Books: Literary Review Magazine – March 2024

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Literary Review – March 1, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Gaughin’s Midlife Crisis’; Geology vs Genesis; Japan’s War Trials; Saddam’s Blunderers and Barbara Comyns in Full…

Comedian Who Got Serious

“The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky” By Simon Shuster

As someone who has to consume quite a lot of Russian media, I can tell you that if there is one common denominator, it’s that whether we’re talking about a shouty TV news programme (less Newsnight, more a kind of geopolitical Jeremy Kyle Show), a stodgy government newspaper of record or a racy tabloid, no one has a good word for Volodymyr Zelensky. 

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Kubrick: An Odyssey By Robert P Kolker

There are, I have long suspected, two types of cinephiles: those who think Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a masterpiece and those who think it’s a relentless bore. Early in their new biography of the film director, Kubrick: An Odyssey, Robert P Kolker and Nathan Abrams make clear which camp they belong to, describing the scene in which the astronaut Frank Poole jogs around (and around and around and around) the spaceship Discovery as ‘one of the most lyrical passages in film history’. 

The New York Times Book Review – March 3, 2024

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (March 1, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Yakety-Yak’ – In “Language City”, Ross Perlin chronicles some of the precious traditions hanging on in New York, the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolis…

Kate DiCamillo Says ‘Paying Attention Is a Way to Love the World’

Credit…Rebecca Clarke

The feisty title character of her new book, “Ferris,” has a sharp eye for detail, and so, its author hopes, does she. Meanwhile, she is on an Alice McDermott reading jag.

How to Speak New York

In “Language City,” the linguist Ross Perlin chronicles some of the precious traditions hanging on in the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolis.

CULTURE: FRANCE-AMÉRIQUE MAGAZINE – MARCH 2024

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France-Amérique Magazine – March 1, 2024 –  The new issue features ‘Francophonie Month’ – The French-Speaking Cowboys of Louisiana.

 Meet Drake LeBlanc, the French- and Creole-speaking cowboy, filmmaker, and cofounder of Télé-Louisiane; read our interview with Harvard professor Claire-Marie Brisson on the North American Francosphere; and discover why “Molière may be dead, but his language is alive and well.”

CYRIL DEWAVRIN – The American Dream of a Serial Bookseller

Founding a French neighborhood bookstore in New York City was the madcap challenge undertaken by this avid reader and busy entrepreneur. The Frenchman has just opened La Joie de Vivre near Chelsea, a space offering books in French and English, coffee, and pastries.

By Benoît Georges

Also in this issue, Albert Camus travels to America; former ambassador Gérard Araud analyzes the White House race and its potential consequences for France and Europe; and French soccer star and LGBTQ+ advocate Marinette Pichon discusses her U.S. career and her fight for equality in women’s sports.

Art Insider: An Engineer Reviews Turner’s “Rain, Steam And Speed” (1844)

The National Gallery (March 1, 2024): Is there engineering in art, as well as art in engineering? We look at Turner’s famous depiction of a steam train in ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ and stormy seas in ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale’ (1801).

Rob Bell from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers gives us an engineer’s take on these two paintings at the National Gallery. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was founded in 1847 and has over 100,000 members around the world.

Arts Preview: ARTFORUM Magazine – March 2024

March 2024
Paul Pfeiffer, Vitruvian Figure (detail), 2008

Artforum Magazine (March 1, 2024) – The latest issue features THE PURE PRODUCTS OF AMERICA GO CRAZY – Thomas Hirschhorn’s Fake It, Fake It – till you Fake It., 2023; ANTHONY LEPORE; PASSAGES –  PHILL NIBLOCK (1933–2024); TOP TENBRUCE LABRUCE and more…

SALON STYLE

Hurvin Anderson, Shear Cut, 2023, acrylic on paper on canvas, 84 3⁄4 × 92 1⁄4". From the series “Barbershop,” 2006–23.

Hurvin Anderson imagines the barbershop

HURVIN ANDERSON’S “BARBERSHOP” series belongs to a long tradition of painterly fascination with the spaces of social interaction that reflect both the physical realities and ideological aspirations of society at large. Anderson’s exhibition “Salon Paintings” at England’s Hastings Contemporary, organized in collaboration with the Hepworth Wakefield, also in England, and Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway, brings together a body of work he produced between 2006 and 2023 that portrays, albeit in the loosest sense of the word, men’s hair salons. 

“Time Travel: Italian Masters Through a Contemporary Lens”

“Time Travel: Italian Masters Through a Contemporary Lens”
View of “Time Travel: Italian Masters Through a Contemporary Lens,” 2023–24. From left: Ross Bleckner, Day and Night, Hour by Hour, 2023; Josephine Halvorson, Smiley Face, 2023. Photo: Jason Mandella.

Petzel Gallery | East 67th Street

By Donald Kuspit

“Time Travel: Italian Masters Through a Contemporary Lens,” a group exhibition that featured a selection of Renaissance paintings alongside works created by present-day artists, was a type of paragone, except that the debate was not whether painting or sculpture is the superior art form, but whether these historical pieces—executed at a time when grand themes and exquisite craft, among other criteria, determined their value—are better or worse than objects made by artists now, when such antiquated metrics seem well beside the point.

News: Navalny’s Funeral In Moscow, Biden And Trump Tour Texas-Mexico Border

The Globalist (March1, 2024): Russia analyst Stephen Dalziel discusses the atmosphere surrounding Alexey Navalny’s funeral in Moscow and the future of the opposition movement in Russia.

Plus: the latest on Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s visits to two Texas-Mexico border cities, film news and a special interview with two-time Academy Award-winner Hans Zimmer.

The New York Times — Friday, March 1, 2024

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As Hungry Gazans Crowd an Aid Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll

Palestinian and Israeli officials offered differing accounts of a deadly scene in northern Gaza, in which local health officials said more than 100 people were killed.

The ‘Luxury Route’ to the U.S. for African Migrants

Colombia’s main airport has become a hub for migrants heading to the U.S. in greater numbers. Some have been stranded for weeks, or forcibly turned back.

In Dual Border Visits, Biden and Trump Try to Score Points at a Political Hot Spot

President Biden dared former President Donald J. Trump to “join me” in tightening security, while Mr. Trump blamed Mr. Biden for the country’s broken immigration system.

Texas Wildfires Burn Through the Heart of Cattle Country, Upending Lives

A state known for its wide open space has now seen more than a million acres of it burned in the largest wildfire on record in Texas history, with two confirmed deaths.