How can a community keep in touch when it can’t physically be together? A group of performers have set up what they say is the first global cabaret to tackle the social isolation of coronavirus lockdowns. Getting ready for the show, activist Dan Glass says there is a lot to learn from his own HIV diagnosis, which left him socially isolated for years
Continue reading...Category Archives: Culture
Haifaa Al-Mansour: ‘Female leaders are crushed. Look at Hillary Clinton’
The Saudi Arabian director directed her first film, Wadjda, hiding in the back of a van on the streets of Riyadh. Now her latest, The Perfect Candidate, is opening doors in Hollywood
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s latest film, The Perfect Candidate, opens with a doctor in her 20s driving to work. In any other film you wouldn’t register the fact that she’s behind the wheel. But this woman, dressed in a black abaya and niqab, is in Saudi Arabia, which until 2018 banned women from driving. Al-Mansour added the scene as a punch-the-air moment for female audiences in Saudi Arabia, an invite to a collective whoop of victory. “I know that in the west this seems like common-sense stuff,” she says. “But I think they’ve really helped women to see themselves as an independent people.” She fixes me with an earnest look, to see if I get it. “For younger professional women, it’s huge, because it gives them control over their destiny.”
Al-Mansour is Saudi Arabia’s first female director. In 2011, she shot her debut, Wadjda, hiding in the back of a van. It would have been impossible for a woman to be seen openly on the street giving orders to men. So, she kept out of sight and used a walkie-talkie (“But I’m sure you could hear my voice all over Riyadh. ‘Do that!’ ‘Pull the camera back!’”) The film was gorgeous, a funny, big-hearted story about a gobby 10-year-old girl who would stop at nothing to get her hands on a bike. Al-Mansour shrugged off the death threats (“One of them told me they had a coffin ready for me”). Spend five minutes in her company and you are struck by her optimistic energy.
Continue reading...South Korea’s booming drive-ins – in pictures
Box office numbers for drive-in cinemas in Seoul, South Korea, are on the rise as people find a way to avoid crowds during the coronavirus outbreak
Continue reading...Kanye West likens backlash over support for Trump to racial profiling
Rapper says anger over his views reminds him of racial assumptions he once faced: ‘You’re black, so you’re a Democrat’
Kanye West has reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump, whom he has previously called “his brother”, in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal.
West says people make assumptions about his political views because of his race, automatically assuming he would disagree with Trump’s views.
Continue reading...Don’t panic: the best books to help us survive a crisis
Joe Moran looks at books on how to keep calm in times of adversity - and take joy where we find it
The coronavirus has put life on hold. In this time of fractured human contact and fear of the unknown, we need to read authors who will embolden us for the hard season ahead, while also offering a calming sense of perspective.
Eula Biss’s book-length essay On Immunity does the trick. She begins with the story of Achilles, whose mother dipped him in the river Styx only to leave the vulnerable spot on his heel where she held him. The story’s moral, in Biss’s words, is that “immunity is a myth … and no mortal can ever be made invulnerable”. And yet she admits that she found this message hard to accept after the birth of her son in 2009 – especially when, shortly afterwards, the swine flu epidemic began. Biss explores how hard it is for even the most clear-eyed of us not to succumb to panic and dread.
Continue reading...Urgent action needed as rise in porn site traffic raises abuse fears, say MPs
Pornhub is using coronavirus lockdowns to promote and drive traffic to its site – but campaigners raise alarm over criminal and non-consensual videos
MPs and campaigners are calling for urgent action to stop videos of rape, revenge porn and child abuse being posted on Pornhub as traffic to the site booms amid a worldwide Covid-19 lockdown.
Worldwide Pornhub’s traffic is up a record 12% this March compared to February as millions of people across the world are told to stay in their homes.
Continue reading...Illustrator Albert Uderzo drew me in to Asterix’s world with deftness and care
The way Uderzo’s comic book panels progressed from rudimentary was an important lesson for a child
Asterix has been part of our lives for nearly 60 years, and of mine for nearly 50. I still remember my immediate assent to René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s world: it seemed right and fine that a Gaulish village should still hold out against the Roman invader, that combat should be determined by punch-ups in which no one is killed, that a shrewd, plucky and resourceful warrior should be best friends with a big lunk about three times his size. It also made sense that the chief of the village (never named, just “the village”) should be a henpecked figure of fun (albeit as brave as anyone when in a tight corner) and that the druid should be a venerable, white-bearded figure whose wisdom derived, in great part, from a delicious sense of the absurd.
The British are satirised with an affection that borders on love
Continue reading...Woody Allen: ‘I would welcome Dylan Farrow back with open arms’
Director says in new memoir that not raising his adopted daughter after abuse allegations – which he denies – was ‘one of the saddest things’ of his life
Woody Allen has written that he “would welcome Dylan [Farrow] with open arms if she’d ever want to reach out”, in his recently published memoir Apropos of Nothing.
In extracts published in the New York Times, Allen writes: “One of the saddest things of my life was that I was deprived of the years of raising Dylan and could only dream about showing her Manhattan and the joys of Paris and Rome. To this day, Soon-Yi [Previn] and I would welcome Dylan with open arms if she’d ever want to reach out to us as Moses [Farrow] did, but so far that’s still only a dream.”
Continue reading...Rihanna: where to start in her back catalogue
In Listener’s Digest, our writers help you explore the work of great pop musicians. As fans eagerly await the album known as R9, here’s a guide to pop superstar Rihanna
Rated R (2009)
Continue reading...Manu Dibango, Cameroon jazz-funk star, dies aged 86 of coronavirus
Musician who influenced Michael Jackson dies in Paris hospital from Covid-19 infection
Manu Dibango, the Cameroonian musician celebrated for his blend of jazz, funk and traditional west African styles, has died aged 86 in a Paris hospital after contracting Covid-19.
A message on his Facebook page announced the news with “deep sadness”, and added: “His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organised when possible.”
Continue reading...Asterix creator Albert Uderzo dies at 92
French comic-book artist, who created Asterix with the writer René Goscinny, dies at home ‘from a heart attack unrelated to the coronavirus’
Asterix illustrator Albert Uderzo has died at the age of 92, his family has announced.
The French comic book artist, who created the beloved Asterix comics in 1959 with the writer René Goscinny, died on Tuesday. He “died in his sleep at his home in Neuilly from a heart attack unrelated to the coronavirus. He had been very tired for several weeks,” his son-in-law Bernard de Choisy told AFP.
Continue reading...Woody Allen memoir published in US after protest stops first attempt
The controversial film director’s autobiography Apropos of Nothing had been dropped by its original publisher
Woody Allen’s memoir, dropped by its original publisher after widespread criticism, has found a new home.
The 400-page book, still called Apropos of Nothing, was released on Monday by Arcade Publishing.
Continue reading...Childish Gambino: 3.15.20 review – at the peak of the zeitgeist
The actor, comedian and musician Donald Glover has made the first truly outstanding album of the decade, offsetting cultural examinations with moments of sweet levity
In hindsight, music has always been Donald Glover’s true calling. Before the sitcoms, the Star Wars movie, the Saturday Night Live hosting gigs, and the well-worn gifs of the performer walking horrified into a burning room with a stack of pizza boxes, you could find him on YouTube as a member of Derrick Comedy. The group’s greatest sketch, B-Boy Stance, saw Glover play an ageing hip-hop pioneer who had his arms surgically attached to his back, ensuring he was forever pulling the iconic pose – it riffs on the distance between the New York acolytes who witnessed the birth of hip-hop and those who came to the music after it was commodified. Glover’s understanding of American culture shines with diamond clarity; Atlanta, his comedy-drama that goes deep into the city’s rap scene, is the evolution of those ideas.
Glover’s early forays into rap were corny and forgettable. The Childish Gambino project felt like the side hustle of a talented kid eager to test every limit of his creativity – that the moniker was taken from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator seemed to reflect how low it fell on his list of priorities. In 2016, the funk record Awaken, My Love! was an artistic breakthrough. Then came 2017’s vicious This Is America and a video that encapsulates the racial prejudice, police brutality and vicious gun lust freezing the soul of the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world. The clip became a pop cultural juggernaut, anointing Glover as spokesman for the Black Lives Matter generation.
Continue reading...Mali music star Rokia Traoré on hunger strike after ‘kidnapping’ arrest
Musicians including Damon Albarn and Salif Keita call for release of singer, who is in an international battle over custody of her daughter
There are growing concerns for the health of Rokia Traoré, the internationally celebrated Malian singer, who has been on hunger strike at the Fleury-Mérogis prison near Paris since she was arrested on 10 March on allegations of kidnapping her daughter in a child-custody dispute.
Her lawyer, Kenneth Feliho, said: “I am very worried. She is only drinking. She has not been eating for over a week and her immune system is weak.”
Continue reading...A Citizen’s Guide to Beating Donald Trump review: dispatches from a time before the virus
David Plouffe went to the White House with Obama then predicted a Clinton victory. Has he learned from that reverse? Have we?
On Tuesday, Joe Biden and his juggernaut left Bernie Sanders’ dream in tatters. The former vice-president swept primaries in Arizona, Florida and Illinois. Fact: Sanders looks a lot less appealing without Hillary Clinton to kick around.
Related: MBS review: why Trump and the west took a pass on the Khashoggi killing
Continue reading...How shopping and Sinatra are helping in coronavirus isolation
People from all walks of life are mobilising to support those coping with isolation
Amy Tan is preparing to burst into song with two fellow musicians on a deserted street in Acton, west London.
“We’ll do anything by Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald – the Rat Pack,” she says. “Or maybe they would like a song by Elton John or the Beatles?”
Continue reading...Kenny Rogers, country music star, dies aged 81
Representatives of Rogers’ family said the singer died peacefully at home from natural causes
Kenny Rogers, the American country music star with hits popular across the world, has died of natural causes at the age of 81 at his home in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
The husky voice and down-home narrative style of Rogers won him three Grammy awards and put him at the top of the American music business for more than four decades. The tracks he made famous, such as Lucille and Islands in the Stream, have been karaoke standards for almost as long.
Continue reading...Duffy debuts first new music since rape ordeal revelation
Welsh star’s song Something Beautiful played on Radio 2 to ‘lift spirits during these troubling times’
Duffy, the pop star who recently said she retreated from public life due to a kidnap and rape ordeal, has debuted her first new music since the announcement.
Related: Duffy has made peace. But social media won't let her
Continue reading...David Bowie’s 50 greatest songs – ranked!
What more could you ask for, at this bizarre, unnerving and outlandish time, than a roundup of the greatest hits of one of the most bizarre, unnerving and outlandish musicians of all time
A rejected single finally released on a 1970 cash-in compilation, Bowie’s first collaboration with the producer Tony Visconti is better than anything on his debut album. Driven by acoustic guitar, its sound points the way ahead and there’s something appealingly odd, even sinister about the lyrical come-ons: “Wear the dress your mother wore.”
Continue reading...PlayStation 5 specifications revealed – but design is still a mystery
Sony confirms custom AMD RDNA 2 graphic processor, solid state drive and innovative 3D audio – without showing the new console
Sony has revealed the full technical specifications of its PlayStation 5 console.
In a blogpost, followed by a lengthy online technical briefing by lead system architect Mark Cerny, the company confirmed that the machine will feature custom versions of AMD’s Zen 2 central processor and RDNA 2 graphics unit, the latter operating at 10.28 Tflops. System memory will be 16GB. The machine will support advanced visual effects such as real-time ray tracing and will have a solid state drive (SSD).
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