La Tomatina festival in Buñol, a town in eastern Spain, began in 1945 but was banned for much of General Franco’s regime. Last year, 22,000 attendees threw about 150 tonnes of ripe tomatoes
Continue reading...Category Archives: Culture
Dave Chappelle under fire for discrediting Michael Jackson accusers in Netflix special
Standup comedian also takes aim at callout culture that sees public figures held to account by audiences
Dave Chappelle has come under fire for his latest Netflix special in which he claims he does not believe Michael Jackson sexually assaulted young boys, and makes jokes at the expense of Jackson’s accusers.
In a standup set that seemed designed to provoke precisely the backlash that it was critiquing, Chappelle took aim at a prevailing callout culture that sees celebrities being held to account by audiences and in the media for perceived or actual crimes and for the offensive things they say.
Continue reading...Notting Hill carnival 2019 day two – photo essay
Photographer Anselm Ebulue found revellers feeling hot, hot, hot on the festival’s scorching second day
As temperatures soared to over 30C (86F) in London, the tempo picked up at the Notting Hill carnival – and so did the costumes. The elaborate handmade outfits known as mas – short for masquerade – are at the heart of the annual spectacular.
Continue reading...Silver, Sword and Stone review: much blood shed, little improvement
Jefferson saw Latin America dominated by ‘priests and kings’. Marie Arana’s history is similarly dark – and that’s problematic
Writing in 1811, during the early rumblings of the Spanish American independence movements, Thomas Jefferson harboured little optimism about the “great field of political experiment [that] is opening in our neighbourhood”. He did not believe the people of South and Central America were capable of establishing successful republics.
Related: El Norte review: an epic and timely history of Hispanic North America
Continue reading...Bollywood to depict Indian air strikes on Pakistan over Kashmir bombing
Vivek Oberoi movie will tell ‘true story’ of reprisals after February attack in which 40 Indian troops were killed
Bollywood is to make a movie based on the “true story” of Indian air strikes on Pakistan this year, its producer said, the latest patriotic film to hit the silver screen.
The 26 February attack took place after a suicide bombing claimed by a militant group based in Pakistan killed 40 Indian troops on 14 February in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Continue reading...Taylor Swift: Trump thinks his presidency is an autocracy
Exclusive: songwriter discusses her political awakening in a Guardian interview
Taylor Swift has spoken of her disillusionment with American values in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
The 29-year-old songwriter said she began feeling conflicted about what the US stood for when “all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked”. The Pennsylvania-born musician described the atmosphere in her home country as “gaslighting the American public into being like, ‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’”
Continue reading...Taylor Swift’s great re-recording plot: icy revenge or a pointless setback?
As a swipe at Scooter Braun, the singer will recreate her first six albums from scratch. But her plan ignores one of music’s vital truths
Let’s assume it can be done, even though we don’t know. Let’s take Taylor Swift’s word for it when she says she is going to rerecord the six albums she recorded for the Big Machine label before signing to Republic/Universal last autumn. Let’s presume her contract with Big Machine did not contain clauses preventing soundalike re-recordings, or prevent her from taking new runs at old tracks until a certain time period had elapsed.
The news came in a preview for her interview on Good Morning America, scheduled to air this Sunday, in which Tracy Smith asked if she was planning to make new versions of all her masters. “Oh yeah,” Swift replied. “That’s a plan?” Smith asked. “Yeah, absolutely.” She has said that recording will commence in November 2020. “I’m going to be busy,” she told Smith.
Continue reading...My best shot: Rena Effendi on haymaking in Transylvania
‘The light was soft … They were so graceful. They are the last peasants, the last of their kind’
In 2012, I travelled to Transylvania to document what is effectively the last remaining bucolic landscape of Europe. England, for example, has lost most of its hay meadows because of large-scale agriculture, but in Romania this kind of small-scale sustainable way of farming persists. It survived the Ceaușescu regime. It survived the EU. Today, however, it is a vanishing way of life as young people increasingly choose to migrate to western Europe in search of work and faster money.
I spent three weeks in Maramureş in the northern Carpathian mountains, exploring life in six tiny hamlets, each with no more than 500 inhabitants. It was August, the height of the haymaking season. Families worked in the fields from dawn to dusk. These women were from a village called Breb. I saw their haystacks from the road as my translator and I drove past. I shouted “stop!” and ran out of the car towards them. They smiled at me, but we didn’t talk, they just carried on with what they were doing. It was late in the day, and they were getting ready to go home. The women wear trousers to make hay because the wind blows their skirts up. Here, they were putting their headscarves and their traditional skirts back on. Then they gathered their baskets, in which they’d brought their lunch, and walked back to the village. I followed. The light was very soft, and the shadows long.
Cutting hay and stacking it is physically demanding, I tried doing it myself and failed miserably
Continue reading...Is James Bond about to die? What the new 007 title might mean
The 25th outing for the superspy is called No Time to Die, which brings up a number of different theories
It has been a long road to get to the title of Bond 25. For a while the film was variously rumoured to be Eclipse (too generic), A Reason to Die (too much like low-hanging fruit for bored critics) and Shatterhand (too much like a worryingly graphic description of someone trying to manually catch their own diarrhoea). But now, finally, the truth is out. The next James Bond film will officially be called No Time to Die.
Related: No Time to Die: 25th James Bond film gets a title
Continue reading...Home and Away star Ben Unwin dies aged 41
Actor, who played Jesse McGregor in the soap and directed Chumbawumba’s Tubthumping video, was found dead last week
Home and Away actor Ben Unwin has died aged 41, New South Wales police have confirmed.
The actor, who appeared as cult character Jesse McGregor in the long-running soap opera, was found dead close to Australia’s eastern Gold Coast on 14 August. The cause of death is currently unknown.
Continue reading...Unesco urged to remove Belgian festival from heritage list over ‘savage’ in blackface
Anti-racism activists across Europe call four-day carnival in Ath an ‘act of symbolic violence towards black communities’
Anti-racism campaigners have called on Unesco to remove a Belgian folklore festival from its cultural heritage list unless organisers stop parading characters in blackface.
The four-day carnival in the Belgian town of Ath, which gets under way on Friday, will feature “the savage”, a white man in blackface, who wears a chain around his neck and a ring through his nose. According to the official festival website, “the ‘savage’, chained and agitated, testifies to the taste for the exotic of the 19th century”.
Continue reading...Life after apartheid: images from the new South Africa
Thabiso Sekgala’s solo show features work taken by the late South African photographer offering nuanced, alternative narratives about life in contemporary Africa. His work focused on the idea of home and the personal, political or economic conditions that determine our relationship to it.
Continue reading...De Niro’s company sues ex-employee for $6m for embezzlement and Netflix bingeing
Canal Productions alleges Chase Robinson accrued enormous hotel and Uber bills as well as watching TV during working hours
Chase Robinson, who until recently held a senior role in Robert De Niro’s film production company, has been sued by her employer for $6m.
According to Variety, who have seen papers filed in a state court on Saturday, Robinson – whose most recent position was vice-president of production and finance at Canal Productions – is accused of embezzling money and wasting time during office hours watching television shows.
Continue reading...‘Terrifying’ hand sculpture flies in to give Wellington nightmares
‘Monstrous’ and ‘malevolent’ sculpture Quasi alarms office workers and divides opinion
A “terrifying” five-metre tall sculpture of a hand with a face has been flown in from the South Island to perch on top of a contemporary art gallery in the New Zealand capital of Wellington.
It fixes passers by with a disapproving expression. Meant to liven up the Civic Square that was damaged in a 2016 earthquake, the work has instead alarmed and terrified locals, who have described the work as “a Lovecraftian nightmare [that] has come to life”.
Continue reading...George RR Martin: ‘Game of Thrones finishing is freeing, I’m at my own pace’
The TV series may have reached its conclusion, but with two books to finish as well as a host of spinoff projects, the writer of the novel series that spawned it is busier than ever
If George RR Martin could be granted one wish, it would be for more time. The bestselling author of the Song of Ice and Fire saga, the books that became television phenomenon Game of Thrones, is in London for a talk with historian Dan Jones about his most recent work, Fire and Blood, an imagined history of the Targaryen family (the all-conquering ancestors of dragon queen Daenerys), before heading to the science-fiction event Worldcon in Dublin.
Yet, at the back of his mind, is the work still to come. The Winds of Winter, the sixth and penultimate book in Ice and Fire, has to be finished and the seventh, A Dream of Spring, to be written. Then there’s a couple of Dunk and Egg stories set in the same world to complete. (Lighter in tone, he saw them as palate cleansers between “the big mega-books” but then “fell behind with everything, so now I’m just trying to think about the next thing immediately in front of me”.)
Continue reading...Peter Fonda, celebrated actor known for Easy Rider, dies aged 79
Son of Henry Fonda and brother of Jane Fonda died after battling lung cancer, family says
The actor Peter Fonda has died at the age of 79 following a battle with lung cancer, his family has said.
Fonda, who co-wrote, produced and starred in the classic 1969 road movie Easy Rider, died peacefully at his home in Los Angeles on Friday, his family said in a statement.
Continue reading...Disney’s Mulan star sparks call for boycott with Hong Kong stance
Crystal Liu, the lead in Disney’s live-action remake, voiced support for police in the city
Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan is facing calls for a boycott after its star voiced support for police in Hong Kong.
Crystal Liu, also known as Liu Yifei, reportedly posted a message on the Chinese social media site Weibo, which translated as: “I also support Hong Kong police. You can beat me up now.” In English, the post added: “What a shame for Hong Kong.”
Continue reading...‘Does a dog know art can disappear?’ Surrealism and subsidence in Mexico City
The illustrated city: Its main arts institution may be sinking, but the city’s influence on artists and thinkers from Carrington to Trotsky cannot be so easily erased
Continue reading...White professor investigated for quoting James Baldwin’s use of N-word
Laurie Sheck, who teaches at the New School, says inquiry followed a complaint that she had discussed Baldwin’s use of the slur
The Pulitzer-nominated poet Laurie Sheck, a professor at the New School in New York City, is being investigated by the university for using the N-word during a discussion about James Baldwin’s use of the racial slur.
The investigation has been condemned by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Fire), which is calling on the New School to drop the “misguided” case because it “warns faculty and students that good-faith engagement with difficult political, social, and academic questions will result in investigation and possible discipline”.
Continue reading...‘Groovy, groovy, groovy’: listening to Woodstock 50 years on – all 38 discs
It was a blueprint for Live Aid and every mega-festival since. We survey a new archive box set – in full – to uncover the real story of these ‘three days of peace and music’
A few weeks back, my Twitter feed was suddenly clogged with misty-eyed reminiscences of Live Aid. It is now generally regarded as a white saviour festival of mostly dreadful music. Still, there’s much nostalgic love for Tony Hadley’s leather trench coat, and Queen’s alarming “no time for losers” philosophy. I lived through it; I remembered how a bunch of craven, ageing rock stars fell over themselves to reboot their careers. OK, I was 21, and cynical, but I was there for it, watching it all unfold on TV. I understand it.Woodstock – which celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend – was a primitive blueprint for Live Aid, and every mega-festival since. Its cultural weight has risen and fallen over the decades – depending on who you talk to, it was either the pinnacle of 1960s counterculture or the rain-sodden end of a dream. I was four years old. The soundtrack album would be in friends’ houses in the 70s, and the movie seemed to be on TV every year, so I’m part of a generation that thinks it knows Woodstock without having been there. But the movie is incomplete and out of sequence – some of the story is as fictionalised as Bohemian Rhapsody.
Out this month is a 50th anniversary archive box set – all 38 CDs of it – which presents the festival in something approximating real time. Folk-blues singer Richie Havens, who opened the event while almost every other act was stuck in traffic, would later claim he “played for nearly three hours … I sang every song I knew!” We now know he only played for 45 minutes. This is an audio vérité documentary, right down to the on-stage announcements: “Eric Klinnenberg, please call home … Dennis Dache, please call your wife … Karen from Poughkeepsie, please meet Harold at the stand with the blood pills …” I listened to all 38 discs in sequence, over three days.
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