Category: Новини

Crowds gathered in Barcelona’s historic downtown to watch in awe and snap cellphone photos as teams of people in colorful garb formed human towers rising into the air like the spires on the nearby medieval cathedral. 

A giant figure in bright blue dress and a floral crown paraded through the streets in representation of St. Eulàlia, the city’s patron, a 13-year-old girl who was crucified by Romans in the early fourth century for refusing to renounce Christianity. 

After two years of canceled or muted celebrations due to the pandemic, this Mediterranean city went all-out this past weekend to mark the February 12 feast, or “festa” in the Catalan language, of its longest-celebrated patron. 

With the most recent nationwide outdoor mask mandate lifted by the government just days earlier, Barcelonans were especially eager to revel in the three-day “festes de Santa Eulàlia,” with celebrations that make social distancing impossible and require painstaking choreography and training. 

Celebrated with a specific protocol since the 1600s, the festival has been gaining renewed popularity since the early 1980s. It includes solemn Masses, intricate dances and parades of “gegants,” larger-than-life historical and fantasy figures usually made of papier mâché and borne by revelers. 

While rooted in Catholic liturgy, today the festival is primarily a secular expression of pride and shared cultural identity in the Catalonia region in northeastern Spain, passionately celebrated even if most who take part don’t identify as believers. 

“The resurgence started with ordinary people who wanted to do something that would be their own, belonging to Barcelona,” said Nil Rider, a historian who helped organize an exhibit about St. Eulàlia at the cathedral’s Diocesan Museum. “This is living heritage that gives people an identity.”  

Foremost among the festival’s traditions are the “castells,” or “castles,” as the human towers are called, which have been performed for two centuries by neighborhood groups not only in Barcelona but in local festivals across Catalonia. 

Dozens of “castellers,” or group members, stand packed tightly together, compressing every inch of their bodies into each other to form a base. Progressively lighter-weight members then climb up to establish six or more human tiers until they form a support for the top performer, a young child wearing a mandatory helmet — and, this year, a KN95 face mask. 

“What we like is to achieve a challenge that we only are able to do together. It’s very identity-forming,” said Dan Esteban, a casteller and former head of the group representing the neighborhood of Poble Sec, just outside the medieval core. 

Two years of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns in hard-hit Spain have left people out of practice, and Esteban said the group wasn’t able to train at all until September. Even now fewer people than usual show up for twice-weekly sessions, which are crucial for getting everyone to work in concert since budging just an inch can bring the entire structure crashing down. 

Cristina Velasco also worried about recovering lost ground as she planned for this year’s “correfoc,” another traditional element of the festival in which adults and children parade in horned devil costumes alongside spinning fireworks displays. Sunday night’s would be the first full parade since the pandemic, with fewer children taking part as some turned to other activities and haven’t returned. 

“We have the feeling we have to do it because otherwise we will lose it,” said Velasco, who has been dressing up as a devil for 30 years and is president of the city’s federation of three-dozen neighborhood correfoc groups. 

Teaching youngsters the allegorical and historic origins of the correfoc tradition is vital, she said, even if “99% of people don’t even know where the devil came from.”  

Clutching a statuette of St. Eulàlia, 10-year-old Laia Castro, 10, waited patiently in line under a chilly drizzle to enter the majestic Gothic cathedral Saturday, the day commemorating the saint’s martyrdom. Descending into the crypt where the saint’s remains have been venerated since the 1330s, she signed a registry kept in the sacristy for girls named with the common diminutive for Eulàlia. 

“Really we’re not religious, but we like this celebration,” said her father, Albert Castro. 

He hopes for Laia to know the saint’s history and then make her own decision about faith: “And if she believes, she will know she did something extra today.”  

The Rev. Robert Baró Cabrera, director of the Cathedral’s cultural heritage patrimony, said the festival’s spotlight on identity and devotion to the saint offers “a powerful environment for evangelization” even as secularism continues to grow. 

“Our churches are both cultural and identity references,” he said. “If people want to find the roots of their identity, they can’t help but go into the church.”  

In one of the festival’s most evocative celebrations, a performer bearing a giant eagle figure with flowering branches in its beak paraded Friday night from city hall through the old quarter, accompanied by drums, bagpipes and flutes. 

Arriving at the soaring Gothic basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, built where St. Eulàlia was first buried after her martyrdom, the eagle entered the packed but hushed sanctuary and proceeded to pirouette in front of the altar in a six-century-old ritual. 

On hand were Loli García and her 4-year-old granddaughter, Ona, whom she brought to teach her about their roots and culture. 

“It’s one thing not to be religious, but they have to know the history,” García said as Ona stood on a pew and watched, spellbound. “I take her to all traditional Catalan celebrations, as I used to do with my daughter.”   

 
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P.J. O’Rourke, the prolific author and satirist who refashioned the irreverence and “gonzo” journalism of the 1960s counterculture into a distinctive brand of conservative and libertarian commentary, has died at age 74. 

O’Rourke died Tuesday morning, according to Grove Atlantic Inc. Books publisher and president Morgan Entrekin. He did not cite a specific cause but said O’Rourke had been ill in recent months.  

Patrick Jake O’Rourke was a Toledo, Ohio, native who evolved from long-haired student activist to wavy-haired scourge of his old liberal ideals, with some of his more widely read takedowns appearing in a founding counterculture publication, Rolling Stone. His career otherwise extended from serving as editor in chief of National Lampoon to a brief stint on “60 Minutes,” in which he represented the conservative take on “Point/Counterpoint,” to frequent appearances on NPR’s game show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”  

“Most well-known people try to be nicer than they are in public than they are in private life. PJ was the only man I knew to be the opposite. He was a deeply kind and generous man who pretended to be a curmudgeon for public consumption,” tweeted Peter Sagal, the host of “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” 

“He told the best stories. He had the most remarkable friends. And he devoted himself to them and his family in a way that would have totally ruined his shtick had anyone ever found out,” Sagal said. 

His writing style suggested a cross between the hedonism of Hunter S. Thompson and the patrician mockery of Tom Wolfe: Self-importance was a reliable target. But his greatest disdain was often for the government — not just a specific administration, but government itself. As a young man, he opposed the government as a maker of war and laws against drugs. Later on, he went after what he called “the silken threads of entitlement spending.” 

In a 2018 column for the venerable conservative publication, The Weekly Standard, he looked on with scorn at Washington’s gentrification. 

“People are flocking to the seat of government power. One would say ‘dogs returning to their vomit’ except that’s too hard on dogs. Too hard on people, also. They come to Washington because they have no choice — diligent working breeds compelled to eat their regurgitated tax dollars,” he wrote. 

O’Rourke’s other books included “Give War a Chance,” “Driving Like Crazy,” “None of My Business” and “A Cry from the Middle.” Entrekin told The Associated Press that O’Rourke had been working on a one-volume look at the United States as seen from his hometown: “A History of Toledo, Ohio: From the Beginning of Time Til the End of the Universe.” 

O’Rourke was an undergraduate at Miami University and received a master’s degree in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1970. He started out writing for such underground publications as the New York Ace and joined National Lampoon in 1973, where his colleagues included Douglas Kenney, who later co-wrote “Animal House” and “Caddyshack” and with O’Rourke edited the parody “National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook.” 

Over the following decades, he became a familiar presence as a writer and on-air pundit. He covered war and unrest everywhere from El Salvador to the Philippines, while mocking “The Dictatorship of Boredom” back home. 

“In July 1988, I covered the specious, entropic, criminally trivial, boring stupid Democratic National Convention, a numb suckhole stuffed with political bulk filler held in that place where bad malls go to die, Atlanta,” reads a dispatch from “Parliament of Whores,” a bestseller published in 1991. “Then … I flew to that other oleo-high colonic, the Republican convention, an event with the intellectual content of a Guns N’ Roses lyric.”  

Like other longtime conservatives, O’Rourke’s loyalties were tested by the rise of Donald Trump. O’Rourke had little use for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, but he found he could live with her “lies and all her empty promises.” 

“It’s the second worst thing that can happen to this country. But she’s way behind in second place. I mean, she’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters,” he said on NPR.  

“I mean, this man (Trump) just can’t be president,” he said. “They’ve got this button, you know, in the briefcase. He’s going to find it.” 

 
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The family of a cinematographer shot and killed on the set of the film “Rust” is suing Alec Baldwin and the movie’s producers for wrongful death, their attorneys said Tuesday.

Lawyers for the family of Halyna Hutchins announced the lawsuit filed in New Mexico in the name of Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son, Andros, at a Los Angeles news conference.

At least three other lawsuits have been filed over the shooting, but this is the first directly tied to one of the two people shot.

The “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” of Baldwin and the film’s producers “led to the death of Halyna Hutchins,” attorney Brian Panish said.

A video created by the attorneys showed an animated recreation of the shooting.

Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins during the setup for the filming of a scene for the western in New Mexico on Oct. 21 when it went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza.

Baldwin has said he was pointing the gun at Hutchins at her instruction and it went off without him pulling the trigger.

The attorneys said in the video that Baldwin had turned down training for the kind of gun draw he was doing when he shot Hutchins.

It said industry standards call for using a rubber or similar prop gun during the setup that was happening, and there was no call for a real gun.

Last month, nearly three months after the shooting, Baldwin turned over his cellphone to authorities in his home state of New York. They gathered information from the phone and provided it to Santa Fe County investigators, who had obtained a warrant for it.

Investigators have described “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the “Rust” set. They have said it is too soon to determine whether charges will be filed.

Baldwin said he does not believe he will be criminally charged in the shooting.

The film’s script supervisor and its lead camera operator, both of whom were standing a few feet away when Hutchins was shot, each filed a lawsuit over the trauma they went through.

And the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was named as a defendant in those lawsuits and blamed by some for the shooting, filed her own suit saying an ammunition supplier created dangerous conditions by including live ammunition in a box that was supposed to include only dummy rounds.

In an interview with ABC News in December, Baldwin said he felt incredible sadness over the the shooting, but not guilt.

“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.

He said Hutchins had asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.”

He called Hutchins “somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her.”

Hutchins, 42, grew up on a remote Soviet military base and worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe before studying film in Los Angeles and embarking on a promising movie-making career.

On her Instagram page, Hutchins identified herself as a “restless dreamer” and “adrenaline junkie.”

In a 2019 interview with American Cinematographer, which named her one of the year’s rising stars, she described herself as an “army brat” drawn to movies because “there wasn’t that much to do outside.” She would document herself parachuting and exploring caves, among other adventures, and through her work with British filmmakers, became “fascinated with storytelling based on real characters.”
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Comic actors Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes will host this year’s Academy Awards ceremony as producers try to attract new viewers after record-low ratings in 2021, Hollywood publication Variety and other media outlets reported on Monday. 

The actors are finalizing details and an announcement will be made on Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Variety said. ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co, will broadcast the Oscars ceremony on March 27. 

The film industry’s highest honors, which are handed out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, have not had a host since 2018. 

Schumer won an Emmy in 2015 for her variety sketch show “Inside Amy Schumer.” Hall is known for movies including “Girls Trip” and “Little.” Sykes stars in and created “The Upshaws” and played a recurring role on “Black-ish.” 

Representatives for the actors, the academy and ABC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The Oscars were handed out by celebrity presenters but had no host in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Ratings for the telecast have fallen in recent years, dropping to a low of 10.4 million people in the United States in 2021. Viewership of other entertainment awards shows also has declined. 

The 2021 Oscars ceremony was scaled down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards were handed out at a historic train station in downtown Los Angeles in front of a small audience of nominees and guests. 

This year, organizers have said the show will return to its longtime home of the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. 

Netflix Inc’s gothic Western, “The Power of the Dog,” leads the field of this year’s Oscar nominations with 12 nods, followed by science-fiction epic “Dune” with 10. 

 
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U.S. first lady Jill Biden on Monday observed Valentine’s Day at the White House with displays of giant hearts on the North Lawn and valentines from local elementary school children inside the mansion. 

The displays include a giant red heart inscribed with a Bible passage, 1 Corinthians 13:13, which says, “Three things will last forever — faith, hope and love — and the greatest of these is love.“ 

Additionally, hand-painted, wooden artwork in the shapes of the first family’s puppy, Commander, and cat, Willow, adorned either side of the giant heart bearing the Bible verse. 

The displays are positioned so they will be seen in the background when White House television correspondents report on the day’s news. 

Additionally, valentines created by second-grade classes from a local Washington elementary school are on display in the East Wing of the White House. 

The children who created them are students of Alejandro Diasgranados, a teacher at Aiton Elementary School and Washington’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. On Monday, the students, accompanied by their teacher, toured the White House. 

Last year, just two weeks after President Joe Biden’s inauguration and in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first lady had large red hearts placed on the North Lawn bearing messages such as “compassion,” “courage,” “healing” and “kindness.” 

Valentine’s Day — annually observed February 14 — has always been special to Jill Biden. Her tradition of decorating goes back to Joe Biden’s days as vice president under President Barack Obama when she decorated every window in her husband’s office. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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For literature lovers in sanction-hit Iran, a new novel has long provided a brief respite from a grinding economic crisis triggered by international pressure imposed over Tehran’s contested nuclear programme.

But now losing yourself in a good book is becoming harder, as cash-strapped publishers struggle because the price of paper is soaring.

“If a 200-page novel sold for 400,000 rials ($1.60) last year, its price today is 1,000,000 rials ($4.10), most of which is the cost of production”, said Reza Hasheminejad, who runs the Ofoq publishing house.

Iran does not produce its own paper pulp for publishing so relies on imports, and while those are not under sanctions, they must be paid for in foreign currency. That means the price of a book depends directly on the fluctuation of Iran’s rial.

So publishers are not only slashing the number of titles published, but also cutting the number of pages of those they do print by shrinking the font size.

“Publishing has suffered a major crisis — which could become existential,” said Emily Amrai, collection director at the Houpa publishing house.

While publishers worldwide face growing challenges to the way people read and consume literature, Iran is facing an extra problem.

The United States, under former president Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from a landmark accord to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb — a goal Tehran has always denied pursuing — with Washington then reimposing tough economic sanctions.

“As soon as the US sanctions were reinstated in 2018, the price of paper rose,” Amrai said.

‘A miracle’

Long-running negotiations to revive a deal with Iran continue in Austria, but until an international agreement turns the page, the impact of sanctions grows worse.

“The devaluation of our currency against the greenback, the global rise in the price of paper paid in dollars and the increase in the cost of transport — also paid in foreign currency — has plunged publishing into the doldrums,” said Hossein Motevali, owner of Houpa, which specialises in children’s books.

Because book prices are fixed in Iran, profits are pegged to the rapidly fluctuating price of paper.

“Between receiving the manuscript, laying it out, and setting the price of the book, I can lose everything if the price of paper has gone up suddenly,” Hasheminejad said.

“That happens because I’m at the mercy of the fluctuation of the currencies.”

As for the authors, they are paid by the number of the pages in the book, whether they are famous or not.

“Selling books is a miracle today, because the majority of customers belong to the middle class — and given the economic conditions, their priority is to obtain essential goods such as food,” said Hasheminejad. “I really wonder how people still buy books at these prices.”

Bookstores in Iran look similar to shops anywhere in the world. As well as shelves of Iranian writers, popular sellers include translations of foreign works — from 20th century European classics to self-help and psychology books.

Farsi translations of Mary Trump’s tell-all on her uncle Donald Trump, as well as the memoir of former US first lady Michelle Obama, have been recent hits.

‘Shock’

But as the crisis deepens, several small publishing houses have been driven out of business.

“Today, many independent publishers, who have published excellent works, have been eliminated from the market”, said Amrai.

Larger publishing houses have had to adapt to survive.

“We have reduced our profits by as much as possible in order to keep our customers, we have reduced printing and pagination, and publish digital books to avoid paper and reduce costs,” said Hasheminejad.

“But that will only last a year or two, for even the most solid companies.”

So far, books printed before recent spikes in paper costs provided a buffer, but those stocks are running low.

“In a few months, when the books stored in the depots are exhausted, it will be a shock for the customer when they see the new prices,” Hasheminejad warned.

On Enghelab Street, Tehran’s main book market, retired teacher Behjat Mazloumi, 60, already struggles to afford second-hand books.

“I haven’t been able to buy a book for years,” said Mazloumi. “Even street vendors sell books at a very high price.”

The cost rise will have wider impacts too, experts say.

Children in poorer areas where access to literature is already limited will soon find themselves priced out completely, Hasheminejad said.

“Today, we see people in some disadvantaged areas who cannot even communicate properly in Farsi,” he said. “They will certainly experience difficulties.”
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