“I certainly saw myself in Berthe Bovary, Emma and Charles’s daughter, and felt a jolt. I knew that I had my eyes on a page, I could see the words clearly, yet it seemed to me that I had approached my mother just as Berthe tried to approach Emma.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why Are So Many People Scared Of Bugs? They’re Such Tiny Little Things
Yeah, a few of them can actually hurt us, but not so many – and even harmless and useful insects like grasshoppers and dragonflies freak out a lot of folks. Yet there are reasons for this.
Another Pioneering Minimalist Composer Is About To Break Out (Too Bad He’s Been Dead 26 Years)
Julian Eastman’s music is mightily impressive, writes Zachary Woolfe – and the man himself was a train wreck.
Ground Zero Of Film Noir: ‘The Maltese Falcon’ At 75
Phil Hoad looks back at John Huston’s 1941 classic and its artistic progeny, from Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil through Chinatown, Blade Runner, David Lynch’s oeuvre and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – and even Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary
The Act of Killing.
Barnes Foundation’s New Boss Is Moving Well Beyond The Art
“Would Dr. Barnes, who died in 1951, be surprised to learn that this fall, the foundation’s executive director and president, Thomas Collins, taught a course on the gay subculture, as represented by artists in the collection like Charles Demuth and Marsden Hartley?”
Damian Woetzel Finally Brings His Colorado Dance Experiments To New York
For several summers now, the former New York City ballet principal has been putting together unusual combinations of dance styles, performers and roles at his Vail International Dance Festival. Why is he only now presenting the results in the city? “I’ve always felt a little reticent simply because what goes on in Vail – it’s very much a lab atmosphere. But then it started to feel that there were a number of things that haven’t been seen in New York.”
Werner Herzog, Cinematic Swashbuckler? Well, Yeah, Sort Of
“He’d be utterly exasperating if he weren’t so entertaining, if his films weren’t so good, and if all his tall tales were not by and large true.”
For 50 Years, They’ve Loved Edward Albee In Bulgaria
An avant-garde production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at a tiny Sofia theater in 1996 led to a long period of popularity for the American playwright. Even the Communist censors liked his work.
They’ve Found 1,300-Year-Old Antidepressants At A Byzantine Big Pharma Plant
Old phials in a 7th-century medicine factory now being excavated in Istanbul have been found to contain methanone (an antidepressant) and phenanthrene (a cardiac medication). And yes, there’s plenty of evidence that the Byzantines – and many other ancient cultures – knew about and used treatments for depression.
Picasso’s Handyman, Convicted Of Possessing Stolen Paintings, Now Says The Widow Was Hiding Them From The Kids
Pierre Le Guennec and his wife Danielle were found guilty last year of keeping 271 of Picasso’s drawings, collages and paintings in their garage for four decades. Now, appealing their conviction, Pierre told the court that “Mrs Jacqueline Picasso had problems with Claude Picasso” over the artist’s estate and stashed a bunch of paintings with the Le Guennecs, leaving one bag with the 271 works behind as a thank-you. (He didn’t mention this during his first trial because he was afraid, of course.) Claude’s attorney calls this “a staggering lie.”