Friday the 13th is usually associated with bad luck and various superstitions. But, what exactly are these superstitions? Where have they originated from?

A name has been given to describe the irrational dread of the date: paraskevidekatriaphobia. It means a specialised form of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13.

As per the Georgian calendar, the 13th of any month is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than any other day of the week.&nbsp; 
It is not a universal superstition.

In Greece and Spanish-speaking countries, it is Tuesday the 13th that is considered a day of bad luck, while in Italy, it is Friday the 17th that is usually associated with bad luck.&nbsp;

The Origin 
While the origin of the superstition is not yet clear. What is known is that both Friday and the number 13 have been regarded as unlucky in certain cultures throughout history.&nbsp;

In his book "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things," Charles Panati highlights the concept of the cursed back to Norse mythology, when Loki, the god of mischief, gate-crashed a banquet in Valhalla, bringing the number of gods in attendance to 13.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/today-in-history-singapores-first-government-war-between-israel-and-arab-states-and-more-303441#1959-303436">Also read |&nbsp;Today in history: Singapore's first government, war between Israel and Arab states and more</a>

The blind god Hodr was deceived and tricked by Loki into shooting his brother Balder, the god of light, joy and goodness, killing him instantly.

Panati explains how the superstition spread from Scandinavia to the south throughout Europe, becoming well established along the Mediterranean by the start of the Christian era.&nbsp;

Soon, the unsettling power of the numerals was cemented through the story of the Last Supper, which was attended by Jesus Christ and his disciples on Maundy Thursday.&nbsp;

The 13th and most infamous guest to arrive, Judas Iscariot, was the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

This further led to his crucifixion on Good Friday. In the 19th century, Friday 13th became synonymous with misfortune.

Steve Roud explains in "The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland," the combination of Friday and the number 13 is a 'Victorian invention'.&nbsp;

In 1907, the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel "Friday, the Thirteenth" captured the imagination with its tale of an unscrupulous broker who took advantage of the superstitions around the date to deliberately crash the stock market.

Panati has written, "When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch".&nbsp;

Also, "It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil -- a gathering of thirteen -- and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week."

Ever since Friday, the 13th continues to haunt the imagination of people. However, with time and westernisation, this may turn.

Friday the 13th is usually associated with bad luck and various superstitions. But, what exactly are these superstitions? Where have they originated from? A name has been given to describe the irrational dread of the date: paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Friday the 13th is usually associated with bad luck and various superstitions. But, what exactly are these superstitions? Where have they originated from? A name has been given to describe the irrational dread of the date: paraskevidekatriaphobia. It means a specialised form of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. As per the Georgian calendar, the 13th of any month is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than any other day of the week. It is not a universal superstition. In Greece and Spanish-speaking countries, it is Tuesday the 13th that is considered a day of bad luck, while in Italy, it is Friday the 17th that is usually associated with bad luck. The Origin While the origin of the superstition is not yet clear. What is known is that both Friday and the number 13 have been regarded as unlucky in certain cultures throughout history. In his book "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things," Charles Panati highlights the concept of the cursed back to Norse mythology, when Loki, the god of mischief, gate-crashed a banquet in Valhalla, bringing the number of gods in attendance to 13. Also read | Today in history: Singapore's first government, war between Israel and Arab states and more The blind god Hodr was deceived and tricked by Loki into shooting his brother Balder, the god of light, joy and goodness, killing him instantly. Panati explains how the superstition spread from Scandinavia to the south throughout Europe, becoming well established along the Mediterranean by the start of the Christian era. Soon, the unsettling power of the numerals was cemented through the story of the Last Supper, which was attended by Jesus Christ and his disciples on Maundy Thursday. The 13th and most infamous guest to arrive, Judas Iscariot, was the disciple who betrayed Jesus. This further led to his crucifixion on Good Friday. In the 19th century, Friday 13th became synonymous with misfortune. Steve Roud explains in "The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland," the combination of Friday and the number 13 is a 'Victorian invention'. In 1907, the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel "Friday, the Thirteenth" captured the imagination with its tale of an unscrupulous broker who took advantage of the superstitions around the date to deliberately crash the stock market. Panati has written, "When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch". Also, "It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil -- a gathering of thirteen -- and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week." Ever since Friday, the 13th continues to haunt the imagination of people. However, with time and westernisation, this may turn.

Friday the 13th: The cultural origins, and everything you need to know

On Kashmir Road To Progress, meet: an engineer cum artist, a hotelier and food connoisseur, an architect and urban planner and a designer building a global brand. These young Kashmiris speak up about what cultural heritage means to them.

Kashmir Road to Progress: Culture and Heritage

A traditional painting technique is seeing a revival in one of Russia's major cities. Volkhov painting, as the name would suggest, originated in the Volkhov region. Its romantic history and distinct floral patterning are now proving popular among modern day Russians.

Romantic Russian flower-painting technique revived

Cast members from revived musical comedy "Anything Goes" hope to bring some relief to audiences from the COVID-19 pandemic in one of the first major shows to open in London since the easing of restrictions in England last week.

Musical 'Anything Goes' a tonic for London audiences after COVID, says cast | WION

If you happened to stroll by Union Square in New York City on Sunday (July 25), you might have been greeted by an unusual sight: people posing nude, their bodies covered in floral designs and stars painted in bright colors. That's how a group of 26 artists and 45 models celebrated the eighth annual NYC Bodypainting Day, using the human body as their canvas to promote messages like body positivity.

Models shed clothes for annual Bodypainting Day in NYC

On a small island where the Senegal River meets the sea, hundreds of mask-wearing jazz enthusiasts listened to French-Senegalse vocalist Awa Ly sing a blues for uncertain times. Last year COVID-19 halted Saint Louis' jazz festival for the first time in its 29-year history. This year it was back, bringing much needed life to the Island of Saint Louis, a UNESCO World Heritage site famed for its colonial architecture and pastel-coloured houses.

Jazz is back in Senegal's St Louis

From life-sized Pharaonic busts to finely painted copies of their treasured grave goods, Egypt has inaugurated a factory dedicated to making high-quality replicas of ancient Egyptian artifacts, available to tourists for purchase. The 10,000 square metre "Konouz Factory" houses more than 150 skilled artists and conservators, and has so far produced more than 6,400 replicas made out of stone, wood, ceramic, and even gold and silver.

Factory produces high-end replicas of ancient Egyptian treasures

A bronze statue of the main God of the kingdom of Saba, located in what is now the Yemeni province of Marib, lies in a dark and fortified room of the Sanaa National Museum. The piece was made by a man named Hawtar Athat in the first half of the sixth century BC. It has been lucky enough to survive the latest war in Yemen. Many other artefacts have not.

As war destroys Yemen's present, museums struggle to preserve its past

Countries usually fight on land, water, airspace, fish and more of such things. In the middle of the pandemic, some are fighting over vaccines.

However, Peru and Bolivia are fighting over something totally different. There is an ongoing diplomatic row between the two neighbours over ancient dance forms and Bolivia is now threatening to knock on UNESCO's door.

The dance form the two countries are fighting on is called 'La Morenada' and Bolivia wants to be known as its country of origin. However, Peru recently declared La Morenada, Rey Monero and Rey Caporal as the cultural heritage of the city of Puno.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-peru-bolivia-fights-over-ancient-dance-forms-385131">Watch |</a>

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This resolution was published in a state newspaper. Its words were too bitter for Bolivia to digest and it, therefore, wants to request international protection of its culture from UNESCO.

"In 2001, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO declared the Oruro carnival and its dances, including the Morenada dance and the dance of the Caporales, a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity," Sabina Orellana, the Bolivian culture minister said.

Peru has denied these claims and says it is not stealing a dance and definitely not its origin or exclusivity.

Folk dances in the Andean highlands have a long shared history and each country in the region has contributed to the art form over the years. The Morenada or dance of the black slaves, for example, has a mix of African and indigenous elements, Alejandro Neyra, Peru’s cultural minister, said.

"This is precisely part of what unites us from southern Peru with Bolivia, which is what we want to protect. This lore and artistic expression are part of knowledge. That is not proprietary of a single territory but rather that they can be shared because the idea is that they be preserved and maintained over time," Alejandro Neyra said

This is not the first time that two countries are fighting over culture. War of words has been fought over GI tags and on social media. They include the battle over handloom, basmati rice, culinary, and even fish.

Countries usually fight on land, water, airspace, fish and more of such things. In the middle of the pandemic, some are fighting over vaccines. However, Peru and Bolivia are fighting over something totally different.

Countries usually fight on land, water, airspace, fish and more of such things. In the middle of the pandemic, some are fighting over vaccines. However, Peru and Bolivia are fighting over something totally different. There is an ongoing diplomatic row between the two neighbours over ancient dance forms and Bolivia is now threatening to knock on UNESCO's door. The dance form the two countries are fighting on is called 'La Morenada' and Bolivia wants to be known as its country of origin. However, Peru recently declared La Morenada, Rey Monero and Rey Caporal as the cultural heritage of the city of Puno. Watch | This resolution was published in a state newspaper. Its words were too bitter for Bolivia to digest and it, therefore, wants to request international protection of its culture from UNESCO. "In 2001, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO declared the Oruro carnival and its dances, including the Morenada dance and the dance of the Caporales, a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity," Sabina Orellana, the Bolivian culture minister said. Peru has denied these claims and says it is not stealing a dance and definitely not its origin or exclusivity. Folk dances in the Andean highlands have a long shared history and each country in the region has contributed to the art form over the years. The Morenada or dance of the black slaves, for example, has a mix of African and indigenous elements, Alejandro Neyra, Peru’s cultural minister, said. "This is precisely part of what unites us from southern Peru with Bolivia, which is what we want to protect. This lore and artistic expression are part of knowledge. That is not proprietary of a single territory but rather that they can be shared because the idea is that they be preserved and maintained over time," Alejandro Neyra said This is not the first time that two countries are fighting over culture. War of words has been fought over GI tags and on social media. They include the battle over handloom, basmati rice, culinary, and even fish.

Dance battle: Peru and Bolivia fight over origin of 'La Morenada'

&nbsp;

Lovebirds Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas were spotted at Mumbai's Kalina airport on Tuesday morning. The couple, who got engaged in September this year took a private flight to Jodhpur.&nbsp;

<img alt="Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. Image via Yogen Shah" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="4bc93364-f0ef-4fcd-8bae-fb81b4c2161f" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/nickpc2.jpg" /> 
<img alt="Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. Image via Yogen Shah" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="0b60d592-b4fc-4d6e-ba4b-a0f2692d2374" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/nickpc1.jpg" />

While it appears that the two have gone to the popular destination for a vacation, fans have been wondering if the two have gone scout for the wedding venue. Reports state that the wedding is going to be a mix of American and Indian tradition and Jodhpur can serve as the perfect location for a grand wedding.&nbsp;

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Nick arrived in Mumbai on Saturday and even played a game of football with MS Dhoni, Ishaan Khatter and others. Priyanka is currently shooting in India for Shonali Bose's film co-starring Farhan Akhtar.&nbsp;

Lovebirds Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas were spotted at Mumbai's Kalina airport on Tuesday morning. The couple, who got engaged in September this year took a private flight to Jodhpur.

Lovebirds Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas were spotted at Mumbai's Kalina airport on Tuesday morning. The couple, who got engaged in September this year took a private flight to Jodhpur. While it appears that the two have gone to the popular destination for a vacation, fans have been wondering if the two have gone scout for the wedding venue. Reports state that the wedding is going to be a mix of American and Indian tradition and Jodhpur can serve as the perfect location for a grand wedding. View this post on Instagram Mobbed in Jodhpur #nickjonas #priyankachopra #media #airport #travel #tuesday #paparazzi @manav.manglani A post shared by Manav Manglani (@manav.manglani) on Oct 2, 2018 at 1:15am PDT × Nick arrived in Mumbai on Saturday and even played a game of football with MS Dhoni, Ishaan Khatter and others. Priyanka is currently shooting in India for Shonali Bose's film co-starring Farhan Akhtar.

Germany to return bronzes looted by Britain from Nigeria

Parisians yearning for haute cuisine dining since the COVID-19 pandemic closed down restaurants have found an alternative: private chefs who serve up meals in customers' homes.

In locked down Paris, a chef can come to you

Auction house Christie's unveiled on Monday (April 19) what it called "the highest-estimated Asian artwork" to ever go under the hammer, a Xu Beihong painting called "Slave and Lion," which it expects to fetch between $45-59 million.

Christie's to auction 'highest-estimated Asian artwork' in Hong Kong

Spanish freediver and dancer/choreographer Ariadna Hafez performed a breathtaking tango ten metres underwater for Tang'O, a three minute film directed and produced by Frenchman Bastien Soleil.

Underwater Tango: Spanish dancer freedives for breathless performance

With Ramadan fast approaching, Jiya, a transgender tailor, and her colleagues are busy stitching colourful clothes for women and also the transgender community in Pakistan's commercial city of Karachi. Watch to know more

Pakistan's transgender tailors look to Ramadan for business boost

French actors Etienne Coquereau and Isabelle Cagnat are pining to get back on stage once the pandemic is over, but on Sunday (April 11), they had to be content with performing from behind the windows of a fashion boutique.

French actors deprived of stage perform behind store window

The curtain finally came up on Broadway on Saturday (April 3) as NY PopsUp showcased Tony-award winning dancer Savion Glover offering a tribute to front line workers with his feet, and fellow Tony award winner Nathan Lane performed a new monologue called "Playbills" which was written for the occasion.

The curtain finally comes up on Broadway

The coronavirus has brought several major losses and cultural venues and heritage sites have also suffered losses in the pandemic-hit economy.

Making sure the cultural venues and heritage sites do not suffer huge losses, the UK government has decided to offer £400 million in grants to aid the recovery of these venues.

Nearly 2,700 organisations will benefit from the grants, the ministry of culture claimed in a statement.

This money has come from the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, which was set up by the government to help the sector survive the losses incurred due to the continuous lockdowns, owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fund has “helped thousands of culture and heritage organisations across the country survive the biggest crisis they've ever faced,” said Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden. “Now we’re staying by their side as they prepare to welcome the public back through their doors.”

To restore the historic monuments, the English Heritage Trust will be given £23.4 million to cover the coronavirus pandemic-related losses and essential maintenance cost.

For now, all museums, theatres and cinemas have been temporarily suspended at least till May 17. The Boris Johnson-led government is hoping to resume these services after a drop in the coronavirus cases.

These grants have been provided by the National Football Museum in Manchester, the Royal Shakespeare Company and a number of independent cinemas and theatres.

The coronavirus has brought several major losses and cultural venues and heritage sites have also suffered losses in the pandemic-hit economy. Making sure the cultural venues and heritage sites do not suffer huge losses, the UK government has decided to offer £400 million in grants to aid the recovery of these venues.

The coronavirus has brought several major losses and cultural venues and heritage sites have also suffered losses in the pandemic-hit economy. Making sure the cultural venues and heritage sites do not suffer huge losses, the UK government has decided to offer £400 million in grants to aid the recovery of these venues. Nearly 2,700 organisations will benefit from the grants, the ministry of culture claimed in a statement. This money has come from the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, which was set up by the government to help the sector survive the losses incurred due to the continuous lockdowns, owing to the coronavirus pandemic. The fund has “helped thousands of culture and heritage organisations across the country survive the biggest crisis they've ever faced,” said Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden. “Now we’re staying by their side as they prepare to welcome the public back through their doors.” To restore the historic monuments, the English Heritage Trust will be given £23.4 million to cover the coronavirus pandemic-related losses and essential maintenance cost. For now, all museums, theatres and cinemas have been temporarily suspended at least till May 17. The Boris Johnson-led government is hoping to resume these services after a drop in the coronavirus cases. These grants have been provided by the National Football Museum in Manchester, the Royal Shakespeare Company and a number of independent cinemas and theatres.

UK government to offer £400 million to restore cultural heritage

A Hungarian government plan to reinvigorate the local pop music scene and promote Hungarian culture at the same time has sparked concerns about political influence and censorship.

Details of the 62-million-euro plan revealed Tuesday include funding for training and talent spotting, grants for content creation and marketing, and infrastructure like studios and performance venues.

"It's about producing quality Hungarian pop and rock, and identity-building," said the project's frontman Szilard Demeter, 44, appointed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government as a cultural commissioner in 2019.&nbsp;

"Music can express what is different in Hungarians' character, vision, and historical experience," Demeter told AFP after a draft of the plan was published last year.

"Perhaps that's not always understandable when looked at by western Europeans, but that's why it can be exciting and exotic," he said.

- '110 percent Orbanista' - 
 
Government critics however fret that the music plan opens a new front in an escalating culture war.&nbsp;

The self-styled "illiberal" nationalist premier Orban, 57, in power since 2010, declared in 2018 that "big changes" were coming for Hungary's cultural and academic scenes, seen in pro-government circles as hotbeds of liberalism.

Since then, the government has tightened control over theatres and universities while an anti-LGBT campaign has been launched.

A university founded by the liberal US billionaire George Soros, a bete noire of Orban, said it was forced from Budapest into exile in Vienna.

Demeter, a writer and amateur bass guitarist who hails from the Hungarian minority in Romania, has also sparked controversy by comparing Soros to Adolf Hitler.

"I totally support the Prime Minister's policies, I am 110 percent an Orbanista," Demeter, who also heads a prestigious literary museum in Budapest, told AFP.

"Yes there is a fierce culture war going on, the big question is whether Hungarian culture will exist at all in 100 years," he said.

"The guarantee of survival is that we live in our own national culture, national identity has got weaker, and should be restored," he said.

Although in another interview Demeter said that he does not like pop singers "spluttering" about politics as "that divides the audience" he told AFP that political affiliation will be no bar to funding under the new scheme.

"Everyone should be involved, from left to liberal to right, far-right to Marxist, diversity is the source of Hungarian culture's strength, just as diversity of national cultures is Europe's strength," he said.

"So if a band is good quality, why shouldn't it be supported?" he added.

- Censorship - 
But according to Ferenc Megyeri, 55, lead singer of punk group "Usual Disappointments", the state is already censoring musicians.

Megyeri's band, founded in 1990, has penned songs like "Viktor", "Absurdistan", and "Soros" that criticise or parody Orban's policies.

The songs were cut from the broadcast version of its concert last October during a series of state-sponsored online gigs.

Organisers also asked Megyeri to remove a T-shirt he wore with "Soros" written on it.

"I refused, so the broadcast focused on close-ups of my face," he told AFP in his hometown of Pecs, south of Budapest.

"It is a good idea to help musicians, after all it's our money, taxpayer money, but not by censorship," he said.

"Most bands will take government funding and stay silent. But we are not that type," he added. &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

- Indoctrination -&nbsp;

 
Zoltan Czutor, an award-winning songwriter, says "wonderful things can be done" with the funding like teaching schoolkids how to play an instrument, but he worries about the risk of "indoctrination".

"I hope there won't be mandatory visits to nationalist rock operas for kids," he told AFP in a Budapest studio.

According to Czutor, 51, who teaches music as well as leading four projects -- an acoustic guitar band, his own solo act, a pop-rock group, and a kids' music band -- only a handful of stars can make a living from pop music.

"Most income comes from big state or municipality-sponsored festivals, and organisers don't want trouble. Bands avoid politics for fear of being blacklisted from gigs or radio airplay," he said.

Exclusion from the airwaves is a familiar feeling for Zsuzsa Koncz, 75, an iconic pop singer whose career began in the 1960s.

"I haven't been invited to perform on state media in the last decade," Koncz, who has supported liberal causes in the past, told AFP.

For her, the new plan revives uncomfortable memories of a communist-era cultural policy - "Tolerated, Forbidden, Supported" - where any artwork that questioned the system was banned.

"The last 10 years have shown that the closer you are to the regime's honey pot the easier it is to eat from it," she said.

A Hungarian government plan to reinvigorate the local pop music scene and promote Hungarian culture at the same time has sparked concerns about political influence and censorship.

A Hungarian government plan to reinvigorate the local pop music scene and promote Hungarian culture at the same time has sparked concerns about political influence and censorship. Details of the 62-million-euro plan revealed Tuesday include funding for training and talent spotting, grants for content creation and marketing, and infrastructure like studios and performance venues. "It's about producing quality Hungarian pop and rock, and identity-building," said the project's frontman Szilard Demeter, 44, appointed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government as a cultural commissioner in 2019. "Music can express what is different in Hungarians' character, vision, and historical experience," Demeter told AFP after a draft of the plan was published last year. "Perhaps that's not always understandable when looked at by western Europeans, but that's why it can be exciting and exotic," he said. - '110 percent Orbanista' - Government critics however fret that the music plan opens a new front in an escalating culture war. The self-styled "illiberal" nationalist premier Orban, 57, in power since 2010, declared in 2018 that "big changes" were coming for Hungary's cultural and academic scenes, seen in pro-government circles as hotbeds of liberalism. Since then, the government has tightened control over theatres and universities while an anti-LGBT campaign has been launched. A university founded by the liberal US billionaire George Soros, a bete noire of Orban, said it was forced from Budapest into exile in Vienna. Demeter, a writer and amateur bass guitarist who hails from the Hungarian minority in Romania, has also sparked controversy by comparing Soros to Adolf Hitler. "I totally support the Prime Minister's policies, I am 110 percent an Orbanista," Demeter, who also heads a prestigious literary museum in Budapest, told AFP. "Yes there is a fierce culture war going on, the big question is whether Hungarian culture will exist at all in 100 years," he said. "The guarantee of survival is that we live in our own national culture, national identity has got weaker, and should be restored," he said. Although in another interview Demeter said that he does not like pop singers "spluttering" about politics as "that divides the audience" he told AFP that political affiliation will be no bar to funding under the new scheme. "Everyone should be involved, from left to liberal to right, far-right to Marxist, diversity is the source of Hungarian culture's strength, just as diversity of national cultures is Europe's strength," he said. "So if a band is good quality, why shouldn't it be supported?" he added. - Censorship - But according to Ferenc Megyeri, 55, lead singer of punk group "Usual Disappointments", the state is already censoring musicians. Megyeri's band, founded in 1990, has penned songs like "Viktor", "Absurdistan", and "Soros" that criticise or parody Orban's policies. The songs were cut from the broadcast version of its concert last October during a series of state-sponsored online gigs. Organisers also asked Megyeri to remove a T-shirt he wore with "Soros" written on it. "I refused, so the broadcast focused on close-ups of my face," he told AFP in his hometown of Pecs, south of Budapest. "It is a good idea to help musicians, after all it's our money, taxpayer money, but not by censorship," he said. "Most bands will take government funding and stay silent. But we are not that type," he added. - Indoctrination - Zoltan Czutor, an award-winning songwriter, says "wonderful things can be done" with the funding like teaching schoolkids how to play an instrument, but he worries about the risk of "indoctrination". "I hope there won't be mandatory visits to nationalist rock operas for kids," he told AFP in a Budapest studio. According to Czutor, 51, who teaches music as well as leading four projects -- an acoustic guitar band, his own solo act, a pop-rock group, and a kids' music band -- only a handful of stars can make a living from pop music. "Most income comes from big state or municipality-sponsored festivals, and organisers don't want trouble. Bands avoid politics for fear of being blacklisted from gigs or radio airplay," he said. Exclusion from the airwaves is a familiar feeling for Zsuzsa Koncz, 75, an iconic pop singer whose career began in the 1960s. "I haven't been invited to perform on state media in the last decade," Koncz, who has supported liberal causes in the past, told AFP. For her, the new plan revives uncomfortable memories of a communist-era cultural policy - "Tolerated, Forbidden, Supported" - where any artwork that questioned the system was banned. "The last 10 years have shown that the closer you are to the regime's honey pot the easier it is to eat from it," she said.

Hungary pop music reform opens new front in culture war

Odisha, a great destination for anyone interested in handicrafts, handlooms, art, and culture. We showcase some of the best that the state has to offer in 'Discover Odisha, India's best-kept secret'. Exploring the handicrafts, handlooms, art, and culture of the state with us on WION.

Discovering Odisha | Exploring the handicrafts, handlooms, art, and culture

For German artist ANTOINETTE, lockdown is a financial calamity, but not all bad: the cancellation of public events has allowed her an extended stay in the east German castle of Merseburg where she has been working on her massive mural.

One year into pandemic, the art world adapts to survive

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Black American brings new face to Irish dancing

One of Bob Dylan’s most important early albums, “Bringing It All Back Home” from 1965, has the kind of cover that can strain eyes and fuel speculation. It is a photograph of Dylan, in a black jacket, sitting in a room full of bric-a-brac that may or may not mean something, staring into the camera as a woman in a red outfit lounges in the background.

“Fans became so fixated on deciphering it,” the music journalist Neil McCormick wrote in The Daily Telegraph of London last year, “that a rumor took hold that the woman was Dylan in drag, representing the feminine side of his psyche.”

She wasn’t. She was Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager at the time, Albert Grossman.

“The photo was shot in Albert Grossman’s house,” the man who took it, Daniel Kramer, told The Guardian in 2016. “The room was the original kitchen of this house that’s a couple hundred years old.”

“Bob contributed to the picture the magazines he was reading and albums he was listening to,” Kramer added, a reference to the bric-a-brac. “Bob wanted Sally to be in the photo because, well, look at her! She chose the red outfit.”

Grossman died Thursday at her home in the Bearsville section of Woodstock, New York, not far from the house where the photograph was taken. She had long been a fixture in Woodstock, operating a recording studio, a theater and other businesses there after her husband died of a heart attack at 59 in 1986. She was 81.

Her niece, Anna Buehler, confirmed her death and said the cause had not been determined.

Sally Ann Buehler was born on Aug. 22, 1939, in Manhattan to Coleman and Ann (Kauth) Buehler. Her mother was executive director of the Boys Club (now the Variety Boys and Girls Club) of Queens; her father was an actuary.

Grossman studied at Adelphi University on Long Island and Hunter College in Manhattan, but she was more drawn to the arts scene percolating in Greenwich Village.

“I figured that what was happening on the street was a lot more interesting than studying 17th-century English literature,” she told Musician magazine in 1987, “so I dropped out of Hunter and began working as a waitress. I worked at the Cafe Wha?, and then the Bitter End, all over.”

Along the way she met Grossman, who was making his name managing folk music acts that played at those types of venues, including Peter, Paul and Mary, whom he helped bring together.

“The office was constantly packed with people,” Sally Grossman recalled in the 1987 interview. “Peter, Paul and Mary, of course, but also Ian and Sylvia, Richie Havens, Gordon Lightfoot, other musicians, artists, poets.”

The couple, who married in 1964, settled in Woodstock, where Albert Grossman had acquired properties and which Dylan had also discovered about the same time, settling there with his family as well.

In due course came the photo shoot for the album cover.

“I made 10 exposures,” Kramer told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2014. One image, with Dylan holding a cat, was a keeper. “That was the only time all three subjects were looking at the lens,” Kramer said.

The photo, staged by Kramer with Dylan’s input, was an early example of what became a mini-trend of loading covers up with imagery that seemed to invite scrutiny for insights into the music. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) might be the best-known example.

The album itself was a breakthrough for Dylan, marking his transition from acoustic to electric. Its tracks included “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm.”

Sally Grossman and her husband established recording studios and restaurants in Bearsville, and after his death Grossman renovated a barn to create the Bearsville Theater, bringing to life a vision of her husband’s. It hosted numerous concerts over the years. She sold the businesses in the mid-2000s.

Sally Grossman is survived by a brother, Barry Buehler.

Though she knew many American musicians, Grossman had a special place in her heart for an order of religious singers from Bengal known as the Bauls, whom she encountered in the 1960s. She created a digital archive of Baul music. Deborah Baker, author of “A Blue Hand: The Beats in India” (2008), wrote about Grossman and her connection to the Bauls in a 2011 essay in the magazine the Caravan.

“Despite all the famous musicians and bands who once passed through her life,” Baker wrote, “she found it was the Bauls she missed the most from those years.”

One of Bob Dylan’s most important early albums, “Bringing It All Back Home” from 1965, has the kind of cover that can strain eyes and fuel speculation. It is a photograph of Dylan, in a black jacket, sitting in a room full of bric-a-brac that may or may not mean something, staring into the camera as a woman in a red outfit lounges in the background.

One of Bob Dylan’s most important early albums, “Bringing It All Back Home” from 1965, has the kind of cover that can strain eyes and fuel speculation. It is a photograph of Dylan, in a black jacket, sitting in a room full of bric-a-brac that may or may not mean something, staring into the camera as a woman in a red outfit lounges in the background. “Fans became so fixated on deciphering it,” the music journalist Neil McCormick wrote in The Daily Telegraph of London last year, “that a rumor took hold that the woman was Dylan in drag, representing the feminine side of his psyche.” She wasn’t. She was Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager at the time, Albert Grossman. “The photo was shot in Albert Grossman’s house,” the man who took it, Daniel Kramer, told The Guardian in 2016. “The room was the original kitchen of this house that’s a couple hundred years old.” “Bob contributed to the picture the magazines he was reading and albums he was listening to,” Kramer added, a reference to the bric-a-brac. “Bob wanted Sally to be in the photo because, well, look at her! She chose the red outfit.” Grossman died Thursday at her home in the Bearsville section of Woodstock, New York, not far from the house where the photograph was taken. She had long been a fixture in Woodstock, operating a recording studio, a theater and other businesses there after her husband died of a heart attack at 59 in 1986. She was 81. Her niece, Anna Buehler, confirmed her death and said the cause had not been determined. Sally Ann Buehler was born on Aug. 22, 1939, in Manhattan to Coleman and Ann (Kauth) Buehler. Her mother was executive director of the Boys Club (now the Variety Boys and Girls Club) of Queens; her father was an actuary. Grossman studied at Adelphi University on Long Island and Hunter College in Manhattan, but she was more drawn to the arts scene percolating in Greenwich Village. “I figured that what was happening on the street was a lot more interesting than studying 17th-century English literature,” she told Musician magazine in 1987, “so I dropped out of Hunter and began working as a waitress. I worked at the Cafe Wha?, and then the Bitter End, all over.” Along the way she met Grossman, who was making his name managing folk music acts that played at those types of venues, including Peter, Paul and Mary, whom he helped bring together. “The office was constantly packed with people,” Sally Grossman recalled in the 1987 interview. “Peter, Paul and Mary, of course, but also Ian and Sylvia, Richie Havens, Gordon Lightfoot, other musicians, artists, poets.” The couple, who married in 1964, settled in Woodstock, where Albert Grossman had acquired properties and which Dylan had also discovered about the same time, settling there with his family as well. In due course came the photo shoot for the album cover. “I made 10 exposures,” Kramer told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2014. One image, with Dylan holding a cat, was a keeper. “That was the only time all three subjects were looking at the lens,” Kramer said. The photo, staged by Kramer with Dylan’s input, was an early example of what became a mini-trend of loading covers up with imagery that seemed to invite scrutiny for insights into the music. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) might be the best-known example. The album itself was a breakthrough for Dylan, marking his transition from acoustic to electric. Its tracks included “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm.” Sally Grossman and her husband established recording studios and restaurants in Bearsville, and after his death Grossman renovated a barn to create the Bearsville Theater, bringing to life a vision of her husband’s. It hosted numerous concerts over the years. She sold the businesses in the mid-2000s. Sally Grossman is survived by a brother, Barry Buehler. Though she knew many American musicians, Grossman had a special place in her heart for an order of religious singers from Bengal known as the Bauls, whom she encountered in the 1960s. She created a digital archive of Baul music. Deborah Baker, author of “A Blue Hand: The Beats in India” (2008), wrote about Grossman and her connection to the Bauls in a 2011 essay in the magazine the Caravan. “Despite all the famous musicians and bands who once passed through her life,” Baker wrote, “she found it was the Bauls she missed the most from those years.”

Sally Grossman, immortalised on a Dylan album cover, dies at 81

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled.

As a return date was pushed further and further, performers and theater staff resigned themselves to finding work elsewhere.

But on Friday, the anniversary of the day their beloved industry shut its doors, Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered in Times Square, just across from the TKTS discount ticket booth, to perform live for a small audience of industry insiders and passersby.

The pop-up show was part concert, part rally. Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal a beleaguered society, and then André De Shields, decked out in a glittering gold suit and a transparent face shield, sang the opening song from “Pippin” along with an array of Broadway stars, backup singers and dancers.

“I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here, and we will be back,” said Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number.

One year ago, Jackson, 29, was returning to New York from a national tour of “The Book of Mormon” and preparing for five auditions. Within 12 hours, she said, the auditions were all canceled, and suddenly she was thrust into a job market without much need for professional singers and actors. Jackson eventually found work as an office manager for a therapy practice, finding performing gigs every so often.

One of the main purposes of these pop-up performances — of which there have been dozens across the city — is to provide paying gigs for people in the industry who have lost their entire incomes during the pandemic, said Blake Ross, one of the event’s producers. The performance was funded by a collection of organizations, including nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext.

Although perform inside theaters are unlikely until after Labor Day, the message of the show was that the end of the industry’s nightmare seemed to be getting closer. Last night, President Joe Biden asked states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, a hopeful sign that shows might be able to start rehearsals over the summer.

The performance landed on one of the first warm, springlike days of the year in New York City, adding a jolt of excitement. It felt like a reunion of sorts: After a long time working from home, some people shrieked when they saw each other, keeping their distance but air-hugging or elbow-bumping. To make sure that crowds didn’t form in Father Duffy Square, event planners made no public announcement of the performance, but passersby gathered on the edges of the makeshift stage and stood on elevated surfaces to get better views.

The cast started with a topical classic, George Benson’s “On Broadway,” with a group of high-energy, sneaker-clad and masked backup dancers. (There had been barely any time to rehearse beforehand, so just before showtime, the dancers ran through their choreography just offstage on the concrete.) Next, singers Lillias White, Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.” And a choir sang an original song written about the pandemic hiatus, “We Will Be Back,” by Allen René Louis. Costumes from shows like “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins.

During the pandemic, two musicals, “Mean Girls” and “Frozen,” announced that they would not be returning to Broadway, as well as two plays that were in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On Friday, several shows promised that they would indeed be back, including “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which got through three performances before it was forced to close, and “Six,” which had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020.

That day, Judi Wilfore, house manager for the Imperial Theater, remembers standing in the lobby before the scheduled evening performance of “Ain’t Too Proud” and breaking the news to ticket holders. Even though Broadway shut down on a Thursday, Wilfore came to work that weekend, too, in case any audience members showed up.

Over the summer, Wilfore decided that she needed to find work elsewhere, so she took an online course at Health Education Services, to get certified as a COVID compliance officer. At Friday’s event in Times Square, it was her job to make sure people were following safety guidelines and to manage a team of front-of-house theater staffers who were hired to help run the event.

Wilfore has been a compliance officer for gigs here and there — including the load-out of the “Beetlejuice” set from the Winter Garden Theater — but like many in the industry, she yearns for the eventual return to indoor theater, where she oversaw the bustling movements of staffers and audience members.

“We love what we do,” she said, “and the fact that we haven’t been able to do it in a year is unfathomable.”

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled.

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled. As a return date was pushed further and further, performers and theater staff resigned themselves to finding work elsewhere. But on Friday, the anniversary of the day their beloved industry shut its doors, Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered in Times Square, just across from the TKTS discount ticket booth, to perform live for a small audience of industry insiders and passersby. The pop-up show was part concert, part rally. Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal a beleaguered society, and then André De Shields, decked out in a glittering gold suit and a transparent face shield, sang the opening song from “Pippin” along with an array of Broadway stars, backup singers and dancers. “I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here, and we will be back,” said Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number. One year ago, Jackson, 29, was returning to New York from a national tour of “The Book of Mormon” and preparing for five auditions. Within 12 hours, she said, the auditions were all canceled, and suddenly she was thrust into a job market without much need for professional singers and actors. Jackson eventually found work as an office manager for a therapy practice, finding performing gigs every so often. One of the main purposes of these pop-up performances — of which there have been dozens across the city — is to provide paying gigs for people in the industry who have lost their entire incomes during the pandemic, said Blake Ross, one of the event’s producers. The performance was funded by a collection of organizations, including nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext. Although perform inside theaters are unlikely until after Labor Day, the message of the show was that the end of the industry’s nightmare seemed to be getting closer. Last night, President Joe Biden asked states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, a hopeful sign that shows might be able to start rehearsals over the summer. The performance landed on one of the first warm, springlike days of the year in New York City, adding a jolt of excitement. It felt like a reunion of sorts: After a long time working from home, some people shrieked when they saw each other, keeping their distance but air-hugging or elbow-bumping. To make sure that crowds didn’t form in Father Duffy Square, event planners made no public announcement of the performance, but passersby gathered on the edges of the makeshift stage and stood on elevated surfaces to get better views. The cast started with a topical classic, George Benson’s “On Broadway,” with a group of high-energy, sneaker-clad and masked backup dancers. (There had been barely any time to rehearse beforehand, so just before showtime, the dancers ran through their choreography just offstage on the concrete.) Next, singers Lillias White, Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.” And a choir sang an original song written about the pandemic hiatus, “We Will Be Back,” by Allen René Louis. Costumes from shows like “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins. During the pandemic, two musicals, “Mean Girls” and “Frozen,” announced that they would not be returning to Broadway, as well as two plays that were in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On Friday, several shows promised that they would indeed be back, including “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which got through three performances before it was forced to close, and “Six,” which had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020. That day, Judi Wilfore, house manager for the Imperial Theater, remembers standing in the lobby before the scheduled evening performance of “Ain’t Too Proud” and breaking the news to ticket holders. Even though Broadway shut down on a Thursday, Wilfore came to work that weekend, too, in case any audience members showed up. Over the summer, Wilfore decided that she needed to find work elsewhere, so she took an online course at Health Education Services, to get certified as a COVID compliance officer. At Friday’s event in Times Square, it was her job to make sure people were following safety guidelines and to manage a team of front-of-house theater staffers who were hired to help run the event. Wilfore has been a compliance officer for gigs here and there — including the load-out of the “Beetlejuice” set from the Winter Garden Theater — but like many in the industry, she yearns for the eventual return to indoor theater, where she oversaw the bustling movements of staffers and audience members. “We love what we do,” she said, “and the fact that we haven’t been able to do it in a year is unfathomable.”

‘We’ll be back,’ broadway says, on shutdown anniversary

Complete immersion into the chilly northern art is inevitable at an unusual exhibition in the Russian northern-west Karelia region, as it is set under the ice of the White Sea.

Don diving suit to witness this art exhibition in frozen sea

Firecrackers lit up the skies on Friday (February 9) night as Taiwanese celebrated a cacophonous traditional festival in the island's south, pared back this year due to the coronavirus pandemic but still allowed to go ahead due to Taiwan's low case numbers.

Firecrackers fly as Taiwanese celebrate pared back festival

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.'

If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.”

The 62-second earworm appears in Episode 7, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” and its purpose is simple: It explains what Wanda and Vision’s nosy neighbor, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), has been up to this entire time. It has also taken on a life of its own, having spawned numerous trap, rock and rap remixes in the days since the episode debuted Feb 19.

“None of us knew this was going to be the song,” said composer Robert Lopez, 46, who created the songs for the series with his wife of 17 years, Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist Kristen Anderson-Lopez, 48. “We woke up that morning to find that it was all over the internet, and it was like, ‘This is awesome.’”

It isn’t the first time the songwriting power couple has created an infectious earworm, having written tunes such as the Oscar- and Grammy-winning song “Let It Go” for the Disney animated movie “Frozen” and the Oscar-winning ballad “Remember Me” for the Pixar animated film “Coco.” They’ve won a pile of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys and Grammys between them. (Lopez, who co-conceived and co-wrote the hit musicals “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon,” is in rarefied air as the only double EGOT — someone who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, twice over.)

But it is a minute-long riff on “The Munsters” theme that has burned itself into the brains of the collective internet over the past week.

 
“It’s got an ‘Addams Family’ twist with an electric harpsichord,” Anderson-Lopez said. “It’s super-duper cool and feels like something you’d find in a haunted house.”

Sung by Hahn and a chorus of male backup singers (including Lopez), it delivers the dramatic revelation that Agnes is the powerful witch Agatha Harkness — and that it is she, not Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who is behind all the oddities happening in sleepy little Westview. (Having killed a dog, she reveals, was among her dastardly deeds.)

When the song debuted on Spotify and iTunes on Tuesday, it leaped to the No. 1 slot on the iTunes soundtrack charts. (The trap remix created by hip-hop artist Leland Philpot is “the most glorious thing,” Anderson-Lopez said.) 
 
In a phone interview from Connecticut on Wednesday, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez shared how the track came together, their trick for getting their own songs out of their own heads and why Hahn’s character is “perfidious” rather than “hideous.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: Did you have any idea “Agatha All Along” was going to blow up like this?

ROBERT LOPEZ: No, not at all. We were sort of sad that we were winding down and we didn’t know if we’d have any hits come out of this thing. But my goodness.

Q: What part of the song came to you first?

LOPEZ: We have a theme — the “WandaVision” motif — that’s in every single song. So that was how we began with “Agatha.”

KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But, in a way, “Agatha All Along” was there all along. We’ve been spoon-feeding a tritone that’s called the devil’s interval — the&nbsp; 'duh-duh-duh'&nbsp;— throughout the series. And then ultimately, when the big reveal happens with the 'DUH! DUH! DUH!', everyone had been hearing it steadily, so it felt like an old friend.

Q: Where did you look for inspiration for the song?

LOPEZ: We started with a different idea for a version of the song more along the lines of “That Girl.”

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But it just wasn’t right; it just wasn’t churning my blood the way that I wanted it to. So then we thought: It’s a show about witches, right? So let’s embrace it. What other shows are about witches and Goth figures? “The Addams Family,” “The Munsters,” the “Monster Mash” — all these Halloween-y kind of songs that have this grinding, growling bari sax.

LOPEZ: We also have an electric harpsichord, which is what they use in “The Addams Family.” That’s the thing going dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit — the repeated chorus.

Q:Who does what when you’re writing a song?

LOPEZ: It changes with every song. Sometimes we’ll write it together in the same room, sometimes one of us will write the whole thing and the other one will take credit. In this case, Kristen wrote the full lyrics and gave them to me on a sheet of paper, and then I went to town with music.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: I would wake up in the morning, and sometimes I’d be so excited to write the songs that I would write them in the shower. Get out, get a towel, scribble them on a piece of paper with drips, blurring ink — and Bobby would compose them by 10 a.m., and we’d record them after lunch, and then get notes at like 5 p.m.

Q:“Perfidious” is quite the lyric! Where did that come from?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: We knew we didn’t want to say "hideous," because Agatha is still hot. So I looked at a rhyming dictionary and was like: “'Perfidious!' It’s so great! It’s so perfect!”

LOPEZ: We always have an SAT word in the lyrics somewhere because people appreciate learning a word. And if they already know it, they appreciate being able to brag that they know it.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: Right! “Frozen fractals …” [from “Let It Go”]

Q: Your neighbors were not fans of one of your last hits, “Let It Go.” Has reaction been more favorable this time around?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: It’s still early — they’ve had less than a week. But I’m starting to feel the trickles on Twitter. I’m getting messages saying, “Thank you so much for ‘Agatha All Along,’ now please remove it from my head!” and “It’s been five days, now take it back, please!”

Q: Do the songs you write get stuck in your head, too?

LOPEZ: Of course! You wake up in the middle of the night with it pounding in your ears. But having a song that gets in people’s heads is such an honor for us. It means what we created somehow magically connected across space and time and landed in another person’s neurons. It’s what was in our heads, and now it’s in their heads, and that’s something we now all share.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ:I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning with “She’s insidious / So perfidious” just going on a loop in my head. And so I replaced it with: “Don’t worry, / Ooh, ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh, / be happy.”

LOPEZ: That’s how you get it out of your system …

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: … replace it with another thing that’s been stuck in your head before.

This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.' If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.

This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.' If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.” The 62-second earworm appears in Episode 7, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” and its purpose is simple: It explains what Wanda and Vision’s nosy neighbor, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), has been up to this entire time. It has also taken on a life of its own, having spawned numerous trap, rock and rap remixes in the days since the episode debuted Feb 19. “None of us knew this was going to be the song,” said composer Robert Lopez, 46, who created the songs for the series with his wife of 17 years, Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist Kristen Anderson-Lopez, 48. “We woke up that morning to find that it was all over the internet, and it was like, ‘This is awesome.’” It isn’t the first time the songwriting power couple has created an infectious earworm, having written tunes such as the Oscar- and Grammy-winning song “Let It Go” for the Disney animated movie “Frozen” and the Oscar-winning ballad “Remember Me” for the Pixar animated film “Coco.” They’ve won a pile of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys and Grammys between them. (Lopez, who co-conceived and co-wrote the hit musicals “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon,” is in rarefied air as the only double EGOT — someone who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, twice over.) But it is a minute-long riff on “The Munsters” theme that has burned itself into the brains of the collective internet over the past week. “It’s got an ‘Addams Family’ twist with an electric harpsichord,” Anderson-Lopez said. “It’s super-duper cool and feels like something you’d find in a haunted house.” Sung by Hahn and a chorus of male backup singers (including Lopez), it delivers the dramatic revelation that Agnes is the powerful witch Agatha Harkness — and that it is she, not Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who is behind all the oddities happening in sleepy little Westview. (Having killed a dog, she reveals, was among her dastardly deeds.) When the song debuted on Spotify and iTunes on Tuesday, it leaped to the No. 1 slot on the iTunes soundtrack charts. (The trap remix created by hip-hop artist Leland Philpot is “the most glorious thing,” Anderson-Lopez said.) In a phone interview from Connecticut on Wednesday, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez shared how the track came together, their trick for getting their own songs out of their own heads and why Hahn’s character is “perfidious” rather than “hideous.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Q: Did you have any idea “Agatha All Along” was going to blow up like this? ROBERT LOPEZ: No, not at all. We were sort of sad that we were winding down and we didn’t know if we’d have any hits come out of this thing. But my goodness. Q: What part of the song came to you first? LOPEZ: We have a theme — the “WandaVision” motif — that’s in every single song. So that was how we began with “Agatha.” KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But, in a way, “Agatha All Along” was there all along. We’ve been spoon-feeding a tritone that’s called the devil’s interval — the 'duh-duh-duh' — throughout the series. And then ultimately, when the big reveal happens with the 'DUH! DUH! DUH!', everyone had been hearing it steadily, so it felt like an old friend. Q: Where did you look for inspiration for the song? LOPEZ: We started with a different idea for a version of the song more along the lines of “That Girl.” ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But it just wasn’t right; it just wasn’t churning my blood the way that I wanted it to. So then we thought: It’s a show about witches, right? So let’s embrace it. What other shows are about witches and Goth figures? “The Addams Family,” “The Munsters,” the “Monster Mash” — all these Halloween-y kind of songs that have this grinding, growling bari sax. LOPEZ: We also have an electric harpsichord, which is what they use in “The Addams Family.” That’s the thing going dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit — the repeated chorus. Q:Who does what when you’re writing a song? LOPEZ: It changes with every song. Sometimes we’ll write it together in the same room, sometimes one of us will write the whole thing and the other one will take credit. In this case, Kristen wrote the full lyrics and gave them to me on a sheet of paper, and then I went to town with music. ANDERSON-LOPEZ: I would wake up in the morning, and sometimes I’d be so excited to write the songs that I would write them in the shower. Get out, get a towel, scribble them on a piece of paper with drips, blurring ink — and Bobby would compose them by 10 a.m., and we’d record them after lunch, and then get notes at like 5 p.m. Q:“Perfidious” is quite the lyric! Where did that come from? ANDERSON-LOPEZ: We knew we didn’t want to say "hideous," because Agatha is still hot. So I looked at a rhyming dictionary and was like: “'Perfidious!' It’s so great! It’s so perfect!” LOPEZ: We always have an SAT word in the lyrics somewhere because people appreciate learning a word. And if they already know it, they appreciate being able to brag that they know it. ANDERSON-LOPEZ: Right! “Frozen fractals …” [from “Let It Go”] Q: Your neighbors were not fans of one of your last hits, “Let It Go.” Has reaction been more favorable this time around? ANDERSON-LOPEZ: It’s still early — they’ve had less than a week. But I’m starting to feel the trickles on Twitter. I’m getting messages saying, “Thank you so much for ‘Agatha All Along,’ now please remove it from my head!” and “It’s been five days, now take it back, please!” Q: Do the songs you write get stuck in your head, too? LOPEZ: Of course! You wake up in the middle of the night with it pounding in your ears. But having a song that gets in people’s heads is such an honor for us. It means what we created somehow magically connected across space and time and landed in another person’s neurons. It’s what was in our heads, and now it’s in their heads, and that’s something we now all share. ANDERSON-LOPEZ:I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning with “She’s insidious / So perfidious” just going on a loop in my head. And so I replaced it with: “Don’t worry, / Ooh, ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh, / be happy.” LOPEZ: That’s how you get it out of your system … ANDERSON-LOPEZ: … replace it with another thing that’s been stuck in your head before.

Meet the songwriters behind the 'WandaVision' hit 'Agatha All Along'

One of Jerusalem's main theatres reopened its doors to the public on Tuesday after six months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Khan Theatre welcomed visitors by staging Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," directed by the theatre's Artistic Director, Udi Ben Moshe.

Jerusalem theatre reopens after pandemic hiatus

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed.

Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who &lt;em&gt;she &lt;/em&gt;was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline.

“It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?”

Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars.

This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know&lt;em&gt; her&lt;/em&gt; because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand.

Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show.

That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either.

That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.”

She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being&lt;em&gt; their&lt;/em&gt; movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.”

STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West.

“Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’”

Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too.

“Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.”

And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film.

But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.”

In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’”

“Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves.

In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California.

But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply &lt;em&gt;being&lt;/em&gt;. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.”

That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.”

Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight.

But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.”

FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend?

“I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me.

What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door.

“That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’”

She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.”

That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests.

“I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.”

To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”

We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.”

As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome.

She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!”

It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea.

“Well, at what point?” she said. “&lt;em&gt;Is&lt;/em&gt; it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed. Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who she was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline. “It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?” Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars. This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know her because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand. Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show. That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either. That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.” She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being their movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.” STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West. “Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’” Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too. “Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.” And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film. But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.” In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’” “Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves. In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California. But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply being. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.” That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.” Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight. But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.” FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend? “I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me. What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door. “That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’” She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.” That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests. “I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.” To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.” We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.” As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome. She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!” It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea. “Well, at what point?” she said. “Is it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

What Frances McDormand would (and wouldn’t) give to 'Nomadland'

Iconic works spanning 70 decades of UK popular art went on display in Bonhams on Monday (February 22), ahead of their action on Saturday, February 27.

Iconic artworks and photographs up for sale at Bonham's

In major art museum collections in America, 85% of artists are white and only 1.2% are Black. A new documentary, "Black Art: In the Absence of Light," aims to show that just because Black art may not hang in many galleries, it doesn't mean there haven't been Black artists creating prolific work.

'Black Art: In the Absence of Light' documentary highlights little-known contributions by Black artists

The sounds of classical music echoed around an almost empty Colosseum on Monday (February 1) as a concert took place that organisers wished would be a sign of hope for a new beginning.

Classical concert a 'sign of hope' as Colosseum reopens

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