Tag Archives: Reviews

Current Affairs: Prospect Magazine – December 2023

November 1, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Prospect Magazine (December 2023) – The latest issue features Oh, the humanities! – History, literature, film studies; I still dream of peace – How Israel might emerge from the Gaza horror, and more…

I still dream of peace

My country will emerge from this horror—and when it does the peacemakers, not the zealots, will reign, writes a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset

By Avraham Burg

The following words were written amid the storm of battle. Planes constantly circling in the sky, the bedroom turned into a shelter, the radio telling of new atrocities, the heart torn with fear as to the fate of missing persons. The days are now devoted to funerals and condolences, and the evenings to guarding our small community. I have participated in many demonstrations against the terrible folly of Benjamin Netanyahu, which found its outcome in the revenge and rage in Gaza on 7th October. Today, I try to be available for acts of support and solidarity with the victims on all sides. This beautiful land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea weeps bitterly, its two communities refusing to be comforted.

Oh, the humanities!

History, literature, film studies—these subjects expand our understanding and enrich our democracy. They are also under assault

Priyamvada Gopal

Culture, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – November 3, 2023

November 1, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Guardian Weekly (November 3, 2023) – The new issue features Bletchley Park, the main center of allied second world war codebreakers, and it’s no coincidence that the English country house was chosen as the venue for this week’s landmark summit on safety in artificial intelligence. The age of AI brings opportunities but also significant risks, as a number of experts in the field outlined in an open letter last week.

Global technology editor Dan Milmo discusses the pros and cons with one of the technology’s leading thinkers, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, who says the rise of AI must be thought of as seriously as the climate crisis. Then, Observer columnist Sonia Sodha argues that calling for AI to be reined in is not simply a sign of luddism.

As Israeli forces entered Gaza this week, Bethan McKernan and Rory Carroll report for us on the increasingly unbearable nature of life in the besieged enclave, and there’s expert analysis and commentary from Julian Borger, Peter Beaumont and Jason Burke.

Business, Culture, Magazines, Reviews, Technology

Culture & Technology: Wired Magazine – Nov 2023

October 31, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

WIRED MAGAZINE (October 31, 2023) – The latest issue features understanding Tik Tok and talent manager Ursus Magana; How Telegram Became a Terrifying Weapon in the Israel-Hamas War; Here’s the Truth Behind the Biggest (and Dumbest) Battery Myths, and more…

Watch This Guy Work, and You’ll Finally Understand the TikTok Era

BRENDAN I. KOERNER

The creator economy is fragmented and chaotic. Talent manager Ursus Magana can (almost) make sense of it, with a frenetic formula for gaming the algorithms.

How Telegram Became a Terrifying Weapon in the Israel-Hamas War

Hamas posted gruesome images and videos that were designed to go viral. Sources argue that Telegram’s lax moderation ensured they were seen around the world.

Photoillustration containing a hand holding a smartphone displaying the Telegram app and scenes of the IsraelHamas...

At around 8 am local time the morning of October 7, Haaretz’s cyber and disinformation reporter, Omer Benjakob, was woken by his wife at their home in the historic port city of Jaffa. Something was happening in southern Israel, she said, but Benjakob shrugged it off, presuming “another round of the same shit.” Flare-ups between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and militants in southern Israel are not uncommon. “No, no,” Benjakob’s wife insisted. “It’s more serious.”

Review: Skyview 2 Wellness Table Lamp

No sunlight? No problem. This wellness lamp brings dim rooms the next best thing to natural light.

Here’s the Truth Behind the Biggest (and Dumbest) Battery Myths

Heres the Truth Behind the Biggest Battery Myths

Yes, charging your phone overnight is bad for its battery. And no, you don’t need to turn off your device to give the battery a break. Here’s why.

For an object that barely ever leaves our palms, the smartphone can sometimes feel like an arcane piece of wizardry. And nowhere is this more pronounced than when it comes to the fickle battery, which will drop 20 percent charge quicker than you can toggle Bluetooth off, and give up the ghost entirely after a couple of years of charging.

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Nov 1, 2023

October 31, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – November 1, 2023: The new issue features the rural delights of Durslade Farm to the heart of Mayfair; The secret garden in Regent’s Park in London; Norman Foster, the architect who helped shape the capital; the historic American bars that offer a taste of the US on this side of the pond, and more…

London Life

Emma Love welcomes the rural delights of Durslade Farm to the heart of Mayfair
The secret garden in Regent’s Park, seasonal suggestions and Matthew Williamson’s London
Carla Passino meets Norman Foster, the architect who helped shape the capital
Robert Crossan visits the historic American bars that offer a taste of the US on this side of the pond

Nick Trend’s favourite painting

The art historian picks a steely-eyed painting that signalled the invention of the self-portrait

At Canaan’s Edge

Carla Carlisle ponders the story of the Promised Land and hopes that common sense prevails

A local revival

The future is bright for Lytham Hall after locals stepped in to save the house at the heart of the Lancashire estate, as John Martin Robinson discovers

A nightingale sang…

Tiffany Daneff visits a garden in Kent planted for wildlife and surrounded by new woodland

Native breeds

Kate Green admires the hardy Lincoln Red, a low-input rare breed that produces quality beef

Stranger things

From horn dancing to burning barrels and cheese rolling, Harry Pearson delves into weird and wonderful British folk festivals

You’re a dark horse

The black horse is a symbol of strength and courage. Celia Brayfield gallops through the history of the fabled steed

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson savours the turnip’s sweet and nutty flavour, perfect with scallops

Travel

Jo Rodgers follows in the foot-steps of the Durrells in Corfu
Welcoming, home-from-home villas
Pamela Goodman pedals off the beaten cycle path

Speak like a Georgian

Know your ‘fubbs’ from your ‘fizzle’ — Matthew Dennison investigates 18th-century slang

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Culture & Politics: The Drift Magazine – Fall 2023

October 30, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Drift Magazine – Fall 2023 Issue – Essays on dissidents, ecoterrorists, and mermaids; an interview with Veronica Gago, Dispatches on the future of the Supreme Court; also fiction, poetry, reviews and more…

Architecture, Buildings, Design, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Design: The Architectural Review – November 2023

October 30, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Architectural Review (November 2023) – The November issue of The Architectural Review showcases the shortlisted architects of the 2023 AR Emerging awards, who are leading the way in careful adaptive reuse and ecological ways of building around the world. But emerging into an industry that is overly reliant on unpaid labour and race-to-the-bottom fee structures has always been difficult.

Since these conditions are rarely discussed, this issue is also dedicated to ‘beginnings’ and their paradoxes: ‘you are supposed to begin knowing something but also doing something completely new,’ writes Renee Gladman in the Keynote. Taking in napkin sketches, competitions, references and photographs, AR November 2023 serves a useful reminder that others came before, and that the beginning is behind us.

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Nov 6, 2023

October 30, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

People walk by The Cube at Astor Place at night.

The New Yorker – November 6, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features Jorge Colombo’s “Astor Place” – The artist discusses landmarks and his own New York City.

Why Maui Burned

A burned vehicle is seen through the branches of a tree.

Lahaina’s wildfire was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. Now the community is grappling with the botched response as it tries to rebuild.

By Carolyn Kormann

At 4 p.m. on August 8th, Shaun Saribay’s family begged him to get in their car and leave the town of Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The wind was howling, and large clouds of smoke were approaching from the dry hills above the neighborhood. But Saribay—a tattooist, a contractor, and a landlord, who goes by the nickname Buge—told his family that he was staying to guard their house, which had been in the family for generations. “This thing just gonna pass that way, downwind,” Saribay said. At 4:05 p.m., one of his daughters texted from the car, “Daddy please be safe.”

In the Cities of Killing

Mourners carry multiple coffins in a line. Two busses are in the background.

The Hamas massacre, the assaults on Gaza, and what comes after.

By David Remnick

The only way to tell this story is to try to tell it truthfully and to know that you will fail.

On the evening of Wednesday, October 18th, with the entire Middle East in a state of mourning and outrage, I took a taxi to the information offices of the Israel Defense Forces, a heavily guarded compound in northwest Tel Aviv. Like many reporters, I’d accepted an invitation to see video evidence of the worst massacre of Jews in generations, certainly in the history of Israel—Hamas’s rampage through Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Be’eri, and other communities near the Gaza Strip, extending to an outdoor electronic-music festival, Nova. At last count, the attack throughout what Israelis call Otef Aza—“the Gaza envelope”—had claimed some fourteen hundred lives; thousands were wounded, and around two hundred and twenty people had been kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. Hamas gave the operation a name, the Al-Aqsa Flood.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Holbein And The Renaissance In The North

October 29, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

*Salome with the Head of John the Baptist* (detail; c. 1520–24), Andrea Solario. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

Apollo Magazine (October 27, 2023) – This exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt places work by Hans Holbein the Younger and the Elder, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Burgkmair in dialogue with that of their contemporaries working in the city of Augsburg and elsewhere in Germany, and in Italy and the Netherlands (2 November–18 February 2024).

Holbein and the Renaissance in the North

2 Nov 2023 – 18 Feb 2024

“The Städel Museum is prized far and wide for its major Old Masters exhibitions. After Rubens, Rembrandt and Reni, it now holds yet another exceptional show in store for the public. The Städel Museum is presenting the Renaissance in the North—a new and entirely unique style of painting that originated more than 500 years ago in the North of Europe at the threshold from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period.“
Philipp Demandt, Director, Städel Museum

It brings together some 130 painting, drawings and prints by leading artists of the Northern Renaissance dating from the period of the 1480s through to the 1530s. These include two masterpieces by Holbein the Younger – the Solothurn Madonna (1522), on loan from the Kunstmuseum Solothurn, and The Madonna of Jacob Meyer zum Hasen (1526–28) from the Würth Collection.

Find out more on the Städel’s website.

Foreign Affairs, Government, Politics, Reviews, Society, Videos

Turkey At 100 – Ataturk’s Dream & Erdogan’s Reality

Video October 29, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

DW News (October 29, 2023) – Turkey is celebrating its 100th birthday. Events are taking place across the country to mark the anniversary of its founding.

In the capital Ankara, Pesident Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid a wreath at the mausoleum dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founder, who created a modern, secular republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

The centennial is also a personal milestone for Erdogan, who has been in power for more than 20 years. But challenges loom large as Turkey looks to the future. More from our correspondent Julia Hahn in Istanbul.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Reviews

Books: World Literature Today – November 2023

October 29, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

World Literature Today (October 29, 2023) – The latest issue features 4 Artists of Iraqi Descent – Achieving recognition in the Diaspora; Cornel West’s prophetic witness; Traveling Mexico City’s Body by Metro; The Cheikh Bookstore – One of the Few Still Standing in Algeria, and more…