The Statue of Liberty | blog

Monty Python fans in Los Angeles have been looking on the bright side of life since “Spamalot” — the Broadway musical based on the irreverent 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” — opened in July at the Ahmanson Theatre (the medieval madness ends Sept. 6).

But here’s some cheery Python news from the Big Apple: The Pythons will meet again to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the creation of the troupe on Oct. 15 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City.

While the event will feature no cows being flung by catapult (a highlight of both the stage and screen versions), the reunion will involve the complete troupe: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin (to the best of Culture Monster’s knowledge, no relation to Sarah).

In fact, today’s press release even states that Graham Chapman — who died in 1989 — will be in attendance. We don’t know what’s up with that — but this release does acknowledge that only the “surviving members of the Python team” will sit down for a Q&A after the show.

By: latimesblogs.latimes.com    Read more >>

Paul McCartney came to Citi Field on Friday night to bring a new ballpark one thing that can’t be built in: memories. No one was better qualified.

As a 23-year-old Beatle, Mr. McCartney introduced rock to a stadium audience on Aug. 15, 1965, when the Beatles played a 34-minute set at Shea Stadium, which Citi Field replaced. The Beatles returned to Shea in 1966 on what would be their last tour.

Mr. McCartney was also at the final concert at Shea Stadium, joining the headliner, Billy Joel, on stage last year. Mr. Joel returned the favor on Friday night, singing, whooping and splashing piano chords in “I Saw Her Standing There.” In case the Mets weren’t enough, now Citi Field has musical continuity.

On Friday night, in the first of three shows at the stadium, Mr. McCartney reminisced about 1965, imitating the muffled and distorted sound the Beatles got through the old stadium’s P.A. system, which by all accounts was drowned out by screaming girls. (Nearly 44 years later, somewhat older women seized their cue to scream.)

By: nytimes.com      Read more >>

Robert De Niro and former tennis champion John McEnroe are among victims of a multi-million pound New York art scam, according to the US authorities.

Lawrence Salander, the owner of Manhattan’s Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, is accused of selling art belonging to other people and keeping the proceeds, selling the same piece of art more than once, and luring wealthy investors into bogus or non-existent investment opportunities.

According to the authorities, he used the proceeds of his fraud to fund an opulent lifestyle of private jet trips, a lavish party for his wife and the purchase of a 66-acre (26-hectare) country estate, as well as in a failed effort to corner the Renaissance art market.

By: telegraph.co.uk     Read more >>

The artwork contains a variety of images and writing executed in spray paint, grease pencil, magic marker and whatever else was at hand _ in silver, gold, pink and red. There are cartoon-like pictures of a bomber airplane, images of a heart and a cake, and several references to Quaaludes, a popular 1970s party drug.

The mural was found in the eighth-floor loft owned by art critic Edit deAk in the late 1970s and ’80s _ a time when much of fringe art, including graffiti, was being validated. The wall is nearly intact, with the exception of gaps where a dishwasher and plumbing were installed years later. (ULA ILNYTZKY)

By Newsday.com    Read more>>

Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s “Tres Personajes” a 1970 painting vibrating with reds, yellows and purples, may fetch as much as $1 million at a Sotheby’s auction on Nov. 20, the work’s first public viewing since Elizabeth Gibson spied it in a mound of garbage on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Gibson, a tall, blond 53-year-old resident of the Upper West Side, went out for a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning in 2003. She spotted a large painting poking out from among the garbage bags left on the sidewalk on West 72nd Street. In her pre-caffeinated haze, she kept walking.

By Bloomberg.com    Read more>>

There’s an ease and an affection between Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony that makes their performances even more appealing together than they are separately.

Whatever the case, their duets — the ballad “Por Arriesgarnos” and the salsafied “No Me Ames” — were the best moments in the duo’s show at Madison Square Garden Sunday night, part of Lopez’s first national tour.

By Newsday.com    Read more>>