“Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for ‘The Answer’), a South African rap-rave duo” – known for trying very hard to be provocative – “have just released a new video for their song ‘Fatty Boom Boom.’ Among the many batshit elements of the NSFW production is a get-up donned by one of the two that looks an awful lot like blackface.”
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Méliès’s Lost 1903 Robinson Crusoe Film Resurfaces
“For more than a century, all we have been able to see of [Les Aventures de Robinson] Crusoé is a short black-and-white scrap, but last year a near-complete hand-coloured version was found in a donation of nitrate reels made to the Cinémathèque Française.”
One Pussy Rioter Freed By Moscow Court
“There were cheers in court when the two-year jail term of Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was suspended. … The judges on Wednesday accepted the argument of Samutsevich’s lawyer – that Samutsevich had been thrown out of the cathedral by guards before she could remove her guitar from its case for the band’s ‘punk prayer’.”
The TV Acting Careers Of US Mayors
Professional actors generally play presidents, senators and the like, but big-city mayors sometimes appear as themselves. Here’s a look – from Kurt Schmoke to Rudy Giuliani to Mike Bloomberg to Rahm Emanuel (and even London’s Boris Johnson) – at another way politicians pretend.
ENO Launches ‘Undress For Opera’ Program
“English National Opera was today making an effort to be a little more relaxed at the launch of an initiative to attract younger audiences. ‘Come in shorts, armour, jeans, pumps, anything!’ said artistic director John Berry. … One hundred £25 tickets will be available for performances of four operas in the coming season.”
Wau Wau Sisters Receive Threats Over Last Supper Parody (See? Christians Do It, Too)
Visitors to the New York burlesque duo’s performances at the Brisbane Festival in Australia last week had to be screened with metal detectors after threats from hard-right Christian groups angry at the show’s title (The Last Supper) and content (which ranges from nude dancing to a schoolgirl-themed skit to a mock crucifixion).
Chicago Symphony, Striking Musicians Reach Quick Deal
“They entered the negotiating room in the Chicago Symphony Association’s lawyer’s office at 2 p.m. Monday, and by about 6:45 p.m. a tentative agreement had been reached in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first musicians strike in 21 years.”
The Strange Hollywood Career Of Walter Mitty
“It’s a mystery how Thurber’s 1939 story of an ordinary man’s daydreams … should have attracted the notice of so many producers of large and noisy entertainments. … The really surprising thing is that these big-budget adaptations so far have been successful with audiences, despite the massive liberties taken with the original story. This practice has been enraging Mitty fans since the 1940s.”
See The World’s First Color Film Footage – From 1902
“The films were made by Edward Raymond Turner from London who patented his colour process on 22 March, 1899. Some of the footage features Mr Turner’s children in the garden of their home in Hounslow.”
Composer And Educator William Duckworth Dead At 69
“Duckworth, who claimed to be the founder of postminimalism, wrote some 200 compositions, the best known of which are Time Curve Preludes for piano, composed in the late 1970s, and [1980s choral work] Southern Harmony … One of the first composers to grasp and exploit the possibilities of the internet, [he co-]created iOrpheus, an opera performed on iPods, mobile phones and laptops.”