Tag: 09.01.05

Jerry Hall Ads Banned From London Underground

Former model Jerry Hall won’t be seen in the London Underground anytime soon. “Ads for her new reality show, “Kept,” have been banned from London’s subway system because the poster — which shows Hall surrounded by several half-naked men with her holding a leash wrapped around their necks — violates a rule banning the use of people as sex objects.”

In Praise Of Mozart’s Wife

Mozart owed a lot of his success to his wife. “Constanze and her sisters were brought up in Mannheim, a centre of musical excellence. And, in addition to the sophistication she absorbed from this artistic milieu, she was intelligent – speaking excellent Italian and French as well as her native German. In many ways, she was an ideal wife for a composer. Mozart himself was firmly of that opinion.”

Is Leipzig The Next Big Thing?

The city of Leipzig is opening a new museum, building on a thriving new visual arts scene. “The city’s vast train station made it central Europe’s transport hub and, particularly in music (Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann all lived there for a while), it has long been a cultural hub as well. Now it is the storming art scene that is driving the city’s rise, with young artists emerging from the conservative (they teach painting) academy being touted, with the usual art world hyperbole, as the successors to the Young British Artists, while their work is snapped up – leading collectors including Jay Jopling, Charles Saatchi and Marianne Boesky.”

Reclaiming Ray Bradbury

“Now that Ray Bradbury has officially been accepted into the halls of Literature, can we lesser life forms please have him back? To these eyes, many of Bradbury’s most garishly ‘literary’ achievements are his least impressive. When the McCarthyite gloom of Fahrenheit 451 fades, it’s the pulpy, childlike terrors that stick.”

A Sitcom About Terrorists? Fuhgeddaboudit!

A sitcom about terrorists in America has been making the rounds of Hollywood. But though the scripts have won a lot of interest and admiration, the show hasn’t found a home. “Though a number of dramatic movies and mini-series about 9/11 are already being produced, executives who passed on “The Cell” told the writers they feared that Americans – particularly in New York and Washington – were nowhere near ready for a sitcom that could be seen as trivializing the attacks, even after four years.”