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Darryl Daniel, illustrator of Snoop Dogg's first album cover, dies at 56
NEW YORK, NY.- Darryl Daniel, a hip-hop illustrator who designed the cover for his cousin Snoop Dogg’s genre-defining album “Doggystyle,” and went on to lend his distinctive artistic flair to brands that included Adidas and Supreme, has died. He was 56. His sister Diondra Daniel confirmed his death. Snoop Dogg acknowledged his death on social media Monday, but neither provided additional information. Daniel, known in the hip-hop world as Joe Cool, became synonymous with the bright colors, block letters and bawdy canines featured on the “Doggystyle” cover, which sold millions of albums around the world after its release in 1993. His style would always be linked to the album’s hits including “Gin and Juice” and “Lodi Dodi,” which played in streets and house parties throughout Long Beach, California, greater Los Angeles and the country ... More

For some old musicals, not just revival but reappropriation
NEW YORK, NY.- Ten years ago, I cringed through an Encores! performance of one of the most odious musicals I’d ever seen. That’s not to throw shade on Encores!, the concert series that dredges up both diamonds and dirt from the musical theater dustbin. But “Irma La Douce,” a 1960 Broadway hit about jolly prostitutes and the men who keep them, was perhaps a dredge too far. Did I mention that it involved penguins? In a way, it was a relief that the show was so bad: There was nothing to regret in consigning it to my personal catalog of cancellation. Most of the most offensive musicals of the past are like that, providing their own incontrovertible arguments against revival, except as carefully labeled historical exhibits in some deep-future Encores! season. On the other hand, the best vintage musicals need no excuses. They ... More

A tenor with one of the strangest, most essential voices in opera
BERLIN.- Klaus Florian Vogt’s voice is a phenomenon that even he has had trouble grasping. In the early days of his career, he would hear recordings of himself singing and be surprised by the timbre. He knew his tenor was bright, but outside his head it sounded even brighter. He wasn’t the only one unsure of what to make of his voice. Lithe, polished and powerful, it continues to divide listeners. Some critics find it youthful; others, immature. At 54, Vogt is one of the most essential performers in opera. But “there is no voice that divides fans so much,” music critic Markus Thiel wrote in a review. “‘Ethereal,’ ‘otherworldly,’ some cheer. ‘Boyish,’ ‘Wagner wish-wash,’ others complain.” These days, Vogt isn’t so surprised by his sound. “It’s continually grown closer, what my imagination is of how I want to sing and what the actual result is,” he ... More

Found in translation: Asian languages on-screen
NEW YORK, NY.- American audiences used to balk at subtitles. But recent hits like “Shogun” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” show how much that has changed. In Hollywood today, not only are Asian and Asian American narratives more prominent than ever, but they are also being told in increasingly dynamic ways through the artful use of Asian languages. Take, for instance, a scene from the recent HBO miniseries “The Sympathizer,” which ran its final episode in May. In the series, Robert Downey Jr. plays an auteur director making “The Hamlet,” a movie set during the Vietnam War. In this scene, American soldiers confront a Vietnamese villager. Except something isn’t quite right: She is speaking Cantonese. In the lineage of the Hollywood Vietnam War movie, where Vietnamese characters rarely had lines beyond screaming ... More

Fashion's fake news epidemic
NEW YORK, NY.- There is yet another job opening in fashion. On Monday, Tom Ford (the brand) announced the departure of Peter Hawkings as creative director after just over a year. That company now joins the ranks of Chanel, Givenchy and Dries Van Noten, all soldiering on without a designer — or any real design direction besides rinse and repeat. It’s an unprecedented state of uncertainty, not helped by the fact that at the same time speculation is swirling about a host of other brands that still have artistic directors, though you’d never know it by the gossip. A brief sampling of the theories floating around: — Sarah Burton, the longtime designer of Alexander McQueen who left last year, is definitely, positively going to Givenchy. Soon. Everyone says. — Hedi Slimane is 100% leaving Celine, going to Chanel and being replaced by ... More

Was your 4D screening of 'Twisters' a blast? Thank these effects wizards.
NEW YORK, NY.- First you get the aroma of the meadowlands. Then a vision of an Oklahoma prairie fills the screen and, as the grass undulates, a soft breeze wafts over you and your seat sways. The wind is not ominous — not yet. These sights, sounds, feelings and scents open a 4D presentation of the tornado thriller “Twisters.” For the past decade and a half, companies like CJ 4DPlex have turned splashing and shaking moviegoers into an art, fine-tuning their techniques to lure fans into theaters. Carefully tracking through each scene, they look for moments to heighten the experience in a way that adds meaning without distracting from the narrative. In a typical 4D presentation, audiences pay on average $8 more than the price of a regular ticket to sit in pods of four chairs that can pitch and tilt subtly or with extreme force, using technology ... More

Lewis H. Lapham, longtime editor of Harper's, dies at 89
NEW YORK, NY.- Lewis H. Lapham, the scholarly patrician who edited Harper’s Magazine for nearly three decades, and who in columns, books and later his own magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, attacked what he regarded as the inequities and hypocrisies of American life, died Tuesday in Rome. He was 89. His death was announced by his children. A longtime resident of New York City’s Upper East Side, he had been living in Rome with his wife and other family members since January. The scion of a shipping and banking family whose forebears included a founder of Texaco and a mayor of San Francisco, Lapham was a nationally respected journalist whose commentaries on politics, wars and the wealthy were disparaged by conservative critics but often likened by admirers to the satires and cultural criticisms of H.L. Mencken and Mark ... More

A city of light and shadows is redrawn for the Olympics
PARIS.- There is a glorious folly to the Paris Olympics, the first in the city since 1924, as if France in its perennial revolutionary ardor took a century to ponder something unimaginable, the transformation of a great city into a stadium. The heart of Paris has fallen silent in preparation for the opening ceremony Friday, when a flotilla will usher thousands of athletes down the Seine, under the low-slung bridges where lovers like to linger. Not since the COVID-19 pandemic has the city been so still or so constrained. From the Pont d’Austerlitz in the east to the Pont Mirabeau in the west, roads are closed; newly built stands for spectators line the riverbanks; fences enclose sidewalks; and residents need police-issued QR codes to reach their homes. The golden cherubs, nymphs and winged horses of the Pont Alexandre III gaze out on metal bleachers and posses of police. ... More

Chappell Roan booked a tour. Then she blew up.
SEATTLE, WA.- In September 2023, Chappell Roan opened the tour for her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” in Roseville, California, at the Goldfield Trading Post, a venue that holds 600 people. Last Friday night in Seattle, she held court before a festival crowd of 10,000 at the Capitol Hill Block Party. And lately, 10,000 is a small crowd for the rising pop star. The narrow street where the event is held couldn’t contain all the fans who arrived in glittery pink cowboy hats — an homage to Roan’s song “Pink Pony Club,” about dancing at a gay bar — so those without tickets camped out at an adjacent gas station and sang along to synth-pop hits like “Good Luck, Babe!” and “Hot to Go!” — both of which have been climbing Billboard’s Hot 100 in the past six weeks. The last few months have been transformative for Roan, ... More

After losing crops to drought, Sicily fears losing tourism, too
LEONFORTE.- As tourists savored icy granitas under hibiscus trees and swam in the cool Mediterranean Sea, in the farmlands of southern Sicily, among hillsides so scorched they resembled desert dunes, a farmer watched recently as his cows headed to the slaughterhouse. After months of drought, he didn’t have any water or food to give them. “It’s devastating,” said the farmer, Lorenzo Iraci Sareri, as tears fell on his tanned face, lined by 40 years of labor pasturing cows. “I have never seen something like this.” Parts of southern Italy and other Mediterranean regions, including Greece and southeastern Spain, are experiencing one of their worst droughts in decades. It is particularly devastating, experts say, because the lack of rainfall has been made worse by the higher temperatures caused by climate change. Artificial basins where animals used to drink offer litt ... More

Dancers drop threat to strike during Paris Olympics opening ceremony
PARIS.- Dancers in France called off a threat to strike during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris after event organizers met some of their demands, labor unions said Wednesday. Thousands of dancers, musicians and other performers are expected to line the bridges and banks of the Seine River on Friday for the ceremony, which for the first time is being held outside, rather than in, an enclosed sports stadium. Some dancers, angered by disparities in pay, had threatened a walkout, which would have partly disrupted a widely anticipated and high-risk event that will be watched by millions around the world. About 200 dancers even briefly interrupted a rehearsal on the banks of the Seine in protest earlier this week, standing motionless with their fists raised in the air for the duration of their eight-minute routine. Labor unions were complaining that about 250 t ... More