Arts Reviews

There is a classic Simpsons episode in which young Bart falls down a well. Local celebrities, with the aid of guest star Sting, decide to band together to do something about it. Their magnificently useless contribution is to band together to perform a song in which they ‘send their love down the well’. ‘We can’t get him out, so we’ll do the next best thing, go on TV and sing, sing, sing.’I am surely not the only person who thought of this scene when Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman and others performed a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

What’s ancient, slow-moving and leaves a trail of crap in its wake? No, not Britain’s royal family; the African elephant. The two are easily confused. The royals never forget and are an endangered species that mates in captivity. Elephants are leathery, photogenic and likely to inspire misplaced sentiment. No wonder Meghan Markle’s first venture as Hollywood royalty should be as voiceover artiste for Elephant, a Disney documentary about elephants in Botswana. But this, like Meghan’s in-laws, is as rich, white and privileged as it gets.The plot of Elephant is the usual cheap anthropomorphism. Gaia the indomitable matriarch must lead her herd hundreds of miles across the Kalahari Desert to a lush green paradise.

Across the most bourgeois quarters of the known world, youngish men with expensive educations and an unhealthy interest in the works of Italo Svevo have been driven by plague from their favorite coffee shops. For the first time in their lives they cannot go to Friday night loft parties and snicker about more successful contemporaries. What is to be done with all these days that stretch out languidly into infinity? Should they volunteer to dig graves? Help 3D-print a new ventilator design? Call their housebound mothers? No. Don’t be naive. When the going gets tough, the tough dust off their copies of The 101 Habits of Successful Screenwriters and get down to work. I mean, didn’t Shakespeare write King Lear during a quarantine or something? That could be you!

A few days ago, with somewhat bittersweet timing, Marvel Entertainment made an exciting announcement. This was at a time when low information people — up to and including the president — were realizing that, uhh, hey Chuck, this virus thingy might be quite a big deal. Might be a good time to stock up on rice and beans, you know? Back to Marvel’s announcement. They were creating a new generation of heroes for a grateful populace! Their names you ask? Well, there was Screentime, a ‘meme-obsessed super teen’ who has the ability to use Google without a WiFi connection. There was Snowflake (they/them) and Safespace; the former throws psychic snowflake shurikens at people who read Breitbart and the latter generates a pink force shield around them as they do so.

Linda Fairstein, the former head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit, is suing Netflix for defamation over the streaming platform’s series When They See Us, a dramatized retelling of the ‘Central Park Five’ rape case. Fairstein’s suit alleges that the series contains numerous inaccuracies and fictionalized events that were ‘deliberately calculated to create one, clear and unmistakable villain to be targeted for hatred and vilification for what happened to The Five’. Director Ava DuVernay and co-writer Attica Locke are also named defendants in the lawsuit.

Artie Lange has disappeared. His gigs are canceled. His podcast is on hiatus. His social media is hardly being updated. The legendary comedian is apparently ‘sick’ but fans suspect that something else might be going on. You needn’t be Sherlock Holmes to be suspicious about his absence. Lange has been flitting in and out of rehab for the past 25 years.God knows I hope that Lange is sick. The comedian has emerged out of the depths of an addiction so dramatic that his nose imploded like an overripe tomato after years of snorting cocaine and heroin. (According to Lange, the obliteration of his beak was the result of snorting drugs mixed with broken glass.

‘My current pianist, McCoy Tyner, holds down the harmonies, and that allows me to forget them,’ John Coltrane said in an interview in 1961. ‘He’s sort of the one who gives me wings and lets me take off from the ground from time to time.’ Tyner, who died on Friday at the age of 82, will be remembered for his crucial role supporting John Coltrane during some of the legendary saxophonist’s most creative years. But on the occasion of Tyner’s death it’s also worth recognizing that ‘the Real McCoy’ had a penetrating voice and lasting influence all his own.A son of west Philadelphia born in 1938, Tyner was encouraged by supportive parents and was playing piano by 13.

For years, Louis Farrakhan and his followers have been claiming that African Americans are divided against each other because of ‘the Jews’. And now Bernie Sanders has broken up Chuck D and Flavor Flav. Mr Flav, for those who went to older schools than the old skool, is a ‘hypeman’ for the musical entertainment group Public Enemy. In the mid-Eighties, Public Enemy caused some considerable stir among young pop-pickers with their appealing combination of stolen samples, Nation of Islam militarism and highly lucrative calls to black revolt. Mr Flav’s ebullient performances were especially entertaining, for it was his wont to wear a giant hat, outsize sunglasses, and a giant clock around his neck, while shouting signature phrases such as ‘Yeah, boyeeeee!’, ‘Flavor Flav!

Founded 25 years ago, the History Channel quickly earned the nickname the ‘Hitler Channel’ for its relentless bombardment of World War Two programming. By the late-2000s, the ‘history' began to morph. With its crown jewels Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men, the channel adopted the not-very-historical slogan ‘History Made Everyday’. There were still historical programs, but they weren’t necessarily accurate, and the headliners were historically-based dramas like Vikings, Knightfall and the highly disappointing Sons of Liberty.The current lineup features Ancient Aliens, Swamp People, Project Blue Book and American Pickers.