Tag Archives: June 2023

Profiles: German-British Painter Frank Auerbach

Sotheby’s (June 16, 2023) – Morning Crescent and J.Y.M. Seated II are two seminal paintings by Frank Auerbach that represent the artist’s celebrated investigation into the genres of portraiture and the cityscape.

Executed eighteen years apart, both works exemplify Auerbach’s expressive use and colour and a faultless display of decisive and heavily impasto brushwork. Mornington Crescent is an incredibly rare and large-scale example from Auerbach’s 1960s output, and belongs to his ambitious and highly acclaimed body of landscapes.

This work ranks among the largest paintings in Auerbach’s catalogue raisonné and possesses a chromatic register that is unsurpassed. J.Y.M. Seated II is an important portrait of one of Frank Auerbach’s most celebrated sitters, Juliet Yardley Mills.

Frank Helmut Auerbach is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Travel: A Guided Tour Of San Sebastian In Spain

DW Travel (June 17, 2023) – San Sebastián is a resort town on the Bay of Biscay in Spain’s mountainous Basque Country. It’s known for Playa de la Concha and Playa de Ondarreta, beaches framed by a picturesque bayfront promenade, and world-renowned restaurants helmed by innovative chefs.

DW’s Sebastian Heemann – the perfect name for this job – shows us around the city on Spain’s northern coast.

Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:29 Beaches: Zurriola and La Concha 00:52 Weather 01:14 Surfing 01:56 Art 02:35 Mobility: city bikes 03:08 Old town 03:35 Eating Pitxos in Bar Txepetxa with food journalist @MartiBuckleyLive 05:21 Monte Igueldo

In its cobblestoned old town (Parte Vieja), upscale shops neighbor vibrant pintxo bars pairing local wines with bite-size regional specialties.

World Economic Forum: Top Stories- June 17, 2023

World Economic Forum (June 17, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:

0:15 How to solve the global rice shortage – Every day, more than half the world sits down to a plate of rice. A shortage could harm the food security of billions of the poorest people. But if scientists and farmers can solve this problem it would be great news for the climate, too

2:24 How El Niño will affect your weather – El Niño is a climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean and a new phase of it has just begun. Normally, Pacific ‘trade winds’ blow from east to west, pushing warm water away from South America towards Asia. Cold water rises in its place, regulating temperatures and drawing up nutrients for marine life from the ocean depths.

4:17 This fabric blocks mosquito bites – Researchers at Auburn University used a programmable 3D-knitting robot to create a weave that has a ‘chainmail effect’ at the microscopic level and which does not create openings as it bends. It also has enough holes for air flow to keep wearers cool in hot countries.

5:56 Indonesian poachers restore coral reefs – Marine scientist Syafyudin Yusuf is leading the efforts. Together, his team has restored 12 hectares of corals . Just 15 years ago, only 2% of the region’s original reefs remained undamaged. Local fishers used explosives and chemicals to stun or kill fish, making them easier to catch. “We needed to live and survive, but the chances of getting a decent job aren’t good, and the only job we knew of was that, that’s how we began bombing the reefs.”

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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

Saturday Morning: News And Stories From London

Monocle on Saturday, June 17, 2023: The week’s news and culture with Georgina Godwin. Journalist Simon Brooke reviews the newspapers and we speak to South Korean human rights activist Pastor Kim Sungeun, who has helped more than 1,000 North Koreans to defect since 2000.

Plus: why does avocado and honey work? Emma Nelson dives into the world of flavour pairing. 

The New York Times – Saturday, June 17, 2023

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Minneapolis Police Used Illegal, Abusive Practices for Years, Justice Dept. Finds

George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on Friday. The federal review was touched off by the murder of Mr. Floyd, a Black man, by a Minneapolis officer in 2020.

The city said it would try to negotiate a court-enforced consent decree with the federal government that would require an overhaul of its police force.

Hundreds Dead, 9 Arrested, and Many Questions in Migrant Wreck

Greek authorities blamed smugglers for a disaster that may have been one of the worst of its kind. Critics say tougher policies are increasing the risks.

Jury Convicts Man in Killing of 11 in Pittsburgh Synagogue

The massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018 is considered to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Jurors will next hear arguments about whether the defendant, Robert Bowers, should be sentenced to death.

The Business of Being Chris Christie

Mr. Christie left the governor’s office in New Jersey and set out to, as he put it, “make money.” He successfully traded on his political profile — and on his ties to the man he now wants to defeat.

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – June 19, 2023

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BARRON’S MAGAZINE – JUNE 19, 2023 ISSUE Beyond the Fed Rate pause; China-founded online retailer Shein is growing into a global titan.

How the World’s Most Popular Shopping App Is Quietly Upending Retail

How the World's Most Popular Shopping App Is Quietly Upending Retail

The controversial China-founded retailer is growing into a global titan. Analysts say that many Western competitors are ignoring the app—at their peril.

Copper Is the Future. Freeport-McMoRan Is the Stock to Buy.

Copper Is the Future. Freeport-McMoRan Is the Stock to Buy.

Freeport stands to gain from the move to alternative energy—and it has the strongest balance sheet of any copper miner.

AI Won’t Kill the Music. Buy Stock in These 2 Labels.

AI Won't Kill the Music. Buy Stock in These 2 Labels.

Fears of AI are weighing on the shares of Universal Music and Warner Music, but that is overdone.

The New York Times Book Review — June 18, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – JUNE 18, 2023: Stephen King reviews of S. A. Cosby’s blistering new Southern gothic, “All the Sinners Bleed,” which graces our cover this week. Also featured are  John Vaillant’s chillingly prescient book about a 2016 Canadian wildfirea history that pieces together a botany expedition in the Grand Canyon some 85 years ago; and the spiky, percussive, heavy-metal-infused novel “Gone to the Wolves.

In This Thriller, the Psycho Killers Have a Southern Drawl

This illustration shows a sheriff on a dark rural street, one hand on the grip of his holstered pistol and the other hand shining a flashlight into the woods. Out of his line of sight, the silhouette of a man in a wolf mask lurks behind a tree, watching ominously.

Stephen King reviews S.A. Cosby’s latest novel, “All the Sinners Bleed.”

Titus Crown is an ex-F.B.I. agent who gets a sheriff’s job, almost by accident, in a rural Virginia community. He’s Black. Mr. Spearman teaches geography and wears a coat of many countries on Earth Day. He’s white. Given the name of the town and county where these two live — Charon — one can expect bad things to happen, and they certainly do. As in S.A. Cosby’s previous two novels, “Blacktop Wasteland” and “Razorblade Tears,” the body count is high and the action pretty much nonstop.

They Overcame Hazards — and Doubters — to Make Botanical History

In a black-and-white photograph from 1938, two women and four men sit in a boat looking at the camera. One woman wears a white dress and hat; the other wears slacks and a blouse. Three of the men are shirtless; two wear pith helmets.

In Melissa Sevigny’s “Brave the Wild River,” we meet the two scientists who explored unknown terrain — and broke barriers.

Let’s start this story on a sun-blistered evening in August 1938. A small band of adventurers had just concluded a 43-day journey from Utah to Nevada — although perhaps “journey” is too tame a description for a trip that had required weeks of small wooden boats tumbling down more than 600 miles of rock-strewn rivers. The goal was twofold. First, to simply survive. And then, to chart the plants building homes along the serrated walls of the Grand Canyon.

Travel Guide: The 12 Best Places To Visit In Colombia

touropia (June 16, 2023) – Colombia, officially Republic of Colombia,  country of northwestern  South America. Its 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of coast to the north are bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea, and its 800 miles (1,300 km) of coast to the west are washed by the Pacific Ocean.

Colombia

The country is bordered by Panama, which divides the two bodies of water, on the northwest, by Venezuela and Brazil on the east, and by Peru  and  Ecuador  on the south. It is more than twice the size of France and includes the San Andrés y Providencia archipelago, located off the Nicaraguan coast in the Caribbean, some 400 miles (650 km) northwest of the Colombian mainland. The population is largely concentrated in the mountainous interior, where Bogotá, the national capital, is situated on a high plateau in the northern Andes Mountains.

The only American nation that is named for Christopher Columbus, the “discoverer” of the New World, Colombia presents a remarkable study in contrasts, in both its geography and its society. The lofty snow-tipped peaks of the country’s interior cordilleras tower high above equatorial forests and savannas where surviving indigenous groups still follow the lifeways and traditions of their ancestors. In the cooler mountains, at intermediate elevations, modern cities are juxtaposed with traditional rural landscapes where mestizo farmers cultivate their small plots of coffee, corn (maize), and other crops. The more accessible Atlantic lowlands, dominated by large livestock haciendas and a tri-ethnic population, have a distinctively different character.

Design: A Tour Of Moore House In Los Angeles

The Local Project (June 16, 2023) – Though Moore House was originally designed by Craig Ellwood in 1965, the newly restored house by Woods + Dangaran is a respectful design that enhances its rich history for both the owners and the wider Los Angeles architectural community.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Magical Restored House 00:30 – The Clients Simple Goals 00:43 – The History of Mid-Century Tropical Modernism 01:05 – The Restoration Process 01:46 – Designing Inline with Craig Ellwood’s Style 02:34 – Playing on High Contrast and Linking Spaces 03:32 – Background Architecture 03:53 – The Advantage of Hillside Properties 04:22 – Interesting Features of the Home 04:44 – Respecting the History 05:00 – Preservation and Timeless Design

However, once owned by a local band that left it in disrepair, the home needed a complete renovation of both exterior and interior design. Tasked with this challenge, Woods + Dangaran has infused contemporary design methods that restore the midcentury home’s character in a modern light. As the architect and interior designer, Woods + Dangaran were able to save the home through a thoughtful and delicate renovation.

From the street, the finished design of the restored house appears above the carport and unfolds in a rectangular form, where the majority of the original structural and interior elements have been kept. Throughout the restored house, two of the main kept character elements are seen in the two bookends of the original home. The first bookend holds the new fireplace, which is maintained in both its original proportion and location and modernised with a patinaed brass that wraps around it.

Preview: New York Times Magazine – June 18, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (June 16, 2023) – Three young Iranian women share their diaries; plus, a profile of the YouTube superstar MrBeast; and inside the moral crisis of America’s doctors.

The Moral Crisis of America’s Doctors

A black-and-white photograph of Keith Corl in scrubs.

The corporatization of health care has changed the practice of medicine, causing many physicians to feel alienated from their work.

By Eyal Press

Some years ago, a psychiatrist named Wendy Dean read an article about a physician who died by suicide. Such deaths were distressingly common, she discovered. The suicide rate among doctors appeared to be even higher than the rate among active military members, a notion that startled Dean, who was then working as an administrator at a U.S. Army medical research center in Maryland. Dean started asking the physicians she knew how they felt about their jobs, and many of them confided that they were struggling. Some complained that they didn’t have enough time to talk to their patients because they were too busy filling out electronic medical records. 

How MrBeast Became the Willy Wonka of YouTube

An illustration of MrBeast, surrounded by amazed faces and stacks of cash.

Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, has become a viral sensation for his absurd acts of altruism. Why do so many people think he’s evil?

Even within this context, Donaldson stands out for his dedication to understanding how YouTube works. For most of his teenage years, “I woke up, I studied YouTube, I studied videos, I studied filmmaking, I went to bed and that was my life,” Donaldson once told Bloomberg. “I hardly had any friends because I was so obsessed with YouTube,” he said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” last year.