Arts & Culture
WRITING & SOCIETY
Writers don’t make up myths; they take them over and recast them.
Even Homer was telling stories that his audience already knew. If some
individuals present weren’t acquainted with Odysseus’s wanderings
or the Trojan War, and were listening in for the first time (as I was
when a child, enthralled by the gods and goddesses in H.A. Guerber’s
classic retelling), they were still aware that this was a common inheritance
that belonged to everyone. [more]
No nation has produced better essayists than France, none has produced
better composers than the Germans, better painters than the Italians,
nor better novelists than the Russians. America invented jazz and still
masters the form and, though some may dissent, her record in film is
unsurpassed. And the English? The English do poetry. [more]
NEW SHORT FICTION
Ripening Time by Olivia McCannon 
The silence shuffled down again. The darkness pressed its face against
the windows of his car. Outside were dense black forms that span round
as they passed, and a vast indigo sky pricked with stars. She was in
the passenger seat, he was the pilot, and they were going wherever
he was taking her. [subscribe]
The Girl in the Refrigerator by Etgar Keret
He told her that he once had a girlfriend who liked to be alone.
And that was very sad, because they were a couple, and couple, by definition,
means together. But mostly she preferred to be alone. So once he asked
her, “Why? Is it something in me?”. And she said, “No, it has nothing
to do with you, it's something in me, from my childhood.” [subscribe]
THEATRE
As You Must Set Forth at Dawn makes abundantly clear, Soyinka
has operated politically both within Nigeria and in exile at a far higher
level than most artists can hope to attain, but the consequence is a visceral
understanding of himself – and all living things – as “reservoirs
of blood”. [more]
DANCE
Zero Degrees for Collaboration by Sarah Frater
In truth, real collaboration is a rare breed. More likely is the classy
commission, where a savvy choreographer hires a trendy artist, and
there’s a feel-good buzz for all concerned – theatregoers are only
too pleased to clock the name, artists enjoy the kudos of the stage,
and the choreographer snags the sort of publicity she or he would otherwise
struggle to gain alone. [subscribe]
VISUAL ART
There is a demand and a prayer made in each of Ibrahim El Salahi’s
designs. This pioneer of Sudanese modernism has fused the diverse
traditions of Sudan to make an art that is universal in its importance.
His monumental painting The Inevitable (1984) is an uncompromising
condemnation of civil war and injustice. The comparison with Picasso’s Guernica is
not misplaced: indeed, the painting can be seen as an African counterpoint
to it. [more]
FILM
Out of Africa by Catherine Bray
The Beloved Ones deals with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, but there
are no poe-faced presenters doing to-camera pieces against a backgrop
of devastated villages; instead, this unusual film is that rare things:
an animated documentary. [subscribe]
WINE
As a society, we are not the diluting type. The result is a quandary.
Do we drink less? Or carry on as normal and risk the inevitable hangover
and health issues that are the dogged pursuers of Bacchanalian excess? [more]
FOOD
Ceres by Mark Daniel
And no, - organic though a helpful option, runs a distant and today faintly
disreputable second to local. I was recently sent a consignment of
smoked yellowfin tuna for appraisal. It bore the Soil Association
sticker to indicate that it was organic. And it had come from St
Helena. [subscribe]
