She rules

11/5/2009 7:33:00 AM

Sometimes a portrait has a hypnotic effect - you cannot escape from its gaze. One such portrait of Elisabeth I hangs now in the National Portrait Gallery of Washington. When in town, go check it out. Photographs don't do it justice. They just don't make queens like her no more.

http://www.marileecody.com/gloriana/elizabethclopton.jpg

The bright side of life

10/23/2009 12:43:00 AM

Monty Python was instrumental in the liberation of my generation. After seeing them, we never looked at a policeman, a teacher or a priest the same way again. A recent documentary on them leaves a strange, bittersweet aftertaste. What a drag it is getting old.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-monty-python18-2009oct18,0,4352012.story

The scheme of things

10/16/2009 7:35:00 AM

Dan Brown has made it all up. There is no such conspiracy, just a bunch of old men.

But Murray Gell-Mann exposed the real conspiracy 15 years ago: the whole universe is out to get us. His book "The Quark and the Jaguar" renders all other books redundant.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review--quantum-leap-of-model-professor-the-quark-and-the-jaguar--murray-gellman-little-brown-1899-pounds-1414474.html

Keats and Yeats are on your side

10/2/2009 12:57:00 AM

I think the time is ripe for an Irish poem:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

- William Butler Yeats, 1920

The road to recovery

9/18/2009 7:50:00 AM

Can you describe the economic situation in less than 50 words? Me neither. Well, Tom Toles can. Maybe the Fed should hire him.

http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2009/09/13

Post it

9/1/2009 1:29:00 AM

Tony Judt deserves all the praise he got for his monumental book, "Postwar". It covers everything and spares no-one. I hope it's translated into Russian soon.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview4

TV art

7/31/2009 6:02:00 AM

I'm glad to note that Arte.tv is shaking its reputation as the channel where professors talk about Franco-German history. Putting a bunch of jazz musicians in a studio and asking them to cover '80s classics sounds like a recipe for disaster but they managed to pull it off. It's rare to hear such natural groove in pop music these days, thanks to the industry discipline.

http://www.arte.tv/fr/Echappees-culturelles/Nighting-Eighties/2765006.html

She bangs the drums

7/17/2009 2:00:00 AM

Just when I thought that all fun had disappeared from pop, out come The Ting Tings. They are so much fun to watch and a good reminder that popular music is basically about dance and sex.

http://www.thetingtings.com

Walkman fever

7/9/2009 1:20:00 AM

No better way to spend a summer Sunday than listening to old cassettes. With the right gear they can sound great - lush, organic, warm. Things started to go wrong when B sides went out of production.

http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-d6c

Box magic

7/3/2009 1:16:00 AM

God bless bands who still have the guts to put all their production in a CD box. Freaks like me can spend hours with them. Time stops and your mind flies into some quiet Nordic town, waking up slowly.

Kent Box 1991-2008 is a masterpiece. And Joakim Berg is one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. The non-Swedophones don't know what they're missing.

http://www.kentjunkie.com/box1991_2008.htm