Britain’s First Street Artist

“A while ago, a friend of mine from Lancashire asked if I knew where Alvin Stardust was born. She had a vague childhood memory of seeing a huge mural of the 70s star, the size of a whole house, on the end of a terrace in Bury. I checked and found out that Stardust – whose real name was Bernard Jewry [aka Walter Kershaw] – was born in London and grew up in Nottingham.”

Is Paul Taylor The Last Of The Great Modern Choreographers?

Marina Harss: “Sadly, that characterization is probably true: Martha Graham died in 1991, and Merce Cunningham in 2009. Who else is there? The dance world has moved on. Rare is the choreographer who builds a unique, personal vocabulary of movement, a signature style brought into play in piece after piece, or who can sustain a regular stable of dancers.”

The Movie The Muslim World Is Furious About Might Not Really Exist

The only actual footage of the slanderous anti-Muhammad “biopic” Innocence of Muslims anyone can find is a 14-minute online video of clips. The action is awkwardly shot against a green screen; all references to Muhammad and Islam are clumsily dubbed in; the actors involved maintain they were working from a script titled Desert Warriors about a figure called “Master George.”

Free Pussy Riot, Says Russian Prime Minister

“Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday called for three members of the punk band Pussy Riot to be freed … The outward appearance of the women, who perform in bright-colored miniskirts and balaclavas, and the ‘hysteria’ accompanying them made him sick, Medvedev said with disdain. But he said keeping them in prison any longer would be ‘unproductive’.”

Addicted To Addiction (Oh Yes, It Happens)

“This argument is almost as old as addiction research itself. From the field’s beginnings in the early 20th century, two factions have been at war: those convinced that addiction is about an uncontrollable physiological response to a substance, a ‘disease’ that needs to be treated under a medical model, and those who think it is simply a sign of weak moral character.”