2023: A Year in Books

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Set in her beloved West London, Zadie Smith’s The Fraud focuses on two forgotten figures: William Harrison Ainsworth, once a bestselling author – and a doorway into literary celebrity, Victorian-style; and Andrew Bogle, a formerly enslaved Jamaican and chief witness in the trial of the Tichborne Claimant. Caught in the whirl of notoriety, their fates are tracked by a free-thinking widow whose acidic commentary tests the bounds of white liberalism. Continue reading

2023: A Year in Music

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Lana Del Rey’s ‘diarist era’ has surely reached its apogee with Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard. Sprawling, eccentric, and soul-baring, it has more in common with her poetry than previous albums. In a female-dominated race, her five Grammy nominations include the supremely dark A&W, hailed by many as song of the year; while the jazz-inflected Candy Necklace has already nabbed two MTV awards. Continue reading

Sixty Years Later: Scandal ’63 Revisited

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“In Britain at the start of the 1960s, Victorian values are still mainstream. There is a rich ruling class who are better than everybody else, women are mostly thought of as the property of the men around them and if you are Black, discrimination, IS the culture. I believe the Profumo scandal shone a light on all of that poison and was another step on the road that we are still very much on, to a more equal society. So, I think in some ways the Profumo scandal was a good thing. But for my mother, I am sure she would say, ‘What a price I had to pay!’”– Seymour Platt, ‘My Mother, Christine Keeler’ Continue reading

‘Man, Woman and Sin’ and ‘A View From the Bridge’ at Cinecon

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Man, Woman and Sin – the final silent film starring Jeanne Eagels, and her only Hollywood production – enjoyed a rare big-screen outing during the Labour Day weekend, as part of the 59th Cinecon Classic Film Festival at the historic Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, California. Continue reading

61 Years Ago: Retracing Marilyn’s Moment in Time

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Marilyn Monroe died 61 years ago; after passing into eternal rest, her body was found in the early hours of August 5th, 1962. Continue reading