Madhur Jaffrey, actor and cookbook writer, will not call herself a chef, but her cooking has changed the world. Then there’s this: “A now-famous appearance, in the ’90s, on one of Julia Child’s shows. Watching an extra-tall Julia coo and flutter, as Madhur regally goes through the instructions on making shrimp in spicy coconut sauce — as the coriander seeds hiss, and the fenugreek pop — is (thank you, YouTube!) an adventure in odd-couple gold.”
Blog
Remember The Members
The Metropolitan Museum’s new director writes a letter to members – and appears to want an exchange of ideas, so here are a few.
In A Europe Disturbed By Anti-Muslim Sentiment, This Exhibit Makes A Statement
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, is acknowledging the way the Italian Renaissance depended on – and exchanged ideas and goods with – Muslim countries. The exhibit is a “scholarly riposte” to a world in which, “today, Italians have little exposure to the Islamic world beyond the Muslims living in their midst — many of them recent immigrants — and media reports of Mideast wars and Islamist-inspired terrorism. That tense context has led some to associate Islam with violence and spawned anti-Muslim sentiments.”
Why Don’t More Boys – And Girls, For That Matter – Read ‘Little Women’ In School?
Teaching Huck Finn is near universal, but Little Women? What if the boys don’t like it? “As far as I can tell, no one is concerned about whether 12-year-old girls are engaged by Tom Sawyer. But their reaction is not what concerns educators. It’s the boys’ responses they are worried about.”
Late-Night TV Has Several Problems, But One Is That There’s An Awful Lot Of It
And there was more of it before Netflix abruptly canceled Michelle Wolf’s and Joel McHale’s late-night format programs. What if viewers simply don’t exist for this kind of show anymore? Even “Conan O’Brien, TV’s longest-serving late-night personality, is poised to take his hour-long Conan on TBS to 30 minutes next year.”
Google Employees Are In Revolt Over The Company’s China Policies
“Don’t be evil” is long gone, obviously, but this time, Google may have gone too far. “China considers censorship a state secret, vastly restricting what Google can tell even its own employees about what its plans are. Meanwhile, a group of at least 1,400 employees is leading a charge to stop Dragonfly in its tracks.”
Do Actors With Southern Accents Get A Fair Shake In Hollywood?
Does anyone in charge in Hollywood even know what “a Southern accent” is? “I’ve had people ask, ‘Can you teach me a Southern accent?’ I’m like, ‘O.K. What state? What part of the state? What culture?'”
Janice Tchalenko, Who Has Died At 76, Bridged Art And Commerce With Her Ceramics
In tune with her socialist politics, she created art for, and with, the people – but she also “revolutionised the field, shocking many studio potter colleagues, by evolving glazes of great richness and depth of colour to adorn reduction-fired stoneware; painting, sponging and slip-trailing complex semi-abstract decorative schema on bold simplified shapes; using piscatorial and amphibian casts as handles and knops; and taking inspiration from the ceramics of the Middle East, from the capricious mannerist Bernard Palissy, and from European rococo earthenware and porcelain and 19th century art pottery.” Whew.
Amazon May Be About To Buy A Movie Theatre Chain, And Wow, Are There A Lot Of Reactions
If Amazon does buy Landmark, will it just show its own content? Probably not – Amazon Studios are moving away from arthouse, award-winning content for more popular fare. One (terrifying to movie fans) option: “Esports and other forms of live-gaming, Ark and VR location-based experiences — communal entertainment in the 21st century is evolving past just sitting in a darkened theater quietly watching the same two-hour film as the strangers next to you. A company such as Amazon could take these spaces and outfit them for that purpose.”
The Virgin Mary, Says One Artist, Is Getting Evicted By Gentrification
The artist, Nico Avina, is trying to alert Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights to what it’s losing as rising rents drive out its Latinx population – people, murals, and especially paintings of la Virgen de Guadalupe. That’s why he brings a foldable, 7-1/2-foot tall Virgin Mary with him all over the neighborhood.