- Hilton Als: Charles Ludlam’s “The Sorrows of Dolores” and “Museum of Wax” at IFC.
In the nineteen-seventies, Charles Ludlam, the founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, started to make two films. But by the time he died, of complications from AIDS in 1987, the movies, both silent, were still not finished. “The Sorrows of Dolores” and “Museum of Wax,” . . ....
- Books: “Driving Home.”
In 1990, Raban left London “on impulse, for casual and disreputable reasons.” He met someone, he tells us, and made for Seattle, the “far-western stronghold of the second chance, second family, second career.” The essays collected here describe, among other things, his attempts to get . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Late for Tea at the Deer Palace.”
8220;Everybody asks me about my father,” the author writes, on the first page of this family memoir. But the story of the sprawling and wealthy Chalabi clan began long before Ahmad achieved infamy as the source of the “supposedly faulty intelligence that led America into the war . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Michael Schulman: Vidal Sassoon’s life in hair.
The Whitney Museum is closed on Tuesdays, but a few weeks ago it opened its doors to someone you may know from the shower: Vidal Sassoon. A genteel London-to-Beverly Hills transplant, Sassoon was in town for the opening of “Vidal Sassoon: The Movie,” a documentary about . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Verdi’s Shakespeare” review.
In the essays collected here, Wills examines how Verdi—who, though he did not read English, “adored Shakespeare”—composed and staged “Macbeth,” “Otello,” and “Falstaff,” all “solid masterpieces,” and the latter two “arguably the greatest things he . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Oct. 10. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Through Oct. 30. | “Arts of Korea/Patchwork Textiles . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Vermeer’s Masterpiece ‘The Milkmaid.’” Opens Sept. 10. | “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul.” Through Sept. 20. | “Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” . . ....
- Peter Schjeldahl: The Metropolitan’s “Rooms with a View.”
8220;Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century,” at the Metropolitan Museum, is a conscientious art-historical roundup that ascends, here and there, to poetry. It presents paintings and drawings by forty-two Northern European, chiefly German and Danish, artists who became smitten, in the . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Bradshaw Variations.”
The Bradshaws, Thomas and Tonie, live in a “convenient, middle-sized town an hour from London,” populated by “fretful-looking, badly paid liberal professionals.” Tonie has been made head of her university English department, leaving Thomas to look after their eight-year-old daughter, while learning . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Through Oct. 31. | “Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage.” . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Through Oct . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Through Oct . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Through Oct . . ....
- Tad Friend: Michel Hazanavicius on making “The Artist.”
The past, we often hear, is a foreign country: they do things differently there. Some pasts seem particularly remote and inaccessible. For instance, “The Artist,” which opened last week, is a silent film about Hollywood in the late twenties as seen from France. “People come nervous to . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Opens May 5. | “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Through Oct . . ....
- Books: “Rat.”
Rat is a fifteen-year-old girl, “all elbows and moods,” who enjoys a sunburned and barefoot life in the South of France with her eccentric mother and adopted brother. Trouble at home leads to a familiar but finely constructed narrative, as the siblings set out for London . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo.” . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo.” . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo.” . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo.” . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Through Aug. 1. | “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.” Through Aug. 15. | “An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo.” . . ....
- Books: Toby Lester’s “Da Vinci’s Ghost” review.
This short, engaging book provides historical and intellectual contexts for one of the world’s most famous drawings, Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man,” in which a male figure is inscribed in both a circle and a square. Lester traces the conceptual origins of the drawing back to . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Oct. 10. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Through Oct. 30. | “Arts of . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Nov. 24. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Through Oct. 30. | “Night Vision . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Oct. 10. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Through Oct. 30. | “Night Vision . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Oct. 10. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Through Oct. 30. | “Night Vision . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” Through Oct. 10. | “Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective.” Through Aug. 28. | “Homage to Lucian Freud.” Through Dec. 31. | “Anthony Caro . . ....
- Books: Natalie Dykstra’s “Clover Adams” review.
Born in 1843 to a wealthy, intellectual Boston family, Marian (Clover) Hooper moved in the most illustrious circles of nineteenth-century America. Henry James called her “a perfect Voltaire in petticoats”; Henry Adams married her. In Washington, she became a celebrated hostess, rode horses, and, at the age . . . (Subscription required.)...
