Author: Ohart

Forty red dresses hang outside of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, a short distance from the U.S. Capitol.

They’re strategically placed near trees and waterfalls alongside the Riverwalk located in the museum’s Native landscape.

They’re present 24 hours a day, in all weather, to draw attention to the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women who experience violence at a much higher rate than non-indigenous women.

On this day, they snap furiously in a wicked wind, commanding attention.

The powerful installation is the creative brainchild of visual artist Jaime Black, whose goal is to raise awareness about the high rate of violence against native women.

“What I do is I put up empty red dresses in public spaces so that people can connect to the absence of these women, but also to the power and presence of the women through the red dress,” she says.

The color red

Her choice of the color red was deliberate.

“It’s our sacred life blood, it’s where vitality comes from, and our energy, and our power as human beings, but it’s also an allusion to the violence and the loss of that sacred life blood through violence,” she says.

Paying homage

On this freezing day outside the museum, Black honors the women the dresses represent — with a special performance.

As a Native American elder beats on a drum, the artist, barefoot and all in black except for a red silk scarf around her neck, kneels and rubs clay on the ground near the entrance to the museum. It’s been raining hard all morning. But it stops as Black starts her performance.

Spectators gather round as she clutches her pot of clay and walks slowly toward the dresses. She winds her way around the ledge of a curved pool and wades into the cool water, smearing some of the dresses with the mudlike substance.

“I really wanted to use my talents and my gifts to further the voices of a lot of people who are silenced,” she says, “and indigenous women are really facing this epidemic of silence.”

While Black’s work has focused mostly on Canadian women so far, she’s brought her project to the U.S. for the first time, to address an issue that spans the entire Western hemisphere.

REDress project

She calls her installation “The REDress Project,” or “The re-dress project.”

“Redress is a word that means to put right a wrong, and indigenous women have been facing injustice in North America for hundreds of years,” she says. “Ever since settlers came to North America, there’s been a violent relationship between settlers and indigenous people and I feel like that violent relationship carries on still today.”

She calls that systemic discrimination, The Colonial Project.

“The Colonial Project is basically interested in erasing certain voices in favor of a certain system,” she explains. “So the legal frameworks, the political frameworks, these things were built by non-indigenous people to silence indigenous people, and so all of these systems have created a space where indigenous women are erased.”

But more and more Native women are refusing to be silenced and are becoming proactive, leading movements, participating in protests and petitioning their governments for more recognition.

“I think in these ways and these movements, like Standing Rock and Idle No More movement, we see the strength of indigenous women to really maintain culture in the face of such colonial violence,” Black says.

Hope for change

Black — and other supporters, including Machel Monenerkit, deputy director of the museum — are also encouraged by the presence of two Native American women in Congress now; Debra Anne Haaland, serving as the U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s 1st congressional district, and Sharice Lynnette Davids, serving as the U.S. Representative for Kansas’s 3rd congressional district.

“I think the 2019 Congress for women was exceptional in the numbers that we now have in Congress, but for Native people having two indigenous women represent Kansas and New Mexico is obviously something we’ve not seen before, and hopefully we’ll be able to bring attention to Native issues,” Monenerkit says.

In the meantime, Black hopes the red dresses, all of which are donated, will have an impact on all who get to see them.

“What I think that the artwork and creativity can really do is really hit people in the heart, “she says. “People who walk by those dresses … they can’t unsee that. That’s going to sit in their memory for a very long time, and I think it has a really emotional impact on people even before they know what the dresses are even there for.”
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Forty red dresses hang outside of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. They’re present 24 hours a day, in all weather, to draw attention to the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women who experience violence at a much higher rate than non-indigenous women. The dresses are part of an exhibit being presented in the U.S. for the first time. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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The U.S. Constitution says every person has the right to exercise their religion, even prison inmates. Opportunities for religious assemblies and services are offered in U.S. prisons. One detention facility in Arlington County, Virginia, is working with the Islamic Circle of North America to provide Muslim prisoners a way to gather for Friday prayers and other religious activities. VOA’s Nilofar Mughal visited the facility and has this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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The cherry blossoms that bloom every spring on the Tidal Basin in Washington are world famous, but thousands of visitors also come to a nearby Maryland suburb to enjoy the pink and white flowers that usually bloom about a week later.

In Chevy Chase, Maryland, a small neighborhood called Kenwood also goes into full bloom with 1,200 Yoshino cherry trees that put on quite a show.

“It’s so romantic and they’re pink, which is one of my favorite colors,” said Mara Cai, a local resident who moved to the United States from China several years ago.

The delicate blossoms help showcase the manicured upscale homes, creating a pretty picture. Visitors stroll down the streets, enjoying the sea of flowers.

“It’s like walking through a fairyland,” Patrica Eng said. “There’s this incredible feeling of peace, and oneness with nature. I feel incredibly happy and content.”

First planted in 1920s

The first cherry trees in Kenwood were planted in the 1920s to promote the new neighborhood. As the area grew, so did the trees, with many more planted in the 1950s. Homeowners are responsible for the upkeep of the trees on their property.

When they bloom, a steady stream of tourists comes to Kenwood, which is considered one of the best places in the Washington area to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

“It’s a good time to spend with the family,” said Javier Ventura, who was in a little park admiring the flowers with his wife and baby girl. “The view is really nice.”

Cathy Searby stopped by for a nostalgic visit.

“I think it’s gorgeous,” she said. “I lived here 45 years ago for a couple of years, and I just moved back to Chevy Chase again, and I can’t remember ever seeing the cherry blossoms here look like this.”

Visitors from near and far

A number of the visitors are from different countries, especially Japan and China. Jill Fitzpatrick came from England to see the cherry blossoms for the first time.

“I just think it’s magnificent and I only wish I could live here,” she said and smiled.

The cherry blossoms only last up to a couple of weeks, and each day more petals fall to the ground. But for those who miss it, there’s always next year to see another spectacular display.
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The famous cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin in Washington are passing their peak, but others in the area are still blooming. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to a neighborhood in a Maryland suburb where about 1,000 blossoming trees put on quite a show.
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Thousands flocked to remember the life of Nipsey Hussle at a packed memorial service Thursday that provided mourners with a deeper appreciation of Ermias Asghedom, the man behind the up-and-coming hip-hop persona.

Some of people who knew Hussle best, from his actress-fiancee Lauren London, dear friend Snoop Dogg and his mother shared their most personal stories about the rapper during the three-hour service in Los Angeles’ Staples Center. The 21,000-seat venue hosted its first celebrity funeral since Michael Jackson’s in 2009, ending with a montage of videos of the rapper set to his song, “Dedication.”

Hussle’s casket, draped in the flag of his father’s native country, Eritrea in East Africa, then embarked on a 25-mile tour of the city, drawing thousands to the streets to catch a glimpse of the recently anointed hometown hero.

Police kept an eye on the crowd, which appeared largely peaceful. At one point, people sat atop a police car spray-painted with the words: “Nips in Paradise.”

​Family, friends share memories

London shared a text message sent she sent the rapper in January calling him “my turn up and my church.” She spoke about learning so much from being in his presence as her provider and protector, but turned sad at the thought of their son being unable to remember his dad.

“My pain is for my 2-year-old,” she said.

After the service, she revealed a fresh tattoo of Hussle on her forearm, writing in an Instagram post that “Real Love Never Dies” and that from now on “When you see me, you will always see him.”

Hussle’s mother, Angelique Smith, spoke calmly about her being in “perfect peace” and “happy and complete” despite her son’s death. She declared: “Ermias was a legacy.”

She called him a “superhero” who wasn’t afraid to lead, recounting a story about Ermias at age 9 running down the middle of the street to flag down a firetruck to extinguish her car’s engine that went under flames. Miraculously, the car still ran.

“We’re burning but not destroyed,” Smith said. 

Snoop Dogg talked candidly about Hussle being a visionary and meeting him for the first time.

“Most rappers when they push up on Snoop Dogg with a mixtape, this is their line: ‘Ahh, dawg, listen to my music. I can make you a million dollars,’” Dogg said. “Nipsey’s line was, ‘Hey homie, listen to my music. Just give it a listen.’ That’s it? No record deal? You don’t want to get put on? So to me, he had vision to know and understand that I don’t want to be handed out nothing. I’m going to come and get mine.”

​Killed in his neighborhood

Hussle was shot to death March 31 while standing outside The Marathon, his South Los Angeles clothing store, not far from where the rapper grew up.

Eric R. Holder Jr., who has been charged with killing Hussle, has pleaded not guilty. Police have said Holder and Hussle had several interactions the day of the shooting and have described it as being the result of a personal dispute.

At least one of the rapper’s wishes came true Thursday. In his 2016 song “Ocean Views,” he rapped about having a Stevie Wonder song played at his funeral. The legendary singer took the stage to perform “Rocket Song,” one of Hussle’s favorites.

Earlier in the ceremony, a montage of photos featuring the rapper from infancy, childhood and adulthood, with fellow rappers, his family and London, were shown to the crowd, set to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”

Hussle’s children also appeared onstage to pay tribute. London’s son with rapper Lil Wayne, Cameron Carter, said days after Hussle died, he had a dream in which he saw the rapper.

“I realized Ermias told me what heaven was like. He told me it was paradise,” Cameron said.

Cameron then told the audience that Hussle would look at him through the window at times and say “respect.” Cameron then asked the crowd to say “respect” in unison, and the crowd sent the word booming through the arena.

 

​Mixtapes sold out

For a decade, Hussle released much sought-after mixtapes that he sold out of the trunk of his car, helping him create a buzz and gain respect from rap purists and his peers. His said his stage name, a play on the 1960s and ’70s rhyming standup comic Nipsey Russell, was given to him as a teen by an older friend because he was such a go-getter — always hustling.

He charged $100 for his 2013 mixtape “Crenshaw,” scoring a cash and publicity coup when Jay-Z bought 100 copies for $10,000.

Last year, Hussle hit new heights with “Victory Lap,” his critically acclaimed major-label debut album on Atlantic Records that made several critics’ best-of lists. The album debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s 200 albums charts and earned him a Grammy nomination.

But the rapper was also a beloved figure for his philanthropic work that went well beyond the usual celebrity “giving back” ethos. Following his death, political and community leaders were quick and effusive in their praise.

Hussle recently purchased the strip mall where The Marathon is located and planned to redevelop it, part of Hussle’s broader ambitions to remake the neighborhood where he grew up and attempt to break the cycle of gang life that lured him in when he was younger.

Hussle’s brother, Samiel Asghedom, talked about how Hussle would assemble parts to build his first computer, but became emotional about his brother leaving his “heart and soul” on the popular intersection of Crenshaw and Slauson Avenue.

“Bro, you made the world proud,” he said.
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Walt Disney Co on Thursday said its new family-friendly streaming service will cost $7 monthly or $70 annually with a slate of exclusive TV shows and movies from some of the world’s most popular entertainment franchises in a bid to challenge the digital dominance of Netflix.

The ad-free monthly subscription called Disney+ is set to launch on Nov. 12 and in every major global market over time, the company said. In addition to Disney films and TV shows, it will feature programming from the Marvel superhero universe, the “Star Wars” galaxy, “Toy Story” creator Pixar animation and the National Geographic channel.

The company said it has struck deals with Roku Inc and Sony Corp to distribute Disney+ on streaming devices and console gaming systems and expects it to be widely available on smart televisions, tablets, and other outlets by launch.

Disney kicked off its presentation to Wall Street analysts at its Burbank, California, headquarters on Thursday with a video that demonstrated the breadth of its portfolio, showing clips from dozens of classic TV shows and movies from “Frozen” and “The Lion King” to “Avatar” and “The Sound of Music.”

Executives said they see opportunities to take its ESPN+ sport streaming video service to Latin America and are looking into international expansion of its Hulu streaming video business, which offers movies and shows targeted to adults.

The entertainment giant is trying to transform itself from a cable television powerhouse into a leader of streaming media. Chief Executive Bob Iger in February called streaming the company’s “No. 1 priority.”

Wall Street has pinned high hopes on the new service, which analysts expect would cost about $7.50 monthly and lure about 7.2 million U.S. subscribers in 2020 and 13.66 million by 2021, according to a poll of analysts conducted by Reuters.

The digital push is Disney’s response to cord-cutting, the dropping of cable service that has hit its ESPN sports network and other channels, and the rise of Netflix Inc. The Silicon Valley upstart has amassed 139 million customers worldwide since it began streaming 12 years ago.

The Mouse House, as Disney is known, will join the market at a time when audiences are facing a host of choices, and monthly bills, for digital entertainment. Apple Inc, AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia and others plan new streaming services. To bolster its potential digital portfolio, Disney recently purchased film and TV assets from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox and gained prized properties such as “Avatar.”

In a January regulatory filing, Disney reported losses of more than $1 billion for streaming-related investments in Hulu and technology company BAMtech.

Disney had been supplying new movies such as “Black Panther” and “Beauty and the Beast” to Netflix after their runs in theaters but ended that arrangement this year to feed its own streaming ambitions. The company estimated it is foregoing $150 million in licensing revenue this fiscal year by saving programming for its own platforms.

The Disney+ programming will draw in part from Disney’s deep library of classic family films. It also will include exclusive original content such as a live-action “Star Wars” series called “The Mandalorian,” a show focused on Marvel movie villain Loki, and animated “Monsters at Work,” inspired by hit Pixar movie “Monsters Inc.”

Some new Disney movies, such as a “Lady and the Tramp” remake, will go directly to the Disney+ app. Other new releases will appear on Disney+ after their run in theaters and after the cycle out of the home video sales window, executives have said.
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The city of Chicago filed a lawsuit Thursday against Jussie Smollett, saying the actor owes it more than $130,000 for police costs incurred in the investigation of a hate crime that authorities allege was phony, according to legal documents.

The lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court more than two weeks after prosecutors in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dismissed all criminal charges against the “Empire” actor.

Chicago officials previously said they would sue Smollett after he refused a demand by the city for $130,000 to cover police overtime costs.

The actor’s criminal defense attorney, Mark Geragos, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smollett, 36, who is black and gay, ignited a firestorm on social media by telling police on Jan. 29 that two apparent supporters of President Donald Trump struck him, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach over him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs on a Chicago street.

After weeks of investigation, Chicago police determined that Smollett cooked up the scheme, in which they allege he hired two brothers to pose as his attackers, because he was dissatisfied with his salary on “Empire.”

Smollett, best known for his role on the Twentieth Century Fox Television hip-hop drama, has said he has always been truthful about the incident.

He was charged in February with staging the incident and filing a false police report.
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The haunting image of a little girl crying helplessly as she and her mother are taken into custody by U.S. border officials won the prestigious 2018 World Press Photo of the Year Award on Thursday. 

 

Judges said veteran Getty photographer John Moore’s picture taken after Honduran mother Sandra Sanchez and her daughter, Yanela, illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last year showed “a different kind of violence that is psychological.” 

 

The picture of the wailing toddler was published worldwide and caused a public outcry about Washington’s controversial policy to separate thousands of migrants and their children. 

 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials later said Yanela and her mom were not among those separated, but the public furor “resulted in President Donald Trump reversing the policy in June last year,” the judges said. 

 

Moore was taking pictures of U.S. Border Patrol agents on a moonless night in the Rio Grande Valley on June 12 last year when they came across a group of people who tried to cross the border. 

Passing moment

 

“I could see the fear on their faces, in their eyes,” Moore told U.S.-based National Public Radio in an interview shortly afterward. 

 

As officials took their names, Moore said he spotted Sandra Sanchez and her toddler, who started wailing when her mom put her down to be searched. 

 

“I took a knee and had very few frames of that moment before it was over,” said Moore, who had been covering the U.S.-Mexico border for a decade. 

 

At the awards ceremony in Amsterdam, Moore told AFP: “I wanted to tell a different story.” 

 

“For me it was a chance to show a view of humanity that is often only related in statistics,” the 51-year-old photographer said. 

 

“I think an issue like this, immigration issues, resonates not just in the United States, but around the world,” Moore also told several hundred guests at the awards. 

 

The sensitive issue of immigration was further highlighted at Thursday’s awards. 

 

Judges chose Dutch-Swedish photographer Pieter Ten Hoopen’s images of the 2018 mass-migrant caravan to the U.S. border as its winner of the World Press Photo Story of the Year Award.

‘Sense of dignity’

 

Ten Hoopen’s pictures, which show families and children as they made their way from Honduras in mid-October to the U.S. border, “showed a high sense of dignity,” one of the judges said. 

 

Ten Hoopen thanked the migrant families, saying without them his award would not have been possible. 

 

Trump said Tuesday that he wouldn’t resume separating children of undocumented migrants, but insisted that the policy did prevent people from illegal border crossings. 

 

His words came after he announced the departure Sunday of the official in charge of fighting illegal immigration, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. 

 

According to U.S. media reports, Trump’s reshuffle could herald even harsher measures on the southern border. 

 

Judges selected this year’s winners from 78,801 images entered by 4,738 photographers worldwide, the Amsterdam-based organizers said. 
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Author Charles Van Doren, who will forever be associated with one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history, has died of natural causes at 93.

Van Doren was an obscure college professor in 1956 when he became a contestant on the television quiz show Twenty-One. The show offered big cash prizes for answering very difficult multipart questions.

During 14 weeks on Twenty-One, Van Doren defeated opponent after opponent, winning $129,000 before finally losing.

Tall, handsome and self-effacing, Van Doren became a national hero, appearing on magazine covers, television shows and radio programs, and receiving huge amounts of fan mail and even marriage proposals.

Rigged show

But what the audience did not know was that Twenty-One was a rigged show. Van Doren and nearly every other contestant were given the questions and answers ahead of each broadcast and coached on how to give answers in a hesitant and entertaining manner to build suspense and tension.

When the cheating was revealed in 1958, Van Doren strongly denied his appearances were scripted until he confessed all in a dramatic appearance before Congress, which was investigating the matter.

The humiliated and ashamed Van Doren was fired from his teaching job, dropped by the television networks, and became the punch line of jokes.

Van Doren and dozens of other contestants and producers were convicted of lying before a grand jury and were given suspended sentences.

Private life

Van Doren returned to private life, living in a small New England village, writing books and articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, and refusing all interviews and big money to tell his story.

He never publicly talked about the scandal until the 1994 film Quiz Show put him back in an unwanted spotlight.

Van Doren finally broke his silence in a 2008 New Yorker magazine article, calling his participation in the TV fraud “foolish, naive, prideful and avaricious.”
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Felicity Huffman will appear in Boston’s federal court next month to plead guilty in the college admissions bribery scam.

The “Desperate Housewives” star’s plea hearing has been rescheduled for May 21. It had initially been set for May 24.

Federal prosecutors announced Monday that Huffman will plead guilty to paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to rig her daughter’s SAT score.

Prosecutors have said they will seek a prison sentence on the low end of a range of four to 10 months.

In her first public comments since her arrest last month, Huffman on Monday took responsibility for her actions and said she would accept the consequences.

Netflix officials also said Monday that a film starring Huffman, “Otherhood,” will not be released as planned on April 26 and that a new date will be determined. 
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Amid a stunning vista of desert mountains, a Bedouin woman, Umm Yasser, paused to point out a local plant, and she began to explain how it was used in medicine to the group of foreign tourists she was guiding.

Umm Yasser is breaking new ground among the deeply conservative Bedouin of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Women among the Bedouin almost never work outside the home, and even more rarely do they interact with outsiders. But Umm Yasser is one of four women from the community who for the first time are working as tour guides.

“It is against our culture, but women need jobs,” the 47-year-old Umm Yasser said. “People will make fun of us, but I don’t care. I’m a strong woman.”

They are part of Sinai Trail, a unique project in which local Bedouin tribes came together aiming to develop their own tourism. Founded in 2015, the project has set up a 550-kilometer (330-mile) trail through the remote mountains of the peninsula, a42-day trek through the lands of eight different tribes, each of which contributes guides. The project has been successful in bringing some income to the tribes, who often complain of being left out of the major tourism development of the southern Sinai, home to beach resorts and desert safaris.

Until now, all the project’s guides were men. Ben Hoffler, the British co-founder of the Sinai Trail, felt it was not enough. “How can we be credible calling this the ‘Sinai Trail’ if the women aren’t involved?”

But even after years of trying by Hoffler, almost all the tribes still reject women guides. Only one of the smallest, oldest and poorest tribes, the Hamada, accepted the idea.

There are some conditions. The tourists can only be women, and the tours can’t go overnight. Each day before the sun sets, the group returns to the Hamada’s home village in Wadi Sahu, a narrow desert valley. The organizers also urge the tourists to photograph the guides only when they are wearing a full veil over the face that covers even the eyes with mesh.

Umm Yasser was the first to join. She said she started hiking when she was a child and knows the mountains and the valley by heart. She convinced the families of three other women to allow them to work as guides.

Their tribe is a poor one, living in small concrete houses strung along the Wadi Sahu. Electricity runs no more than five hours a night and there is no running water. It is isolated deep in the mountains of south Sinai, far from the tourism centers in Sinai along the Red Sea coast or near the famed Saint Catherine’s Monastery. The men often leave the village to find work, either at resorts or in mines further south.

“We need money to help support our families for basic necessities,” Umm Yasser said. “We need blankets, clothes for the children, washing machines, fridges, books for school.”

The Sinai Trail came together in some of the hardest years for tourism. It was launched as an Islamic State group-linked insurgency intensified in the northern part of Sinai and a year after a Russian passenger plane crashed, killing all 224 passengers on board in a likely militant bombing. The violence has stayed far from southern Sinai, where tourist resorts are located — but the industry has had to push hard to win tourists back.

On a recent tour joined by the Associated Press, 16 female tourists — from Korea, New Zealand, Europe, Lebanon and Egypt — were led by Umm Yasser and the other three women guides, Umm Soliman, Aicha, and Selima, through the rugged landscape in and around Wadi Sahu.

“I think south Sinai is safe especially when you are in the care of Bedouins. … This is where I feel at home. Every corner there is scenery and another beautiful view,” said Marion Salwegter, a 68-year-old Dutch woman who travels to southern Sinai every year alone to escape the winters in Holland.

During the two-day tour, the group hiked across an endlessly broad landscape of mountain peaks and valleys of dry riverbeds. While male Bedouin guides range far from home, the women tend to move closer, with an exceptionally rich knowledge of the surrounding mountains. The guides talked about the local plants and herbs, the history and legends of the area and pointed out the borders of the area’s tribes.

In the evening, the group returned to the Hamada tribe’s village. The women sat on the floor of Umm Yasser’s home and the tourists asked the guide about life in the village, marriage and divorce.

Umm Yasser is skeptical other Bedouin women will join her as a guide or in working in general any time soon. But, she said, “There is no shame in working. This is what I believe in, and it makes me strong.”

Some attitudes are changing. Mohammed Salman, an elderly man from the Aligat tribe, said he thought the guides project was a great step for women. “If a woman wants to work, she should be able to have the right to,” he said. “Many men say no, a woman’s place is at home. But I’m sick of this ideology. She’s a human being.”

Younger Bedouin girls tagged along with the group and talked about wanting to be female guides in the future.

“This trip is going down in history and will be talked about,” said Julie Paterson, a facilitator for Sinai Trail who often works with Bedouin women. “It might also go into Bedouin oral history.”

 
…

Small, independent bookstores in neighborhoods across the United States are places to discover new books and make new friendships. But about 20 years ago they were rapidly closing because of competition from big box chain bookstores and on-line book sales. Then about 10 years ago something remarkable happened as indie bookstores came back to life, many thriving and growing every year.

At One More Page Books in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, customer Cheryl Moore likes the personalized service that she does not get at large corporate-owned bookstores.

“I think they pay attention to the kinds of books people like to read. They have book clubs, so I don’t think it’s a place where people just buy books, but make friends here.”

Kate Oberdorfer browses through the unusual assortment of books that range from mystery novels and cookbooks, to biographies of famous people.

“It’s a great hole in the wall store where you can find independent titles,” she said.

Oberdorfer chats about a couple of books with Lelia Nebeker, the book buyer for the store that opened eight years ago in the upscale neighborhood.

“I do think it’s a special place for people to come,” said Nebeker, who lives nearby. “When people come in and share their experiences about a book or an author, it can foster a sense of community where people can meet other people who share their interests,” she explained.

After almost withering away, indie bookstores grew by 35 percent between 2009 and 2015. And according to the American Booksellers Association, sales at the more than 2,400 bookstores in the United States rose about 5 percent over the past year. Among them is Hooray for Books, a children’s bookstore that started 11 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia. Owner Ellen Klein thinks part of her success has been providing a wide variety of books to the diverse neighborhood.

“In this community we have a lot of mixed race families,” she said, “and so we’re trying to serve them as well, and it’s wonderful seeing more books with mixed race characters.” 

As customer Sarah Reidl scans the shelves of children’s books she said, “You just can’t really browse on the Internet. I like to be able to browse and look for things in person that catch my eye.”

For people who are passionate about reading, independent bookstores sometimes become a home away from home.

Kristen Maier from Missouri often comes to Hooray for Books when she is in the Washington area for work. She doesn’t think electronic books can replace the feeling of physically holding a book.

“If you don’t have a nice book to pass down to your grandkids or their grandkids, you just kind of lose that sense of history and tradition for your family.”

But to survive, today’s indie bookstores know they have to sell more than books. One More Page also draws in customers with bottles of wine and chocolate they can take home along with a book.

“We are a place where you can come for events, you can meet authors, get books signed, and buy books you might not necessarily stumble upon on your own,” said Nebeker.

Including by local author Ed Aymar, who is talking before a packed house about his latest thriller The Unrepentant. A singer also performs songs that relate to the story. 

“Usually, authors are just reading out loud,” he said. “Something like this gives a different perspective and provides more entertainment for the audience.”

Angie Kim, another local author, came to support Aymar.

“I’ve been here for 5 events just in the last couple of months,” she said. “I think it’s just a wonderful way to show the bookstore that we care about spaces like this and that we want them to continue.”

“We’re going to keep doing what we do well, and hope that our community loves having us around enough to support us,” Nebeker added.
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A musical depicting the love story between singer Gloria Estefan, the Cuban-American pop star, and her music producer husband Emilio, opens in London in June.

“On Your Feet!” will feature some of her most famous hits such as “Rhythm is Gonna Get You”, and “Don’t Want to Lose You Now” and will track the couple’s childhoods in Cuba, their meeting in Miami and path to worldwide fame.

“It’s a love story not just between him and I, it’s a love story to music and a love story to both our nations, the ones where we were born, Cuba, and the United States, that opened its arms to us,” the 61-year-old singer told Reuters.

“Music is the core. It got us, both Emilio and I, through our most difficult moments and it continues to enrich our lives.

She and Emilio have been married for 40 years.

The part of Gloria will be played by Christie Prades.

“You’re going to get the hits that people know here,” she said, but there will also be lesser-known songs that match the scenes, she added.

Working on the musical has seen her relive some painful, intense moments.

“I got so emotional, I looked to my husband for support. He was crying like a baby already and I go, ‘God, are we going to do this? How are we going to do this?’ I have cried more in the last five years than in my entire lifetime because emotionally, you know, you just keep reliving things.”

Gloria Estefan has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and is the most successful Latin crossover performer in the history of pop music. She and her husband have won 26 Grammy awards between them.

The show will run at the London Coliseum from June 14 to Aug. 31, and before that for seven dates at Curve, Leicester.
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Near the northern Greek island of Alonissos lies a remarkable ancient shipwreck: the remains of a massive cargo ship that changed archaeologists’ understanding of shipbuilding in antiquity.  

Now this spectacular find is to become the first ancient shipwreck to be made accessible to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers.

Greece’s rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country’s seabed.  

Ancient shipwrecks and even many more recent ones are still off-limits.  

Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums.  

Divers will be able to tour certain shipwrecks and non-divers will experience the sites through virtual reality in information centers on land.

The first of these sites is the Peristera shipwreck, named for the uninhabited Greek island opposite Alonissos where it was discovered in the early 1990s.

The cargo ship was laden with thousands of amphoras, or vases, probably containing wine, when it sank in the late 5th century B.C.  

All that survives is the cargo, the exposed parts of the wooden ship having long since rotted away. But the sight is spectacular.  

Thousands of ancient vases, the vast majority intact, lie in layers. Fish, sponges and other sea creatures have made the amphoras their home, adding color and life to the site. In some places, the cargo towers above divers as they pass along the perimeter of the wreck.  

“It is very impressive. Even I, who have been working for years in underwater archaeology, the first time I dived on this wreck I was truly impressed,” said Dimitris Kourkoumelis, the lead archaeologist on the project preparing the site for visitors. “It’s different to see amphoras … individually in a museum and different to see them in such concentration.”

The wreck still holds mysteries. Only a small part has been excavated, and experts have yet to determine how or why it sank, or what other treasures it might have carried beneath the estimated 4,000 amphoras in its hold.

There are indications a fire had broken out on board, but it’s unclear whether that contributed to its sinking.  

“Was it a piracy act? Was it overloaded?” said Elpida Hadjidaki, the first archaeologist to excavate the site. These questions remain unanswered.

The Peristera wreck is the largest ship of its time to have been found and its discovery was of major significance to historians.

“Up to then, we thought that large ships that were carrying 1,500 amphoras and were up to 70 tons, they were built by the Romans in the 1st century B.C.,” Hadjidaki explained. “Well, now we have a ship that was not built in the 1st century B.C., it was built in the 5th century B.C., it carried 4,000 amphoras and God knows what else and it’s 126 tons.”

Hadjidaki said she is thrilled the wreck is being opened to visitors.  

“It’s fantastic. Twenty-five years ago, I was the first person that proposed that and people were jumping at me, they thought I was crazy,” she said. “Why should we keep it to ourselves? We have to give knowledge to people.”  

The first test for guided tours of the wreck, which lies at a depth of about 22-28 meters (72-92 feet), was carried out last weekend with small groups of recreational and professional divers.  

A thorough briefing, complete with historical information and the rules of the dive, preceded the short boat ride from the tiny harbor of Steni Valla on Alonissos to the site. On the wreck itself, explanatory signs have been suspended along the perimeter.  

The initial feedback has been positive.

“It was an amazing opportunity … to dive at last on an ancient wreck,” said Kostas Menemenoglou, a 39-year-old recreational diver from the central town of Volos. “It was a fantastic experience. It’s really like diving into history.”

Three other shipwrecks in the Pagasitic Gulf in central Greece are also included in the project, which is part of a European Commission-funded BlueMed program, which plans to expand the project to Italy and Croatia. More test dives will be held this summer and next year, with hopes of fully opening the sites to recreational diving in early 2021.

“Accessible archaeological sites are one of the most interesting projects — not just a Greek project but a worldwide project,” said Kourkoumelis, who noted it has taken a long time to get to the point of allowing visitors to access an ancient wreck.

“It took years. And that’s logical, because underwater ancient sites and particularly ancient shipwrecks are exposed … and fragile,” he said, noting it was crucial to properly set up the project and the dive conditions, making sure the sites are protected before they can be opened to the public.  

“All the conditions must be ensured so that these sites remain safe in the future and for future generations,” he added.
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The Hungarian State Opera has asked the nearly all-white cast for its production of “Porgy and Bess” to self-identify as African American.

The Hungarian performers were asked to sign a statement declaring that “African-American origin and identity is an inseparable part of my identity” and made being in “Porgy and Bess” “a special joy,” Hungary’s index.hu news site reported.

Hungarian broadcaster ATV reported Tuesday that 15 of 28 cast members signed the statement. One man in the State Opera production is from Guinea-Bissau in west Africa and another’s father is from there. 

The State Opera’s casting of the seminal folk opera set in the American south ran into trouble with George and Ira Gershwin’s estates. The brothers and collaborator DuBose Heyward created “Porgy and Bess” for black performers, and the Gershwin estates say only black performers may appear in it now. 

The Hungarian show “is not permitted in its current form and contradicts the work’s staging requirements,” a statement from the rights holders says on the opera’s website. Asking cast members to identify as African American appears to be the opera’s way around the dispute.

‘No public registry of skin color’

Opera director Szilvester Okovacs told ATV that since Hungary doesn’t record the race of individuals, he preferred to ask the cast.

“There is no public registry of skin color in Hungary … and I can’t really say about the cast if it meets or not the requirement, so I’d rather ask them,” Okovacs said.

The State Opera’s “Porgy and Bess” premiered in January 2018 and is performed in English, with Hungarian and English subtitles. Seven more performances are planned in 2019.

It moves the setting from Charleston, South Carolina, to a refugee camp in an airplane hangar. A commentary for the classicalhive.com website said it was “not ‘Porgy and Bess.”‘

“It is their own narrative set to the music of ‘Porgy and Bess.’ Which is a mess and misses the point completely,” the website said.
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Pop superstar Madonna will make a guest appearance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel next month, her representatives said on Monday.

Concert promoters Live Nation Israel and the singer’s U.S. representatives confirmed reports in Israeli media that Madonna will perform two songs in Tel Aviv during the three-day Eurovision competition in May, which features musicians from more than 40 nations.

Israel was chosen to host the contest after local singer Netta Barzilai won last year in Portugal with “Toy,” propelling her to international stardom. The winning country customarily hosts the following year.

The Israeli venue has already prompted calls for a boycott by pro-Palestinian activists who are campaigning for companies, performers and governments to disengage from Israel.

In January some 50 British celebrities, including singers Roger Waters and Peter Gabriel, wrote a letter calling on the BBC to press for the 2019 Eurovision contest to be relocated.

Madonna took her world tours to Israel in 2009 and 2012 and has been a follower of the mystical form of Judaism called Kabbalah.

She has been working on an untitled new album for the last several months.
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The Trump administration on Monday blocked a historic agreement between Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation  that would have allowed Cuban players to sign with U.S. teams without needing to defect.

The existing deal will not be allowed to go forward because it was based on an erroneous interpretation by the former Obama administration that the Cuban Baseball Federation was not part of Cuba’s communist government, a senior U.S. official said.

The move essentially overturns an agreement reached between MLB and the Cuban federation in December following three years of negotiation under which Cuban players would have been able to sign with major league teams. In the past, some Cuban stars have been smuggled off the island in speedboats.

The U.S. decision was the latest step by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to reverse rapprochement with Havana, America’s old Cold War foe, that was spearheaded by his Democratic predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

“The agreement with #MLB seeks to stop the trafficking of human beings, encourage cooperation and raise the level of baseball,” the Cuban Baseball Federation said in a message on Twitter. “Any contrary idea is false news. Attacks with political motivation against the agreement achieved harm the athletes, their families and the fans.”

The senior Trump administration official suggested that the agreement would have subjected the players to “human trafficking” by the Cuban government and made them “pawns of the Cuba dictatorship.”

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration would be willing to work with MLB to seek an arrangement consistent with U.S. law.

The U.S. Treasury Department essentially reversed its earlier decision that had laid the groundwork for negotiation of the baseball deal.

The announcement came just days after the Cuban federation released a list of players authorized to sign contracts directly with MLB organizations.

MLB teams would have paid the Cuban Baseball Federation a release fee for each player to be signed from Cuba, providing a windfall for Cuban baseball, which has suffered from dwindling budgets and the defection of its best players.

Cuban MLB players who had defected include Yasiel Puig of the Cincinnati Reds, Yoenis Cespedes of the New York Mets and Jose Dariel Abreu of the Chicago White Sox — all of whom have signed multi-year, multimillion-dollar contracts.
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Oprah Winfrey is donating $2 million to help rebuild Puerto Rico and support arts and cultural programs after the devastating 2017 hurricane.

The Hispanic Federation and the Flamboyan Arts Fund said in a statement on Monday $1 million would go to support long-term needs after Hurricane Maria, and a further $1 million would be devoted to arts and culture programs on the island.

Winfrey, one of the most influential media moguls in the United States, said she was inspired by the efforts of musical theater creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who took his hit stage show “Hamilton” to the island for a limited run in January.

“I was so moved by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s commitment to bring ‘Hamilton’ to Puerto Rico and support the community that served him growing up that I wanted to join in the revitalization efforts of an island so rich in culture, beauty and heritage,” Winfrey said in a statement.

Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, killed an estimated 3,000 people in the U.S. territory, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and left much of the island without drinking water or electricity for months.
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A Moscow court has ordered the release of theater director Kirill Serebrennikov and two associates from house arrest.

The three are on trial in an embezzlement case they claim is politically motivated.

In an April 8 ruling, the Moscow City Court also ordered Serebrennikov, producer Yury Itin, and former Culture Ministry employee Sofia Apfelbaum not to leave Moscow until the end of their trial.

A fourth defendant in the high-profile case, producer Aleksei Malobrodsky, has already been barred from leaving Moscow.

Serebrennikov’s August 2017 arrest drew international attention and prompted accusations that Russian authorities were targeting cultural figures who are at odds with President Vladimir Putin’s government.

The acclaimed 49-year-old director was initially charged with organizing the embezzlement of more than $1 million in state funds granted from 2011 to 2014 to Seventh Studio, a nonprofit organization that Serebrennikov established.

In January 2018, prosecutors raised the amount Serebrennikov and his three co-defendants are accused of embezzling to $2 million.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty and Serebrennikov has described the trial, which began in October 2018, as “absurd.”

A fifth person charged in the case, accountant Nina Maslyayeva, pleaded guilty and has provided testimony used as evidence against the defendants. She is to be tried separately.

Serebrennikov’s supporters say the case was part of a crackdown on the arts community ahead of the March 2018 presidential election in which Putin, a longtime Soviet KGB officer who was first elected president in 2000, won a fourth term.

Serebrennikov had previously taken part in antigovernment protests and voiced concerns about the increasing influence in Russia of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose ties with the state have increased under Putin.

Despite being under house arrest, the director has staged an opera that premiered in March in Hamburg, Germany.
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Productions about gay men in New York City, friendship after the Sept. 11 attacks and love in Mississippi dominated Britain’s prestigious Olivier Awards for best theatre on Sunday.

In a distinctly American-themed night, “The Inheritance”, a play about the generation after the peak of the AIDS crisis, was joint overall winner with four awards: best new play, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actor (Kyle Soller) and best lighting. Written by Matthew Lopez, the two-part play transposes E.M. Forster’s classic 1910 novel “Howards End” to modern New York, where a group of young, ambitious men ponder their existence and the previous generation’s legacy.

“I don’t have the proper vocabulary … It feels like an out-of-body experience … a bit crazy,” Soller told Reuters after winning the award over other nominees like Ian McKellen and David Suchet. “To be speaking for a community where there’s so much pain, so much healing to be done, it is just really incredible, very emotional,” he added.

In his acceptance speech, Soller paid tribute to the victims of AIDS and lamented that in some nations people can still be stoned to death for being gay. “Come From Away”, a musical about the power of kindness among air passengers grounded in Canada after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, also won four awards including best new musical.

“Company”, a reworking of U.S. composer Stephen Sondheim’s comedy with a woman instead of a man in the lead role, took three prizes including best musical revival. “Summer And Smoke”, a rarely-staged Tennessee Williams’ drama about love, loneliness and self-destruction set in small-town Mississippi, took two honors for best actress (Patsy Ferran) and best revival.

“I wasn’t expecting it … Nobody knows who I am,” Ferran told Reuters afterwards, clutching a glass of champagne. “I might be slightly hung over tomorrow, don’t tell anyone!” Prince Charles’ wife Camilla joined stars of British theatre for the glitzy ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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In Washington, about 50 of the city’s 160 monuments and memorials include female figures. A city council member has introduced legislation to remedy that with eight statues honoring women, people of color, and hometown heroes. The situation is similar in New York City, where women are represented in only five statues across the Big Apple’s outdoor spaces. For VOA, Nina Vishneva reports on how city officials plan to bridge this structural gender gap. Anna Rice narrates.
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The state of California is experiencing a super-bloom of poppy flowers this spring, with new fields blooming throughout the southern part of the state following massive rains that ended a long drought. The magnificent poppy blooms have attracted tens of thousands of people, causing massive traffic tie ups in small cities such as Lake Elsinore. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Museum exhibits tend to be quiet. Not this one.

In “Play It Loud,” an exuberant show that can be heard as well as seen, the Metropolitan Museum of Art takes on the history of rock ‘n’ roll through iconic instruments on loan from some of rock’s biggest names. There are flamboyant costumes worn by Prince and Jimmy Page, videotaped interviews with “guitar gods,” even shattered guitars.

The show runs here from April 8 through Oct. 1 before traveling to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, where it will be on view from Nov. 20, 2019 through Sept. 13, 2020.

“We’re looking at rock ‘n’ roll instruments as an art. They serve as muses, tools and visual icons, and many of them are hand-painted and lovingly designed,” says Jayson Kerr Dobney, curator in charge of the department of musical instruments at the Met. He organized “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll,” with Craig J. Inciardi, curator and director of acquisitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

For anyone who ever dreamed of climbing onstage at a rock concert for a closer look, this may be your best shot.

“Instruments are some of the most personal objects connected to musicians, but as audience members we are primarily used to seeing them from far away, up on a stage in performance. This exhibition will provide a rare opportunity to examine some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most iconic objects up close,” says Dobney.

Highlights include Chuck Berry’s ES-350T guitar (at the entrance to the exhibit), John Lennon’s 12-string Rickenbacker 325, an electric 500/1 “violin” bass on loan from Paul McCartney, Keith Moon’s drum set, and the white Stratocaster played at Woodstock by Jimi Hendrix.

Interviewed Monday by The Associated Press, Page, the guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin, said that when curators approached him and explained their vision of the exhibit — you approach it through the Greco-Roman art galleries and then suddenly come upon Berry’s guitar — he was all in. 

“My guitar was confiscated if I took it to the school field to play,” he says. “That’s the kind of respect given to guitars in those days.

“So to see guitars from people I listen to … it’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s humbling.”

Over 130 instruments are featured in the show, including ones played and beloved by the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga, Joan Jett, Metallica, Steve Miller, The Rolling Stones, Page and other rock ‘n’ roll greats. The collection spans 1939 to 2017. All the instruments are on loan, most by the musicians themselves, although Miller has promised to donate to the Met his 1961 Les Paul TV Special guitar, painted by surfboard artist Bob Cantrell.

The show features its own rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack and is organized in thematic sections.

“Setting the Stage” explores rock’s early days in the American South of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when pianos, saxophones and acoustic guitars were among the instruments of choice. Soon, Berry helped revolutionize the sound, establishing the electric guitar as the genre’s primary voice and visual icon.

Also featured is a setup like that used by the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. After that performance, “thousands of rock bands were formed using that same lineup: two guitars, a bass and a drum set,” says Dobney.

The “Guitar Gods” section traces that phrase to Eric Clapton’s stardom and a piece of 1966 graffiti in London proclaiming, “Clapton is God.” Others dubbed guitar gods included Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend and Hendrix. All exemplified virtuoso musicianship and awe-inspiring swagger. By the 1970s, women, too, were fronting bands and finding platforms for their own personae and skills, Dobney says.

“The Rhythm Section” explores the sources of the genre’s powerful rhythms, with accented backbeats created using a drum set and electric bass guitar.

Even as guitars were lovingly painted, and sometimes even built by the musicians who played them (like Eddie Van Halen’s red and white “Frankenstein” guitar, featuring a Fender-style body and neck with Gibson electronics), instruments were also famously destroyed by rock stars as part of their act.

“It may be the only musical genre where destruction of instruments became a part of the performance,” Dobney says.

Featured is a fragment of a Hendrix guitar that he set on fire and smashed onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; a Gibson SG Special guitar destroyed by Townsend during a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone (and preserved in Lucite); and a modified Hammond L-100 organ used by Keith Emerson as a “stunt instrument,” which he would jump on, pull on top of himself, stick knives in and — in this instrument’s case — set ablaze during performances.

“Expanding the Band” explores the way the classic four-piece rock band was augmented by instruments like dulcimers, sitars and a range of experimental keyboards to expand the sound.

“Creating an Image” opens with an enormous, jagged electric piano housed in acrylic with built-in lights, owned by Lady Gaga. That section also includes Prince’s “Love Symbol” guitar and a dragon-embroidered outfit once worn by Page.

“Creating a Sound” explores the technical side of rock music, with the amps, guitars and rigs used by Page, Keith Richards, Van Halen and Tom Morello. Each of the four rigs is accompanied by a videotaped interview with the artist explaining how they created their unique sound.

The show ends with footage of some of rock’s most iconic moments, along with decades of posters advertising groundbreaking concerts.
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A biopic on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by a Bollywood filmmaker that was due to hit the screens on Friday has been postponed as it lands in the midst of a raging political controversy.

 

Furious opposition parties have slammed the film, which critics say portrays the Indian leader in a larger-than-life, flattering light, as blatant propaganda and questioned why it was planned to be released days before India begins choosing a new government.  

 

Bollywood’s brush with Indian politics is not new – every election season witnesses a sprinkling of star power as a handful of actors either join politics or use their appeal on the campaign trail. But this is the first time that a film produced by the industry that has an outsized influence on Indian masses, is under the scanner.

 

From tea seller to PM

Tracing the Indian leader’s journey from a humble tea seller to the country’s top post, one of the most dramatic scenes in the trailer of “PM Narendra Modi” shows him waving a giant Indian flag yelling that “India will not fear terror, terror will fear India.”

 

These are themes that Modi has been reinforcing on the campaign trail: in the aftermath of recent hostilities with Pakistan he has projected himself as a leader who took a tougher stand on terrorism compared to previous governments and could protect the country.

 

Denouncing the biopic as a political venture and not an artistic one, the main opposition Congress party said it was meant to get some “extra mileage” in the elections. Although the Election Commission failed to intervene after the opposition said that its release should be deferred, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the plea of a Congress Party leader next week.  

 

As the controversy swirled, news of the delay came in a tweet from the film’s producer, Sandip Ssingh. “This is to confirm that our film ‘PM Narendra Modi’ is not releasing on 5th April. Will update soon.” The filmmakers gave no reason for its postponement but apparently the Censor Board has still to certify it for release.

 

No political agenda

Ssingh has denied any political agenda in making the film saying he only wanted to relate an inspirational story. He has also dismissed allegations that it was timed to coincide with elections saying that filmmakers, as businessmen, have the right to choose a suitable date.

 

Critics however point out that Vivek Oberoi, the actor who portrays Modi is his strong supporter and campaigned for him in 2014.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has told the Election Commission it played no role in the production of the film. “Independent artists, influenced by the lifestyle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, created the film.” It says that banning the film will infringe on the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.

 

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley told reporters last week “when articles, writings, TV channels can influence voters, why can’t celluloid? I would like to understand the self-limitation created on free speech today.”

 

Film critics say it does appear to project Modi in a very favorable light. “By all that one gets to see in the trailer, obviously it is like a hagiography of sorts. You are not going to get like fine analysis of the politics over the years and the controversies that have surrounded the man,” says Namrata Joshi, a film critic with the Hindu newspaper. “And what really riles is the time it is coming. One feels that things are suspect.”

 

Political observers point to one scene in the trailer in which Modi looks disturbed and despondent in the midst of deadly anti-Muslim riots that gripped his home state Gujarat in 2002 when he was chief minister. Although he has been cleared of any involvement in the riots, critics have accused his administration of not doing enough to stop the violence.

 

Previous firestorm

This is not the only film to raise a firestorm. In January a movie about Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh raised another outcry as critics said it portrayed him in an unflattering light. The lead role was played by an actor who is a supporter of Modi.

 

Even as controversy dogs Modi’s biopic, the first half of a 10-episode web series based on him released this month on a video streaming platform without much fanfare.  

 

And Congress Party leader, Rahul Gandhi, seen as Modi’s main opponent, is not being left behind — a biopic on him, “My Name is Raga” plans to show his “inner life.” Its director, Rupesh Paul, said the movie has no intentions to glorify him but is “the story of a coming back of a human being who had been ridiculously attacked.” The biopic however is unlikely to face a challenge as it may not be ready until the polls close in India’s mammoth elections.

The polls open April 11 and continue through May 23.

 
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Dan Robbins, an artist who created the first paint-by-numbers pictures and helped turn the kits into an American sensation during the 1950s, has died. He was 93.

Robbins, whose works were dismissed by some critics but later celebrated by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, died Monday in Sylvania, Ohio, said his son, Larry Robbins. 

He had been in good health until a series of falls in recent months, his son said.

Robbins was working as a package designer for the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit when he came up with the idea for paint-by-numbers in the late 1940s. He said his inspiration came from Leonardo da Vinci.

“I remembered hearing that Leonardo used numbered background patterns for his students and apprentices, and I decided to try something like that,” Robbins said in 2004.

He showed his first attempt – an abstract still life – to his boss, Max Klein, who promptly told Robbins he hated it. 

But Klein saw potential with the overall concept and told Robbins to come up with something people would want to paint. The first versions were of landscapes, and then he branched out to horses, puppies and kittens.

“I did the first 30 or 35 subjects myself, then I started farming them out to other artists,” said Robbins, who mainly stuck to landscapes.

While the Craft Master paint-by-numbers kits weren’t embraced initially, sales quickly took off and peaked at 20 million in 1955. Within a few years, though, the market was flooded, sales dropped and Klein sold the company.

Together, Robbins helped create slices of Americana that are still collected and are found framed in homes across the nation. Palmer still sells at least two kits: one remembering the Sept. 11 attacks and the other depicting the Last Supper.

“We like to think dad was one of the most exhibited artists in the world,” said Larry Robbins. “He enjoyed hearing from everyday people. He had a whole box of fan letters.”

He noted his father’s accomplishments are still on display at the Detroit Historical Museum, “right down from Henry Ford,” his son said.

Robbins, who spent much of his life in the Detroit area, was modest about his work and didn’t get too bothered by those who mocked the paintings.

Critics came to view the paint-by-numbers kits as a metaphor for a commercialized, cookie-cutter culture and fretted that they far outnumbered the original works of art hanging in American homes, said William Lawrence Bird Jr., curator of the 2001 exhibition at the National Museum of American History.

Some within the museum questioned the idea of celebrating the paint-by-numbers craze and its impact on art, at least until the crowds showed up, Bird said.

“He would say, ‘I didn’t think of this, Leonardo did,’ ” Bird said. “He was amused that people were collecting them.”

When his paint-by-numbers days were over, Robbins continued to work in product development, including designing Happy Meal toys for McDonald’s, Bird said.

Robbins, who wrote a book, “Whatever Happened to Paint-by-Numbers,” said at the exhibition’s April 2001 opening in Washington that his creation survived despite the critics.

“I never claim that painting by number is art,” he said. “But it is the experience of art, and it brings that experience to the individual who would normally not pick up a brush, not dip it in paint. That’s what it does.”
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