From a New York Times online review:
“Envisioning 2001” shows Kubrick as a director in command of all aspects of filmmaking, and it suggests that he and Clarke were no small obsessives when it came to understanding their subject matter. One of the first items in the exhibit is a request form from 1964, with Clarke’s name and address, sent to the United States Air Force. He sought information on a sighting — which turned out to be a satellite — that he and Kubrick, then developing the story for the movie, had seen in the sky over New York.
As it approaches its 52nd birthday, “2001: A Space Odyssey” remains one of the most inventive and enduring of all movies. But from the vantage point of 2020, it can be difficult to appreciate the sheer breadth of imagination involved in its making.
Enter “Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey,” a new exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, that runs through July 19. The show brings together original correspondence, sketches, storyboards, props, video clips and much more to illustrate how Kubrick, the film’s director, and Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction author who collaborated with him on the screenplay, set about bringing the future to the screen.
British architectural designer John Pawson has, in a career spanning over three decades, created an inimitable body of work characterized by its distillment of the fundamental ingredients of architecture into their most elemental, elegant expressions.
approach, Pawson is sensitive to the intimate rituals of daily life and his buildings are far from austere: instead, they elegantly make the case for the clarity and freedom to be found in the act of reduction.
Beneath his smooth, genial, almost inhumanly productive and evasive surface, there were turbulent waters. His very name, for all its air of Ivy League ease, represents a burdened legacy. The Porters were his difficult, scapegrace father’s family; the Coles were his mother’s rich and ambitious Indiana family. He was a Porter by birth but, if his mother had anything to do with it, would be a Cole for life.
Prometheus Unbound is a four-act lyrical drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published in 1820. It is concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus, who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, for which he is subjected to eternal punishment and suffering at the hands of Zeus. It is inspired by the classical Prometheia, a trilogy of plays attributed to Aeschylus. Shelley’s play concerns Prometheus’ release from captivity, but unlike Aeschylus’ version, there is no reconciliation between Prometheus and Jupiter (Zeus). Instead, Jupiter is abandoned by his supportive elements and falls from power, which allows Prometheus to be released.
Author Paul Zollo conducted a series of in-depth discussions with Tom about his career, with special focus on his songwriting. The conversations are reprinted here with little or no editorial comment and represent a unique perspective on Tom’s entire career. Originally published in 2005 (also by Omnibus Press), Tom’s wife Dana has fully approved this updated edition, which retains its foreword by Petty, adds additional interview material, an expanded introduction as well as additional photos from Petty’s last ever live performance. This is, perhaps, as close as you can get to an autobiography by the great man.
