, then the Art Director of the newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, mentioned in passing to Alain that she had been in China from 1966 to 1968, and had not set foot on the Mainland since. When Alain asked if she had taken any pictures of China; that inno

Source: Geoffrey K. Pullum is head of linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh and co-author (with Rodney Huddleston) of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 2002) in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Apr 13, 2009

A professor takes on Strunk and White

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released. I won't be celebrating. The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American stud

Source: AFP
Apr 13, 2009

China to build subway to terracotta warrior museum

China's ancient capital of Xian is to build an underground line to the museum of the famed terracotta warriors, one of the nation's most prized tourist attractions, state press said Monday. The 30-kilometre (18-mile) line will extend from Xian's city centre to the museum that houses the clay warriors that were buried more than 2,200 years ago near the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang, Xinhua news agency said. The army of warriors and horses of the Qin emperor