Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Reviews: How Motown Music Upheld Civil Rights

BBC (September 30, 2024): Paid In Full: The Battle for Black Music documents the extent of the historic injustice suffered by the music industry’s Black artists, including the disparity of profits received by them, despite having created the records that have driven the fabric and culture of popular music – from jazz and rock and roll to soul and rap.

Features interviews with Black titans of the music industry Cadence Weapon, Chaka Khan, George Clinton, Monie Love, Nile Rodgers, Gloria Gaynor, Ice T, Master P, and Smokey Robinson.

#PaidInFull #BlackMusic #musicindustry #music #exploitation #BlackHistory #civilrightsmovement #motown

International Art: Apollo Magazine – October 2024

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Apollo Magazine (September 30, 2024): The new October 2024 issue features An interview with Liliane Lijn; The dealer who launched Picasso and The marvels of Mughal painting

October 2024 | Apollo Magazine

Raising a glass to Campari’s photographic archive

Scenes of rowdy bars and tipsy revellers in the 20th century show a world that is both alien and comfortingly familiar

The dangerous beauty of Waterhouse’s nymphs

Sarah Moss returns to a Pre-Raphaelite painting that made a lasting impression on her in when she was a teenager

The Andalusian winery that pairs sherry with Spanish paintings

The veteran sherry-makers at Bodegas Tradición in Cádiz may have perfected their craft, but the winery’s collection of paintings by great Spanish artists is no less impressive

Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – October 7, 2024

A portrait of Kamala Harris in profile against a blue background.

The New Yorker (September 30, 2024): The latest issue features Malika Favre’s “The Candidate” – Onward and upward with the nation.

Kamala Harris for President

The Vice-President has displayed the basic values and political skills that would enable her to help end, once and for all, a poisonous era defined by Donald Trump. By The Editors

Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

Mental-health struggles have risen sharply among young Americans, and parents and lawmakers alike are scrutinizing life online for answers. By Andrew Solomon

Is a Chat with a Bot a Conversation?

An artificial voice has long been a dream of tinkerers and technologists. Now that A.I. can talk, though, we may forget who we’re talking to.

By Jill Lepore

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Sept. 27, 2024

Times Literary Supplement (September 25, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Body and Soul’ – Noel Malcolm on Diamaid MacCulloch’s history of sex and Christianity; Jean Genet’s lost drama; Becoming Lucy Sante; Poor little kids and How the compass got its points…

Country Life Magazine – September 25, 2024 Issue

Country Life Magazine (September 24, 2024): The latest issue features

Life on the hedge

Richard Negus reveals how the ancient art of hedgelaying plays a crucial role in creating countryside highways for British Wildlife.

Playing fast and loose

Matthew Dennison unmasks the tough-talking, gun-toting highwaywomen who brazenly ruled the roads of Britain

US Special

The latest in Stateside luxury on land and sea; Charles Harris Charts the birth of Liberty; Agnes Stamp relives the golden age of transatlantic travel; Charlie Thomas gets his kicks on Route 66; Russell Higham tunes up for Newport and all that jazz; Rosie Paterson checks in on New York hotels; Tom Parker Bowles finds out what’s hot in US food; and Melanie Bryan looks at Country Life across the pond.

The Legacy

Laurence Olivier takes centre stage once more as Kate Green applauds his crucial role in the founding of the National Theatre

Foraging

It’s a magnet for dirt and earwigs, but don’t let that put you off — anyone for cauliflower-fungus cheese, asks John Wright

Love in a dry climate

Kendra Wilson marvels at the innovative design of a desert garden at Ghost Wash in the Paradise Valley, Arizona

The swing of the pendulum

It’s high time we celebrated the golden age of British horology, suggests Huon Mallalieu, as he finds out exactly what made our master clockmakers tick.

A well-resorted tavern

In the first of two articles, Jeremy Musson charts the remarkable history and preservation of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s former home in Virginia

Singing the end-of-summertime blues

A does of digging is just what the doctor ordered for John Lewis-Stempel as he attends to shake off his gloomy mood

Navigating nostalgia

Joseph Phelan is at the tiller for a joyous canal-boat journey — to the Industrial Revolution and back — on Britain’s canal network

And, as always, much much more

Art Exhibition Tour: “Van Gogh – Poets And Lovers”

Christie’s (September 23, 2024): The first ever Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery in London suggests that he was not so much a tortured genius as an artist who planned his work meticulously and thought deeply about its execution and meaning.

Christie’s Chairman, Europe, Giovanna Bertazzoni talks to curators Cornelia Homburg and Christopher Riopelle about the inspiration for the exhibition, which is supported by Christie’s.⠀

Featuring more than 60 works, the exhibition is focused on the years that Vincent van Gogh spent in the south of France — in Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence — between February 1888 and May 1890.

🗓️14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025 ⠀

@nationalgallery #nationalgallery#poetsandlovers#vangogh

Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept. 30, 2024

A child walks toward an adult who is seated on a bench in a park.

The New Yorker (September 23, 2024): The latest issue features Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet’s “Shadow Story” – The artist attempts to preserve the most perfect time of year.

How Trump Hopes to Exploit the Myth of Voter Fraud in November

How Trump Hopes to Exploit the Myth of Voter Fraud in November

For years, the former President has claimed that undocumented immigrants vote illegally. That fiction is now the explicit position of the Party establishment. By Jonathan Blitzer

The Priest Who Helps Women in the Mob Escape

The Priest Who Helps Women in the Mob Escape

Don Luigi Ciotti leads an anti-Mafia organization, and for decades he has run a secret operation that liberates women from the criminal underworld. By D. T. Max

Which Party Has Cornered the Tattoo Vote?

Which Party Has Cornered the Tattoo Vote?

Lauren Boebert has a “tribal” design on her midriff, but there’s competition from John Fetterman and the tattoo caucus—and don’t forget John F. Kennedy or Theodore Roosevelt. By Charles Bethea

Inside Art: Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers & Yellow’

The National Gallery (September 22, 2024): What colour do you think of most when you think of Vincent van Gogh? Probably his glorious use of yellow – most famously in his series of ‘Sunflowers’ paintings.

Dive in with Catherine Higgitt from the National Gallery’s scientific department to discover the secrets of how he used chrome yellow pigment in his work. You’ll even see the chemistry of how this fantastic colour is made.

London Review Of Books – September 26, 2024 Preview

London Review of Books (LRB) – September 20 , 2024: The latest issue features T.J. Clark on Fanon’s Contradictions; Linda Kinstler at the 6 January trials; Sally Rooney’s Couples and Kubrick Does It Himself….


Byzantine Intersectionality: 
Sexuality, Gender and Race in the Middle Ages by Roland Betancourt

At the Movies: ‘Only the River Flows’ by Michael Wood

From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I by Susan Doran – Clare Jackson

Kubrick: An Odyssey by Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams – David Bromwich

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Sept. 20, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (September 18, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Autumn Fiction’ – Rachel Kushner, Olga Tokarczuk, László Krasznahorkai and Sally Rooney; Craig Brown on The Queen; A very Yorkshire horror; China’s Britain complex and The Looting of America…