Arts & Life

Clint Mansell is the Grammy-nominated composer whose work on Requiem for a Dream jumpstarted a prolific and distinctive score career.

Requiem For A Theme: Film Composer Clint Mansell On The Sound Of Sadness

5:58am October 16, 2020

by Tim Greiving

Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film Requiem for a Dream spawned a musical motif that's rippled through media — and jumpstarted a new career for Clint Mansell, the composer of its haunted score.

Siblings Ana (Sydney Lemmon) and Daimon (Tom Austen) have a rivalry that causes infernal conflict in Hulu's Helstrom.

Arts

Damned If You Do: Hulu's Less-Than-Marvelous 'Helstrom'

5:19am October 16, 2020

by Glen Weldon

A surfeit of subplots and secondary characters — and a complicated production history — take a minor Marvel occult hero on a journey that turns out to be a dead end.

Demi Lovato performs "Commander in Chief" during the Billboard Music Awards, broadcast on Oct. 14 from Los Angeles.

Demi Lovato Addresses Trump With New Song, 'Commander In Chief'

7:47pm October 15, 2020

by LaTesha Harris

Demi Lovato performed "Commander in Chief," her politically charged single criticizing President Trump, for the first time at Wednesday's Billboard Music Awards.

"The excitement for me has been to slowly uncover the secret lives of many of these cryptic animals," says Craig Foster. "My incredible octopus teacher, she helped me in many ways to uncover many of those lives, because she's in the middle of this food we

Science
Arts

Filmmaker Finds An Unlikely Underwater Friend In 'My Octopus Teacher'

4:10pm October 15, 2020

by Sam Briger

Craig Foster spent a year diving — without oxygen or a wetsuit — into the frigid sea near Cape Town, South Africa. One octopus began coming out of her den to hunt or explore while Foster watched.

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French woman conductor for the Paris Trolley Company, 1917

Arts

Take Off Your Sweats And Step Into 'Silk And Steel' — French Fashions In WWI

10:43am October 15, 2020

by Susan Stamberg

An exhibition at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., explores what wartime women wore — from overalls to evening gowns — and how military uniforms have affected fashion.

Books
Arts

Underestimating These 'Maids' Is A Fatal Mistake

7:00am October 15, 2020

by Etelka Lehoczky

Katie Skelly's uncanny new graphic novel retells the real-life story of sisters Christine and Léa Papin, who were working as maids when they brutally murdered their employers.

Riva Lehrer's 2010 charcoal mixed-media collage portrait of Alison Bechdel, author of the Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip and the memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother?

Arts

20 Artists In Inaugural Class Of Disability Futures Fellows Receive $50,000 Grants

5:12pm October 14, 2020

by Elizabeth Blair

A new fund created by the Andrew W. Mellon and Ford Foundations awards unrestricted grants to fellows working in a range of disciplines including architecture, dance, multimedia and journalism.

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The National Road: Dispatches From a Changing America, by Tom Zoellner

'The National Road' Takes Readers On A Trip Through Americana

1:54pm October 14, 2020

by Martha Anne Toll

Teacher and writer Tom Zoellner has logged tens of thousands of miles zigzagging the continent with, a small tent and backpack, investigating American places and themes — metaphors for our country.

2 Broadway Stars Grapple With COVID And ALS: 'We're Adapting To A New Reality'

1:29pm October 14, 2020

by Terry Gross

Married Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Rebecca Luker both contracted COVID in the spring. Burstein was hospitalized. Luker's case was less severe, but it came soon after she was diagnosed with ALS.

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Conchata Ferrell at the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. She was nominated twice for her role as Berta on Two and a Half Men.

Arts

'Two And A Half Men' Star Conchata Ferrell Dies at 77

12:06pm October 14, 2020

by Andrew Limbong

Ferrell played the gruff but loveable maid Berta. The character was only supposed to be around for a two-episode arc, but Ferrell stayed on throughout the show's run.