Happy New Year from yours truly, here in Paris for just a few hours more…

Goodbye to a class act.
Here’s the climactic scene from The Hustler (1961) in which Newman had his first great role. A fine mix of self-confidence and vulnerability. And then there’s the slightly surreal egg-eating scene from Cool Hand Luke (1967), in which he interestingly, and quite hilariously, subverts his own macho image.

… er som ventet ikke særlig god; her en lynhurtig spontananmeldelse i kølvandet på gallapremieren, som min søster havde været så elskværdig at invitere mig med til:
Men lidt sjov er der dog: inkluderingen af en astronaut med indvandrerbaggrund åbner for en del relativt morsomme indslag om integration, Muhammed-krise og den slags, og enkelte gagscener er […]

My man Lars has started an English version of the sterling German graffiti blog, I Love Graffiti. And he has hit the ground running, blogging several posts a day and neatly providing both writers and enthusiasts with a one-stop entry point to the world of graffiti and related arts. He is amongst the foremost authorities […]

Det virker som var det i en anden tidsalder, men første gang jeg var på Rubadub var der 20 mennesker, maximum. De var spredt rundt i lokalet; nogle hang i baren, andre stenede i de midt på dansegulvet anbragte sofaer og en ensom Hydepark stod oppe på scenen og spillede reggae, som så mange gange […]

In an interview, Kurt Westergaard regrets his appearance at the Danish People’s Party’s annual convention. He states that he “understands the principle that employees of independent media shouldn’t identify themselves with a political party“. But at the same time he complains that people make “primitive identifications” when someone — himself — speaks to different people, […]

The picks of the week from around the web.
The Nation. D.D. Guttenplan: “An Inky, Well-Paneled Place” — a thoroughly informed review of recent books on comics by David Hajdu and Douglas Wolk that situates its criticism in the broader context of the cultural history of comics. Why is there still little writing of this calibre […]

Today, Kurt Westergaard — the (in)famous cartoonist behind the most disputed cartoon/drawing of the 21st Century — delivered a speech at The Danish People’s Party’s annual convention. Westergaard’s appearance was a total surprise; even his bosses at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten weren’t informed (internal policy at Jyllands-Posten forbid its employees from participating in organized political affairs). […]

To me, Richard Wright was the George Harrison of Pink Floyd - a very underestimated part of the band’s success whose contributions were unjustly overshadowed in many ways by those of the two leading figures in the band. Yet, his work was a significant part of the Pink Floyd-magic, and they would not in a […]

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but since I’ve been away and all, I haven’t had the time to process this. It’s a rather major development in the British Museum world that could end up either to the great benefit or even greater detriment to the museum-going public. Basically, the Duke of Sutherland, who owns what […]

“…you’re apt to find your thoughts returning again and again to a certain dark box in a certain Hilton half a world and three careers away, to the torture and fear and offer of reprieve and a certain Young Voter named John McCain’s refusal to violate a Code. Because there were no techs’ cameras in […]

Published last week, the cartoon by Zapiro reproduced above has caused strong controversy in South Africa, indicting as it does not only ANC president Jacob Zuma and his allies, but implicitly the country’s justice system, which in a chillingly poignant twist of events has just thrown out of court on procedural grounds the charges of […]