The mold was set quite young. In his famous “Moose” routine from his stand-up days, Woody Allen displays many sides to his both charming and harming love-hate relationship with himself and those who are described as fans.The Moose has been shot, is bleeding profusely yet Allen brings him to a masquerade party. Allen is a [...]
Princess and Prince Harming with a noose around their neck, gently twisting in the wind on a gallows pole of our imagination. Woody Allen is the unlikely bourreau, the bespeckled anti-hangman with his obliquely absurd message on love after pulling the lever or flipping the switch of execution: “To love is to suffer. To avoid [...]
His every pronouncement creates a media circus. He is a baron of mass media and one of its anti-heroes. Silvio Berlusconi did not get to exchange kisses with Michelle Obama at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh last week and had to settle for an arms length handshake. Effectively, the snub by ”Lady Macbeth” served her [...]
Advertising has long been adept at depicting the bad guys and the new series of commercials for Ally Bank ( formerly GMAC) have stretched the villain and child combination to Hansel and Gretel proportions. Created by Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty, the spots make a conscious attempt to appear vintage and the use of the candid [...]
”The problem, he argues, is the nearly psychotic need to satisfy every human craving. It infects every aspect of American life, from the loss of cultural nuance to the growth of pornography to spending beyond one’s means.” ‘The danger of a country such as mine, which lives in a state of illusion, is that you [...]
London landmark ,Hyde Park’s first new drinking fountain in 30 years will undoubtedly create competition and draw traffic from Speaker’s Corner , that institution of generally absurd or foul mouthed pronouncements on any subject worth throwing money into a hat for.A thirsty Marx, Lenin or George Orwell refreshing the palette before amusing the listener with [...]
The war as a reliable barometer on the viability of the arts and cultural memory. The relationship bewteen culture and memory is no more pronounced than it was in wartime London where, due to circumstances beyond control there was a necessity of the more favored classes to interact with lower and working class Londoners since [...]
During the war, when the BBC played Vera Lynn’s The White Cliffs of Dover, the German guns , installed in France, opened fire on Dover. In the finalscene of Doctor Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick, a bombardment secene perversely enacted to the music of We’ll Meet Again, inverting the meaning of love with a message of [...]
”Like all heroic tales, the story is an intertwining of many lives, including Grace Bradley, a 12 year-old girl who fell in love with a charismatic silent film star and ten years later fulfilled her childhood vow to marry him, and William Boyd, a fading actor inspired by love and gratitude to dedicate his life [...]
A massive chess set with 6 feet tall ceramic paces created by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon. Called ”The Tornament” the pieces sit inTrafalgar square, like medeival jousters; under the watchful gaze of the statue of Lord Nelson as the admiral plots his next move in a Waterloo of wits in in which the board represents [...]
