The Economist ‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (May8 , 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, governments are living in a fiscal fantasyland, why Turkey is holding the most important election this year (11:02) and the coronation of King Charles III (17:30).
Tag Archives: May 2023
Travel: E-Bike Ride From Brooklyn To Manhattan
The NYC Walking Show (May 9, 2023) – A bicycle tour from Downtown Brooklyn to Downtown Manhattan via Brooklyn Bridge. Filmed on May 8, 2023.
Brooklyn is experiencing changing neighborhoods—with their cornucopia of coffeehouses, bars, trendy restaurants, galleries, boutiques, and artisanal ventures—are a magnet for the businesses and young workers of the 21st century’s evolving “knowledge economy.” As Brooklyn became a major technology hub, employment in its technology sector increased by more than 57 percent between 2009 and 2017.
Art: ‘Picasso Sculptor – Matter and Body’ In Spain

Museo Picasso Málaga (May 9, 2023) – is the first major exhibition in Spain devoted to this facet of Picasso’s work. The selection of pieces is intended to underline the central role played by the representation of the human body, taken as both a whole and as a fragment, in the Málaga-born artist’s œuvre.
Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body
08/05/2023 to 09/09/2023

Picasso’s sculptures were seemingly overshadowed by his paintings and played a secondary role in his prolific artistic career. The first exhibition devoted chiefly to them did not take place until 1967, at the Tate Gallery in London, and until then his three-dimensional work had barely received any critical attention. However, sculpture was not a secondary concern for Picasso but a form of expression on a par with painting. According to Pierre Daix, ‘he was at least as great a sculptor as he was a painter, and for him these two aspects of his work were always complementary, for he had discovered very early on that the switching from one to the other enabled him to determine precisely what painting is and what sculpture is’.
Preview: London Review Of Books — May 18, 2023
London Review of Books (LRB) – May 18, 2023 issue: The War in Khartoum, Vermeer’s Waywardness, Palestinians in Paraguay and Claire Hall on Anaximander.
Julian Bell at the Rijksmuseum
In London, I had taken A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal for a dependable rest point on strolls around the National Gallery. In Amsterdam, relocated to join 27 other Vermeers in the Rijksmuseum exhibition, its strangeness re-emerged. This canvas, executed towards the end of Vermeer’s relatively brief career (some four years, perhaps, before he died aged 43 in 1675), commits to a tactic he had earlier only toyed with: to set an internal picture as a wholly self-contained block within his own composition, uninterrupted by foreground forms.
News: Victory Day Parade In Russia, Chile’s Far-Right Constitution, UAE Climate
The Globalist, May 9, 2023: Russia marks its Victory Day in the shadow of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Also in the programme: Chile’s far-right parties draft a new constitution and we talk about innovation in agriculture with the UAE’s climate minister.
Plus, broadcaster Nina dos Santos on the papers, Bidisha Mamata on culture news and we meet Sweden’s Loreen ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest, which kicks off tonight.
Front Page: The New York Times – Tuesday May 9, 2023
Under the Radar, Right-Wing Push to Tighten Voting Laws Persists
The clashes in state capitals have faded, but the Republican push for stricter state election laws is organized and planning for the long term.
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
Biden Said He’d Veer From Trump on Immigration. The Reality Is More Complicated.
Surges of migrants have shaped President Biden’s policies at the border in ways that few of his allies imagined when he was running for president.
Corporate Giants Buy Up Primary Care Practices at Rapid Pace
Large health insurers and other companies are especially keen on doctors’ groups that care for patients in private Medicare plans.
In Norway, the Electric Vehicle Future Has Already Arrived
About 80 percent of new cars sold in Norway are battery-powered. As a result, the air is cleaner, the streets are quieter and the grid hasn’t collapsed. But problems with unreliable chargers persist.
Travel: A Tour Of Gdańsk In Northern Poland (4K)
Travel HDefinition (May 8, 2023) – Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland. It is Poland’s principal seaport and the country’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. The city has a complex history, having had periods of Polish, German and self rule.
Video timeline: 0:00 Skwer 0:11 Main Town Hall & Długa 0:39 Wyspa Spichrzów 1:35 Streets of Gdansk 2:27 The Great Armoury (Wielka Zbrojownia) 2:36 Złota/Długouliczna Brama 2:48 Streets of Gdansk 3:58 St. Catherine’s Church 4:24 Marina/Port 5:32 Gdansk by night 6:08 Gdańsk Neon Sign 6:23 Footbridge to Ołowianka 7:40 Marina 8:03 Main streets of Gdansk
From 1920 to 1939, Gdańsk lay in the disputed so-called Polish Corridor; its ambiguous political status created tensions that culminated in the German invasion of Poland and the first clash of the Second World War at nearby Westerplatte. Gdańsk is home to the University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk University of Technology, the National Museum, the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, the Museum of the Second World War, the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, the Polish Space Agency and the European Solidarity Centre.
Among Gdańsk’s most notable historical landmarks are the Town Hall, the Green Gate, Artus Court, Neptune’s Fountain, and St. Mary’s Church, one of the largest brick churches in the world. Gdańsk is among the most visited cities in Poland.
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 15, 2023

The New Yorker – May 15, 2023 issue
Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter
Collaborating on his memoir, “Spare,” meant spending hours together on Zoom, meeting his inner circle, and gaining a new perspective on the tabloids.
The Filmmakers Who Voyaged Inside the Body

For more than a decade, two “recovering” anthropologists have brought documentary closer to the human experience. Now they’ve made the camera part of our flesh and blood.
The Critics
- Books – Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Perilous Power of RespectabilityWe revere the man and revile the strategy, but King knew what he was doing.By Kelefa Sanneh
- Books – Briefly Noted“Nothing Stays Put,” “Still Life with Bones,” “Stealing,” and “Hit Parade of Tears.”
- Books – BuzzFeed, Gawker, and the Casualties of the Traffic WarsBen Smith’s new book shows how the race for clicks spawned—then strangled—the new media.By Nathan Heller
- Musical Events – Yo-Yo Ma Goes Underground with the Louisville OrchestraTeddy Abrams, the ensemble’s music director, has created a work about Mammoth Cave—and staged the piece inside its reverberating walls.By Alex Ross
Arts & Culture: Art Review Magazine – May 2023 Issue
ArtReview (May 2023 Issue) – Featuring Frida Orupabo, Isaac Julien, Sarah Pierce, Kahlil Robert Irving and Christina Quarles; columns on faltering art markets and questions of what art should do for a society; and much more
Aki Sasamoto wins Calder Prize 2023
The winner receives $50k, a three-month residency at Atelier Calder, and the placement of works in a public collection
Have We Reached the Endpoint of Revivalism?
Art has long looked to the recent past for inspiration, but might the return of post-Internet art just be too much, too soon?
Frida Orupabo, on the cover of ArtReview May 2023, mines images sourced from colonial archives, film, fashion and family albums to create collages that carve representation and empowerment from stereotype. Her visual references, ranging from clips of singers like Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, to the art of Carrie Mae Weems and Kara Walker, are incorporated into multilayered works, some pinned with metal tacks to look like the kind of vintage paper doll whose appendages are manipulable. The sense of ‘reclaiming the power to choose how a woman’s body, and more specifically Black female sexuality, is presented and received’, writes Fi Churchman, ‘is a central theme of Orupabo’s work’.
Italian Villas: A Tour Of Santa Margherita Ligure
Immobilinvolo Milano (May 7, 2023) – Santa Margherita Ligure is one of the best known and most renowned tourist resorts in all of Liguria. This coastal town, located in a protected bay in one of the most beautiful stretches of the coast, is considered the Pearl of Tigullio.
Its history is very ancient and dates back to Roman times. Since then it had a troubled history and over the centuries it was destroyed, rebuilt then conquered several times by the Saracen pirates.
Santa Margherita began to transform into the beautiful coastal town we know from the second half of the 1800s, when the nobility from all over Europe began to discover the wonderful cities of Liguria. Similarly to what happened in Bordighera and Alassio .






