Author: Matthew Westphal

Rothko Chapel In Houston Finally Has A Post-Renovation Opening Date

The Menil Collection’s octagonal landmark, which houses 14 of Mark Rothko’s black paintings, was closed in early 2019 for work that included reinforcing the walls, installing a digital lighting system and replacing the skylight to protect the canvases from sun exposure. The Chapel’s reopening, originally planned for June, has been postponed to September because of the COVID epidemic; there will be a “soft opening” in July. – Archinect

Sampling The World Of Zoom Book Clubs

Gail Beckerman joins a New York literary salon now hosted remotely from Nairobi (“I’d never had the experience of watching in close-up such a large group of people actively listening”), the Quarantine Book Club (it hosts an author a day for regulars from all over the globe), the Borderless Book Club (a new novel in English translation every two weeks), a gathering hosted by the Academy of American Poets, a group devoted solely to Hannah Arendt, and a party where everyone logs on and just silently reads (“It’s mesmerizing, found performance art”). – The New York Times

Jürgen Ploog, R.I.P.

“Jay,” the name he went by among close friends, was widely regarded as one of Germany’s premiere second-generation Beat writers. But his narrative fiction — like that of William S. Burroughs, a mentor with whom he was associated — was more experimental and closer to Brion Gysin’s or J.G. Ballard’s than to Jack Kerouac’s or Allen Ginsberg’s. – Jan Herman

René Buch, Who Established Professional Spanish-Language Theater In New York, Dead At 94

“[He was] a co-founder and the artistic director of Repertorio Español, … [which since 1968] has reimagined Spanish classics and offered contemporary work by Latin and Latin American playwrights, always in Spanish, performed repertory-style. … And he liked to say that the playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age — Cervantes et al. — should be as well known here as Shakespeare.” – The New York Times

Only In France? A Traveling Drive-In Art Film Festival

The Drive-In Festival, conceived by a small group of French movie execs, shows one title a day (“popular director-driven films” rather than “blockbusters or new releases”) for a week, charging €10 for adults and €5 for children, then moves to the next city. The proceeds go to distributors and closed cinemas in each locale; they’re happy, but the national exhibitors’ association is objecting. – Variety

Just What Was The “Sweating Sickness” In Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy?

“It was known in Cromwell’s time as sudor anglicus, meaning the ‘English sweat,’ and there were five outbreaks of it in England, the first in 1485 and the last in 1551. Victims did, in fact, often die within hours of their first symptoms, developing a high fever and ‘copious malodorous sweating.’ … Because the disease killed so swiftly, and because it had other peculiar features — it seemed mainly to affect English people, even when it travelled across borders, and it was particularly infectious among wealthy young men — superstitions abounded.” – The New Yorker