Author: Matthew Westphal

Mel Gibson Is Playing A Character Called ‘Rothchild’, And Folks On Social Media Aren’t Having It

In the movie in question, titled Rothchild and currently being pitched to buyers at the Cannes marketplace, Gibson is to play the patriarch of an extremely rich New York family. The similarity to Rothschild, the name of a wealthy European Jewish family that has been the target of anti-Semitic invective for centuries, has (one might say) not gone unnoticed or unremarked-upon online, given Gibson’s history of (one might say) unfortunate utterances. – The Guardian

‘Dude’, ‘Grotesque’, And Other Words That Came From High-Culture History

Dude seems to have developed from a pejorative epithet for a man about as far as possible from Jeff Bridges’s character as one could get. Grotesque came from a hole in the ground in Rome. Picturesque originally referred to actual pictures — specifically, a particular style of painting. Silhouette started as Louis XV’s treasury secretary, became a snippy insult, and only then came to refer to framed side-views of a person, cut from black paper. – BBC

‘When Literature Is Broken, We Rebuild It — Because We Need Shelter’: Arundhati Roy’s PEN America Lecture

“So, as we lurch into the future … what is literature’s place? What counts as literature? Who decides? Obviously, there is no single, edifying answer to these questions. So, if you will forgive me, I’m going to talk about my own experience of being a writer during these times — of grappling with the question of how to be a writer during these times, in particular in a country like India, a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously.” – The Guardian

Howard Stern Explains How He Turned Into Terry Gross

Three years ago, the Times ran a feature about how the erstwhile King of All Media had moved on from the crazy, raunchy stuff that made him rich and famous and become an intelligent, sensitive, and generally admirable interviewer. Here, in an extended Q&A, he tells David Marchese just how it happened. (includes straight talk about Donald Trump, a longtime friend and frequent guest of yore) – The New York Times Magazine

Can A City’s Cultural Vibrancy Be Measured? Here’s An Economist Who’s Trying

“Provided that culture uniquely defines a city, which urban contexts are more culturally vibrant? And in which ones does culture drive creative economies? This study presents a novel and freely accessible dataset – the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor – gathering 29 indicators for 168 European cities. Capitals generally lead on ‘Creative Economy’ but non-capitals do better on ‘Cultural Vibrancy’.” – EconomistsTalkArt.org

‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Is Now Top-Grossing American Play In Broadway History

Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel has passed the $40 million mark at the box office, with advance sales lifting the total to $55 million. There are still three British imports ahead of it: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ($68.3 million) and War Horse ($75 million), which Mockingbird will probably surpass, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ($118.7 million). – The Hollywood Reporter