A rare Botticelli portrait sold for $92.2 million at auction at Sotheby's in New York on Thursday (January 28), a world record for any work by the Italian artist.

Rare Botticelli portrait sells for record $92.2 million at NY auction

A one-of-a-kind original Tintin artwork is expected to sell for more than 2 million euros at a Paris auction on Thursday (January 14).

Tintin painting could fetch up to 2.8 million euros at Paris auction

The virus took Grandma Delores first, silencing an 86-year-old voice that rang with Lakota songs and stories. Then it came for Uncle Ralph, a stoic Vietnam veteran. And just after Christmas, two more elders of the Taken Alive family were buried on the frozen North Dakota prairie: Jesse and Cheryl, husband and wife, who died a month apart.

“It takes your breath away,” said Ira Taken Alive, the couple’s oldest son. “The amount of knowledge they held, and connection to our past.”

One by one, those connections are being severed as the coronavirus tears through ranks of Native American elders, inflicting an incalculable toll on bonds of language and tradition that flow from older generations to the young.

“It’s like we’re having a cultural book-burning,” said Jason Salsman, a spokesperson for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in eastern Oklahoma, whose grandparents contracted the virus but survived. “We’re losing a historical record, encyclopedias. One day soon, there won’t be anybody to pass this knowledge down.”

The loss of tribal elders has swelled into a cultural crisis as the pandemic has killed American Indians and Alaska Natives at nearly twice the rate of white people, deepening what critics call the deadly toll of a tattered health system and generations of harm and broken promises by the U.S. government.

The deaths of Muscogee elders strained the tribe’s burial program. They were grandparents and&nbsp;mikos,&nbsp;traditional leaders who knew how to prepare for annual green-corn ceremonies and how to stoke sacred fires their ancestors had carried to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. One tiny Methodist church on the reservation recently lost three cherished great-aunts who would sneak candy and smiles to restless children during Sunday services.

“We’ll never be able to get that back,” Salsman said.

Tribal nations and volunteer groups are now trying to protect their elders as a mission of cultural survival.

Navajo women started a campaign to deliver meals and sanitizer to high-desert trailers and remote homes without running water, where elders have been left stranded by quarantines and lockdowns of community centers. Some now post colored cardboard in their windows: green for “OK,” red for “Help.”

In western Montana, volunteers led by a grocery-store worker put together turkey dinners and hygiene packets to deliver to Blackfeet Nation elders. In Arizona, the White Mountain Apache sent out thermometers and pulse oximeters and taught young people to monitor their grandparents’ vital signs.

Across the country, tribes are now putting elders and fluent Indigenous language speakers at the head of the line for vaccinations. But the effort faces huge obstacles. Elders who live in remote locations often have no means to get to the clinics and hospitals where vaccinations are administered. And there is deep mistrust of the government in a generation that was subjected without consent to medical testing, shipped off to boarding schools and punished for speaking their own language in a decadeslong campaign of forced assimilation.

About a year into the pandemic, activists say there is still is no reliable death toll of Native elders. They say their deaths are overlooked or miscounted, especially off reservations and in urban areas, where some 70% of Indigenous people live.

Adding to the problem, tribal health officials say their sickest members can essentially vanish once they are transferred out of small reservation health systems to larger hospitals with intensive-care units.

“We don’t know what happens to them until we see a funeral announcement,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute.

The virus claimed fluent Choctaw speakers and dressmakers from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. It took a Tulalip family matriarch in Washington state, then her sister and brother-in-law. It killed a former chair of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in California who spent decades fighting to preserve Native arts and culture. It has killed members of the American Indian Movement, a group founded in 1968 that became the country’s most radical and prominent civil rights organization for American Indian rights.

On the Navajo Nation, where 565 of the reservation’s 869 deaths are among people 60 and older, the pandemic has devastated the ranks of hataałii,&nbsp;traditional medicine men and women.

When the virus exploded across the Navajo Nation, traditional healers who use prayer, songs and herbs as treatments tried to protect themselves with masks and gloves. They wrapped ceremonial objects in plastic. They set hand sanitizer outside traditional hogan dwellings.

But people came, seeking help with their grief or prayers for ailing relatives. And the healers got sick.

Now, remote meetings of the Diné Hataałii Association, a group of Navajo medicine men and women, include updates on who has died, members said. The roster of loss now includes Avery Denny’s 75-year-old grandfather and 78-year-old aunt, who both died of the virus.

“When they pass on, all that knowledge is gone forever, never to be retained,” said Denny, a member of the association and professor at Diné College. “It’s just lost.”

Cemeteries are filling up on the rolling plains of the Standing Rock Sioux in western North Dakota, where families like the Taken Alives have buried multiple grandparents, matriarchs and patriarchs. Standing Rock has recorded 24 deaths during the pandemic.

In 2016, the tribe’s fight to block an oil pipeline propelled Standing Rock to international fame, drawing thousands of activists to protest camps that sprawled along the Missouri River. This winter, Standing Rock’s families are waging a lonelier battle as the virus rages through crowded multigenerational homes where elders raise children and pass along their language — a crucial role that has made them incredibly vulnerable.

Diane Gates, 75, one of Standing Rock’s first elders to die of the virus, lived with multiple family members, relatives said. Her 75-year-old sister-in-law, Reva, who recently had open-heart surgery, also lives with several grandchildren in an isolated corner of the reservation. They see few visitors and have a lock on their gate, and they try to protect themselves with herbs and steam treatments. But there is always the risk of what a granddaughter could bring home from work.

Tribal health workers say they are also tired and overwhelmed, the strains of fighting COVID compounded by isolation, distance and a lack of resources.

The Standing Rock Sioux had to create their own contact-tracing team after tribal officials said governments in North Dakota and South Dakota failed to track the virus. Over the summer, bureaucratic conflicts scuttled an effort to set up a testing site on the southern end of the reservation, forcing people without cars to hitchhike or walk for miles to get swabbed. Those who do recover from the virus often find themselves stranded at hospitals hundreds of miles from the reservation, and have to call a tiny team of drivers to shuttle them home.

In October, as an outbreak of coronavirus swarmed across North Dakota, Rita Hunte, 66, woke one morning gasping for breath in her riverside community of Cannon Ball. She called her daughter and said: My girl, I don’t know what to do.

She spent two days in the 12-bed Indian Health Service hospital on the reservation, begging to be transferred out, her daughter, Marlo, said. She was taken to a hospital in Fargo where she lingered for weeks, mostly unconscious and on a breathing machine, as her daughter washed her hair and tried to move her arms and legs to reduce the swelling. She died Nov. 29.

Hunte was one of just 290 people who still spoke fluent Dakota, and in her work with a tribal cancer program, she would often pray with patients before they traveled to Bismarck or the Mayo Clinic for treatment.

Since her death, her widower, Marlon, has been trying to stay busy with church services where he plays acoustic guitar and lays hands on people as they testify to the goodness of the Lord. But his daughter said that Marlon Hunte’s role as a respected elder has paradoxically isolated him even further. Some neighbors now keep their distance because they are uneasy about asking whether he is doing OK, Marlo Hunte said.

“I feel a little lost there every now and then,” Marlon Hunte said.

Many of the elders now perishing are dying after months of monastic precautions. When the pandemic first erupted, Jesse Taken Alive helped record public-service messages in Lakota urging fellow elders to protect themselves. He set up a computer in the tepee beside his home where he taught remote language classes.

But as the pandemic grew worse, requests from his community piled up: Help with funeral prayers. Help with a ceremony. He had been a tribal chairman, and he and his wife, Cheryl, had spent their lives trying to help people on Standing Rock, whether it was fighting for tribal land and sovereignty or addressing a rash of suicides.

“We tried our best to keep everyone away,” their daughter Nola Taken Alive said. “But my dad had a hard time saying no when people needed him.”

The couple ended up on separate floors of the same hospital in Fargo. When Cheryl died in November, the fight began to fade in Jesse, said his son, Ira, who is also vice chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Jesse Taken Alive died Dec. 14. The family has been reflecting on the loss — Delores, the walking dictionary of Lakota linguistics. Ralph’s quiet dignity. Jesse and Cheryl’s deep faith and love for each other and their people.

“We’ll still be here,” Nola Taken Alive said. “But it’s going to be a struggle. How do I fill their shoes?”

The virus took Grandma Delores first, silencing an 86-year-old voice that rang with Lakota songs and stories. Then it came for Uncle Ralph, a stoic Vietnam veteran.

The virus took Grandma Delores first, silencing an 86-year-old voice that rang with Lakota songs and stories. Then it came for Uncle Ralph, a stoic Vietnam veteran. And just after Christmas, two more elders of the Taken Alive family were buried on the frozen North Dakota prairie: Jesse and Cheryl, husband and wife, who died a month apart. “It takes your breath away,” said Ira Taken Alive, the couple’s oldest son. “The amount of knowledge they held, and connection to our past.” One by one, those connections are being severed as the coronavirus tears through ranks of Native American elders, inflicting an incalculable toll on bonds of language and tradition that flow from older generations to the young. “It’s like we’re having a cultural book-burning,” said Jason Salsman, a spokesperson for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in eastern Oklahoma, whose grandparents contracted the virus but survived. “We’re losing a historical record, encyclopedias. One day soon, there won’t be anybody to pass this knowledge down.” The loss of tribal elders has swelled into a cultural crisis as the pandemic has killed American Indians and Alaska Natives at nearly twice the rate of white people, deepening what critics call the deadly toll of a tattered health system and generations of harm and broken promises by the U.S. government. The deaths of Muscogee elders strained the tribe’s burial program. They were grandparents and mikos, traditional leaders who knew how to prepare for annual green-corn ceremonies and how to stoke sacred fires their ancestors had carried to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. One tiny Methodist church on the reservation recently lost three cherished great-aunts who would sneak candy and smiles to restless children during Sunday services. “We’ll never be able to get that back,” Salsman said. Tribal nations and volunteer groups are now trying to protect their elders as a mission of cultural survival. Navajo women started a campaign to deliver meals and sanitizer to high-desert trailers and remote homes without running water, where elders have been left stranded by quarantines and lockdowns of community centers. Some now post colored cardboard in their windows: green for “OK,” red for “Help.” In western Montana, volunteers led by a grocery-store worker put together turkey dinners and hygiene packets to deliver to Blackfeet Nation elders. In Arizona, the White Mountain Apache sent out thermometers and pulse oximeters and taught young people to monitor their grandparents’ vital signs. Across the country, tribes are now putting elders and fluent Indigenous language speakers at the head of the line for vaccinations. But the effort faces huge obstacles. Elders who live in remote locations often have no means to get to the clinics and hospitals where vaccinations are administered. And there is deep mistrust of the government in a generation that was subjected without consent to medical testing, shipped off to boarding schools and punished for speaking their own language in a decadeslong campaign of forced assimilation. About a year into the pandemic, activists say there is still is no reliable death toll of Native elders. They say their deaths are overlooked or miscounted, especially off reservations and in urban areas, where some 70% of Indigenous people live. Adding to the problem, tribal health officials say their sickest members can essentially vanish once they are transferred out of small reservation health systems to larger hospitals with intensive-care units. “We don’t know what happens to them until we see a funeral announcement,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. The virus claimed fluent Choctaw speakers and dressmakers from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. It took a Tulalip family matriarch in Washington state, then her sister and brother-in-law. It killed a former chair of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in California who spent decades fighting to preserve Native arts and culture. It has killed members of the American Indian Movement, a group founded in 1968 that became the country’s most radical and prominent civil rights organization for American Indian rights. On the Navajo Nation, where 565 of the reservation’s 869 deaths are among people 60 and older, the pandemic has devastated the ranks of hataałii, traditional medicine men and women. When the virus exploded across the Navajo Nation, traditional healers who use prayer, songs and herbs as treatments tried to protect themselves with masks and gloves. They wrapped ceremonial objects in plastic. They set hand sanitizer outside traditional hogan dwellings. But people came, seeking help with their grief or prayers for ailing relatives. And the healers got sick. Now, remote meetings of the Diné Hataałii Association, a group of Navajo medicine men and women, include updates on who has died, members said. The roster of loss now includes Avery Denny’s 75-year-old grandfather and 78-year-old aunt, who both died of the virus. “When they pass on, all that knowledge is gone forever, never to be retained,” said Denny, a member of the association and professor at Diné College. “It’s just lost.” Cemeteries are filling up on the rolling plains of the Standing Rock Sioux in western North Dakota, where families like the Taken Alives have buried multiple grandparents, matriarchs and patriarchs. Standing Rock has recorded 24 deaths during the pandemic. In 2016, the tribe’s fight to block an oil pipeline propelled Standing Rock to international fame, drawing thousands of activists to protest camps that sprawled along the Missouri River. This winter, Standing Rock’s families are waging a lonelier battle as the virus rages through crowded multigenerational homes where elders raise children and pass along their language — a crucial role that has made them incredibly vulnerable. Diane Gates, 75, one of Standing Rock’s first elders to die of the virus, lived with multiple family members, relatives said. Her 75-year-old sister-in-law, Reva, who recently had open-heart surgery, also lives with several grandchildren in an isolated corner of the reservation. They see few visitors and have a lock on their gate, and they try to protect themselves with herbs and steam treatments. But there is always the risk of what a granddaughter could bring home from work. Tribal health workers say they are also tired and overwhelmed, the strains of fighting COVID compounded by isolation, distance and a lack of resources. The Standing Rock Sioux had to create their own contact-tracing team after tribal officials said governments in North Dakota and South Dakota failed to track the virus. Over the summer, bureaucratic conflicts scuttled an effort to set up a testing site on the southern end of the reservation, forcing people without cars to hitchhike or walk for miles to get swabbed. Those who do recover from the virus often find themselves stranded at hospitals hundreds of miles from the reservation, and have to call a tiny team of drivers to shuttle them home. In October, as an outbreak of coronavirus swarmed across North Dakota, Rita Hunte, 66, woke one morning gasping for breath in her riverside community of Cannon Ball. She called her daughter and said: My girl, I don’t know what to do. She spent two days in the 12-bed Indian Health Service hospital on the reservation, begging to be transferred out, her daughter, Marlo, said. She was taken to a hospital in Fargo where she lingered for weeks, mostly unconscious and on a breathing machine, as her daughter washed her hair and tried to move her arms and legs to reduce the swelling. She died Nov. 29. Hunte was one of just 290 people who still spoke fluent Dakota, and in her work with a tribal cancer program, she would often pray with patients before they traveled to Bismarck or the Mayo Clinic for treatment. Since her death, her widower, Marlon, has been trying to stay busy with church services where he plays acoustic guitar and lays hands on people as they testify to the goodness of the Lord. But his daughter said that Marlon Hunte’s role as a respected elder has paradoxically isolated him even further. Some neighbors now keep their distance because they are uneasy about asking whether he is doing OK, Marlo Hunte said. “I feel a little lost there every now and then,” Marlon Hunte said. Many of the elders now perishing are dying after months of monastic precautions. When the pandemic first erupted, Jesse Taken Alive helped record public-service messages in Lakota urging fellow elders to protect themselves. He set up a computer in the tepee beside his home where he taught remote language classes. But as the pandemic grew worse, requests from his community piled up: Help with funeral prayers. Help with a ceremony. He had been a tribal chairman, and he and his wife, Cheryl, had spent their lives trying to help people on Standing Rock, whether it was fighting for tribal land and sovereignty or addressing a rash of suicides. “We tried our best to keep everyone away,” their daughter Nola Taken Alive said. “But my dad had a hard time saying no when people needed him.” The couple ended up on separate floors of the same hospital in Fargo. When Cheryl died in November, the fight began to fade in Jesse, said his son, Ira, who is also vice chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Jesse Taken Alive died Dec. 14. The family has been reflecting on the loss — Delores, the walking dictionary of Lakota linguistics. Ralph’s quiet dignity. Jesse and Cheryl’s deep faith and love for each other and their people. “We’ll still be here,” Nola Taken Alive said. “But it’s going to be a struggle. How do I fill their shoes?”

Tribal elders are dying from the pandemic, causing a cultural crisis for American Indians

An Egyptian artefact, missing for decades, was found this month in a cigar box at the Scottish University of Aberdeen by an Egyptian staff member.

Artefact found in Scotland cigar box could unveil mysteries of Great Pyramid 

The curtain will fall on London's theatres again on Wednesday (December 16) as the British capital moves into the toughest level of coronavirus restrictions, with some forced to close Christmas shows just days after they opened in a hammer blow for the industry.

Curtain falls on London's theatres again due to Covid-19

For the first time in music history, 197 musicians - one from each country - have formed an orchestra, hoping to exemplify how people can transcend physical and cultural borders to come together.

Musicians from every country form Earth Orchestra to record unique song

It's hoped a new exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in London will help restore the finances of The Royal Collection Trust, after venues around the UK had to close to the general public for several months this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Old Master paintings on display at The Queen's Gallery

Despite challenging COVID-19 times, Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum will launch on Friday (November 20) Russian abstract painter Vasily Kandinsky's exhibition to a reduced public. The Kandinsky exhibition was set to be the museum's biggest crowd puller of 2020, but with restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic in Spain, will be much "quieter" than planned.

Guggenheim Museum to open Kandinsky exhibition despite COVID challenges

An art installation with 111 mannequins set up in Munich's central Marienplatz square called for more "mindfulness and appreciation" in people during the coronavirus crisis, its creator said on Wednesday (November 18).

Munich art installation with 111 mannequins calls for more "mindfulness"

With the corona pandemic raging and many museums and galleries closed, the international art scene has had to go virtual to attract visitors.

Art scene goes virtual due to corona pandemic

A silk shoe that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France who was guillotined as part of the French Revolution, will be auctioned in Versailles this weekend with an estimated starting price of 10,000 euros ($11,832).

Marie Antoinette's silk shoe goes up for sale in Versailles

Judit Polgar might be the one woman in the world who knows how Beth, the heroine of the hit Netflix series 'The Queen’s Gambit,' really feels. Like Beth, Polgar, who is from Hungary, stood out during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, including Garry Kasparov, in 2002, when he was ranked No&nbsp;1.

Polgar, the only woman to ever be ranked in the Top 10 or to play for the overall world championship, retired from competitive chess in 2014. Watching the series, which she described as an “incredible performance,” gave her a sense of déjà vu, particularly in the later episodes.

But there was one respect in which she could not identify with Beth’s experience: how the male competitors treated her.

“They were too nice to her,” Polgar said. When Polgar was proving herself and rising in the world rankings, the men often made disparaging comments about her ability and sometimes jokes, which they thought were funny but were actually hurtful, she said.

And no one ever resigned to her, as Shapkin did to Beth in Episode 7 by gallantly holding her hand near his lips.

“There were opponents who refused to shake hands,” she recalled. “There was one who hit his head on the board after he lost.”

Not every woman has had negative experiences. Irina Krush, who won her eighth US&nbsp;Women’s Championship last month, said she felt as if the chess community and men in particular were supportive of her when she was an up-and-coming player. She said of the series, “The spirit of what they are showing conforms to my experience.”

Whether what happens to Beth is typical or not, the popularity of 'The Queen’s Gambit' has inspired anew a debate about inequality and sexism in chess and what, if anything, can be done about them.

Though chess would seem like one area where men and women should be able to compete on equal footing, historically, few women have been able to do so. Among the more than 1,700 regular grandmasters worldwide, only 37, including Polgar and Krush, are women. Currently, only one woman, Hou Yifan of China, ranks in the Top 100, at No&nbsp;88, and she has been playing infrequently, even before the pandemic.

The superiority of men in the game is so well established that the best female players have freely acknowledged it. In a recent issue of Mint, in an article titled 'Why Women Lose at Chess,' Koneru Humpy, an Indian player currently ranked No&nbsp;3 among women, said men are just better players. “It’s proven,” she said. “You have to accept it.”

The dearth of women at the top of the game is one reason that there are separate tournaments for women, including a world championship; the World Chess Federation even created titles for women, such as women grandmaster.

Having such institutionalized, second-class status might seem like a bad idea, but not according to Anastasiya Karlovich, a grandmaster who was the press officer for the World Chess Federation for several years. She said the women’s titles permit more female players to earn a living as professionals, thereby increasing their participation in the game.

Karlovich said the Netflix show has helped her indirectly: It has made the parents of her chess students look at her differently.

“They have more respect for me. They understand better the life of a player,” she said.

While some men have speculated that the reason there are so few top female players is because they are not wired for it — Kasparov once said that it is not in their nature — women think the overriding reason is cultural expectations and bias.

Krush said the cultural cleaving between boys and girls happens at a young age. Scrolling through lists of the top players in the United States who are 7, 8 and 9, Krush pointed out that there are only a handful of girls in the Top 10.

That creates and reinforces another problem that discourages women’s participation: too few social contacts. Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women’s champion who has written two books about women in chess ('Chess Bitch' and 'Play Like a Girl!') and is the women’s program director at the US Chess Federation, said teenage girls tend to stop playing chess because there are so few of them and they want the social support. That Beth is a loner is likely an important reason she does not quit playing in tournaments.

Of 74,000 members in total, the US Chess Federation said it has about 10,500 female members. Shahade wants to increase that number, as well as their participation. To that end, she and the federation started an online chess club in April to keep female players engaged during the pandemic. In the last few weeks, there have been between 80 and 140 participants, with quite a few older players. The last meeting also had a special guest: Kasparov, who has become a big booster of women’s chess since his retirement from competition in 2005. He was also a consultant on the Netflix series.

To keep the momentum going, Shahade is launching a new online group called the “Madwoman’s Book Club.” The title refers to a pejorative name used for the queen in the 15th and 16th centuries after it became the most powerful piece on the board. The first meeting, this Friday, already has 100 people signed up.

The subject of the discussion should come as no surprise: 'The Queen’s Gambit'&nbsp;by Walter Tevis, the book on which the Netflix series is based. 
&nbsp;

Judit Polgar might be the one woman in the world who knows how Beth, the heroine of the hit Netflix series 'The Queen’s Gambit,' really feels. Like Beth, Polgar, who is from Hungary, stood out during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, including Garry Kasparov, in 2002, when he was ranked No 1.

Judit Polgar might be the one woman in the world who knows how Beth, the heroine of the hit Netflix series 'The Queen’s Gambit,' really feels. Like Beth, Polgar, who is from Hungary, stood out during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, including Garry Kasparov, in 2002, when he was ranked No 1. Polgar, the only woman to ever be ranked in the Top 10 or to play for the overall world championship, retired from competitive chess in 2014. Watching the series, which she described as an “incredible performance,” gave her a sense of déjà vu, particularly in the later episodes. But there was one respect in which she could not identify with Beth’s experience: how the male competitors treated her. “They were too nice to her,” Polgar said. When Polgar was proving herself and rising in the world rankings, the men often made disparaging comments about her ability and sometimes jokes, which they thought were funny but were actually hurtful, she said. And no one ever resigned to her, as Shapkin did to Beth in Episode 7 by gallantly holding her hand near his lips. “There were opponents who refused to shake hands,” she recalled. “There was one who hit his head on the board after he lost.” Not every woman has had negative experiences. Irina Krush, who won her eighth US Women’s Championship last month, said she felt as if the chess community and men in particular were supportive of her when she was an up-and-coming player. She said of the series, “The spirit of what they are showing conforms to my experience.” Whether what happens to Beth is typical or not, the popularity of 'The Queen’s Gambit' has inspired anew a debate about inequality and sexism in chess and what, if anything, can be done about them. Though chess would seem like one area where men and women should be able to compete on equal footing, historically, few women have been able to do so. Among the more than 1,700 regular grandmasters worldwide, only 37, including Polgar and Krush, are women. Currently, only one woman, Hou Yifan of China, ranks in the Top 100, at No 88, and she has been playing infrequently, even before the pandemic. The superiority of men in the game is so well established that the best female players have freely acknowledged it. In a recent issue of Mint, in an article titled 'Why Women Lose at Chess,' Koneru Humpy, an Indian player currently ranked No 3 among women, said men are just better players. “It’s proven,” she said. “You have to accept it.” The dearth of women at the top of the game is one reason that there are separate tournaments for women, including a world championship; the World Chess Federation even created titles for women, such as women grandmaster. Having such institutionalized, second-class status might seem like a bad idea, but not according to Anastasiya Karlovich, a grandmaster who was the press officer for the World Chess Federation for several years. She said the women’s titles permit more female players to earn a living as professionals, thereby increasing their participation in the game. Karlovich said the Netflix show has helped her indirectly: It has made the parents of her chess students look at her differently. “They have more respect for me. They understand better the life of a player,” she said. While some men have speculated that the reason there are so few top female players is because they are not wired for it — Kasparov once said that it is not in their nature — women think the overriding reason is cultural expectations and bias. Krush said the cultural cleaving between boys and girls happens at a young age. Scrolling through lists of the top players in the United States who are 7, 8 and 9, Krush pointed out that there are only a handful of girls in the Top 10. That creates and reinforces another problem that discourages women’s participation: too few social contacts. Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women’s champion who has written two books about women in chess ('Chess Bitch' and 'Play Like a Girl!') and is the women’s program director at the US Chess Federation, said teenage girls tend to stop playing chess because there are so few of them and they want the social support. That Beth is a loner is likely an important reason she does not quit playing in tournaments. Of 74,000 members in total, the US Chess Federation said it has about 10,500 female members. Shahade wants to increase that number, as well as their participation. To that end, she and the federation started an online chess club in April to keep female players engaged during the pandemic. In the last few weeks, there have been between 80 and 140 participants, with quite a few older players. The last meeting also had a special guest: Kasparov, who has become a big booster of women’s chess since his retirement from competition in 2005. He was also a consultant on the Netflix series. To keep the momentum going, Shahade is launching a new online group called the “Madwoman’s Book Club.” The title refers to a pejorative name used for the queen in the 15th and 16th centuries after it became the most powerful piece on the board. The first meeting, this Friday, already has 100 people signed up. The subject of the discussion should come as no surprise: 'The Queen’s Gambit' by Walter Tevis, the book on which the Netflix series is based.

How 'The Queen's Gambit' started a new debate about sexism in chess

The accessory of 2020 - the face mask - was combined with 1920s themed fineries by guests forming a socially distanced queue for the relaunch of the London show "The Great Gatsby" on Thursday (October 22) evening.

'The Great Gatsby' back on stage in London

The Royal Opera House sold a painting by British artist David Hockney for 12.8 million pounds at an auction in London on Thursday (October 22) amid efforts to survive the coronavirus crisis.

Royal Opera House sells Hockney for £12.8 million amid crisis

A few days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, David Letterman sat behind his desk at CBS’s “Late Show” and shared the story of a rally in Choteau, Montana, to raise money for New York. Getting choked up, he told his viewers, “If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the spirit of the United States, then I can’t help you.”

Nineteen years later, with the country in the midst of a monthslong pandemic, Letterman found it difficult to conjure up any similarly inspiring anecdotes. One morning last week, this veteran late-night host, broadcaster and comedian, now 73, was sitting in a park here, contemplating the Hudson River and cracking wise about the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.

“It looks kind of unfinished,” he said through a fabric mask that barely held back his unruly beard. “Doesn’t it look like the new kid got to design it?”

But truth be told, Letterman was in a more melancholy than mirthful frame of mind. Though he, his wife, Regina, and their son, Harry, have remained safe, he knows several people who were stricken by the coronavirus, some of whom died from it. And he is deeply frustrated by what he feels have been inconsistent, nationwide efforts to inform people about the pandemic and mitigate its spread.

While hardly its most devastating casualty, Letterman’s Netflix interview show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” returns Wednesday but nearly came to a halt. He had recorded two episodes, with Kim Kardashian West and with Robert Downey Jr., before the pandemic, and believed the season — if not the series — was finished.

Instead, he was able to produce two more episodes over the summer, under substantially different circumstances: one with Dave Chappelle, which was recorded at an outdoor pavilion in Yellow Springs, Ohio; and one with Lizzo, at her home studio in Los Angeles, which had no audience at all.

For Letterman, each of these episodes offered him a further education in the evolution of entertainment and deeper insights as an interviewer and observer of human nature. Even so, he found himself yearning for what he called “the carefree days of nonsense” when he could “bring people into a theater and talk to them for an hour, and when we were done I would go out into the crowd and shake hands, and everybody would want to tongue-kiss me.”

“We don’t do that anymore,” he added.

Letterman spoke further about his pandemic experience, the making of his Netflix series and what he hopes the future might hold for him. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q: How has the pandemic been for you? What is it like for you now?

A: Like everybody else, you forget about it. Six, eight months into it, you go on talking as though things are normal, and then it’s, oh, no, we can’t do that because of the pandemic. In the beginning, it was more than ghastly. The husband of a woman that worked at (“Late Show”), he died. A teacher at Harry’s school died. Paul Shaffer and his wife both had it. Cathy, his wife, was hospitalized. Barbara Gaines, who was a producer on the show, she and her wife both had it. And on and on and on.

Q: How do you feel when you come into contact with people elsewhere in the country who don’t seem to be taking the pandemic as seriously?

A: That makes me very sad. Because we learned a lesson that these other people are dismissing. I was talking to a friend of mine, and he was furious at the mayor of his city for keeping it closed, and he said, “Well, that guy will never be reelected.” And I just thought, do I tell him what this really can be? We’re looking at a quarter of a million people dead soon. But I just didn’t want to have that fight. 
 
Q: After the 9/11 attacks, you gave several “Late Show” monologues where you tried to rally your viewers’ spirits and bring them together. Do you ever feel like saying anything similar now?

A: Something applicable to these times? I wish I had the wherewithal to say something meaningful. But all of these people who are resisting the idea of prevention, I just keep thinking: What about the families of the 220,000 people who are dead? I wonder how they’re feeling. I don’t get it. I have no solution other than to do what is told: Take care of yourself and your family.

Q: How did the pandemic affect your work on your Netflix series?

A: I thought we were done for good. Really. In the beginning, it really seemed like, holy God, they’re coming over the wall, we’re all going to die. People keep reminding me that, at my age, I’m particularly vulnerable. Which I don’t appreciate at all. “Dad, you know you’re close to 100, you’d better not go out.”

Q: How did you decide to continue with your season?

A: We had two more episodes (with Lizzo and Dave Chappelle) in preproduction, and we were eager to do something. We did them within a very short period of time, and then we came home. By that point, there were protocols in place from the production company and from Netflix that we had to observe, gladly, and we got through it OK.

Q: Kim Kardashian West, who is now a prized guest on your Netflix series, was a frequent target of mockery in your “Late Show” days.

A: Oh, I was at the head of that list. I can remember when she would be booked on the show, it was like, I don’t know anything about her, and I’ve never seen her show. And then when we went to talk to Kanye, I thought, oh, I’ve misjudged this woman.

Q: What changed your mind about her?

A: After we met with Kanye West (for the previous season of the Netflix series), I had a long talk with her at their home, and I started to think about how I had used her as a joke and regarded her as someone not to be taken seriously. I found that that impression was not the end of the story. She had a family. She has her prison reform program. I won’t comment on the ease of being married to Kanye West. And if she can keep a show like that on the air for all those years, that’s an accomplishment. If you can stay in business on television that long, good for you.

Q: You went to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to interview Dave Chappelle. Did you perform at his outdoor comedy show there?

A: Yes. I think I did it. (To his publicist) Did I do it? (Publicist answers: “You did it.”) I’m being told I did it (laughs). It was grand. The setting is unique. It’s outdoors. Everybody’s tested, everybody social distanced. He had three or four comics on and each comic made my heart sink deeper. Because when I was doing comedy, a lot of it was (weakly) “Hey, where you from?” But these men and women, whoa — the level of it, the intellect of it, the presentation of it is so much more than it was when me and my little buddies were, “Hey, how ya doin’, I just got in from Indiana.” Really? No one cares. Get outta here.

Q: Do you ever have moments in these interviews where you feel as if you don’t have a shared frame of reference to talk to some of these guests?

A: Yes. Because the experience is barely parallel. We’re all in show business, but that’s as close a comparison as you can make, culturally. I did feel like, is this going to look stupid? An old guy here, trying to talk to people who are thriving and alive and dominating the world through social media? I felt like it was a wreck. That’s the inner dialogue.

Q: How do you get past this?

A: Like anybody else that you talk to, every human being, there are situations that helped develop into what they are. So you’re going to get a story out of anybody. It may not happen in the first five minutes, but in every one of these experiences, there’s always a conduit for mutual experience. “Oh yeah? You think that’s something? Well, one time I choked on a peanut-butter sandwich and nearly died.” You have to make everybody a good interview.

Q: Do you think that late-night television, a genre that you helped to pioneer, has been diminished in recent years — that so much of it has become political comedy that doesn’t really move the needle and crowds out everything else?

A: I know that people have been hugely successful with it. Stephen (Colbert) has done a great job with my old show — his show now. In my day, the goal was just anything to make the audience laugh. That may be part of the dynamic now. People have this hunger to see the current administration being assailed and embarrassing itself. So I think that’s what (late-night shows) worked toward. I don’t fault them for that. After a while, it wears thin, but the appetite for it has not worn thin. I think they still do enough business to keep people happy.

Q: Do you ever find yourself fearing for the future of this country?

A: I really did, until recently. And now I am confident — or more confident than I’ve been in the last four years — that we’re changing presidents in a couple of weeks. And it will be a huge victory. Not just for our culture and our government, but the simple act of voting will have been the reason that the rest of our country is put back together and, in many ways, saved from what appears to be tyranny, certainly jeopardy. I think it will be a huge victory on many fronts, not the least of which is calling attention to the valuable freedom of voting.

Q: Please don’t mistake this for a suggestion, but do you ever think about packing it in as a broadcaster entirely?

A: First of all, you can’t hurt my feelings because I’m dead inside. But the Netflix people put me back in business in a way that has been, for me, really, really fun. On the other hand, I recognize my own shelf life. I’m way overdue. When it happens, I still will enjoy little things here and there, and that’ll be enough. But there’s other people more capable. I got no problem with that. If there is any kind of schedule, it would be when my son is finished with high school. But if it’s tomorrow, that’s fine.

Q: Your son, Harry, is 16 now. Are you worried about how the pandemic is going to affect his life?

A: I think it’s every parent’s concern, regardless of the age of their kids. But for Harry and his buddies, the junior year of high school is a crucial experience. Now they’re starting to look beyond high school, and it’s not good. For guys Harry’s age and older, it might be a setback. Time takes care of everything, and one hopes that that’s the case here.

Q: How do you talk about these feelings with him?

A: I had a conversation with my son the other night that went this way. Because of the pandemic and the fact that he’s getting older, I said, Harry, your mother and I have two responsibilities. One is to keep you safe. And other than the time that your mother let you roll off the bed and land on your head, we have kept you safe. The other responsibility is your happiness. And he said, “Have you been drinking?” So that’s how that works at my house.

&nbsp;

A few days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, David Letterman sat behind his desk at CBS’s “Late Show” and shared the story of a rally in Choteau, Montana, to raise money for New York.

A few days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, David Letterman sat behind his desk at CBS’s “Late Show” and shared the story of a rally in Choteau, Montana, to raise money for New York. Getting choked up, he told his viewers, “If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the spirit of the United States, then I can’t help you.” Nineteen years later, with the country in the midst of a monthslong pandemic, Letterman found it difficult to conjure up any similarly inspiring anecdotes. One morning last week, this veteran late-night host, broadcaster and comedian, now 73, was sitting in a park here, contemplating the Hudson River and cracking wise about the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. “It looks kind of unfinished,” he said through a fabric mask that barely held back his unruly beard. “Doesn’t it look like the new kid got to design it?” But truth be told, Letterman was in a more melancholy than mirthful frame of mind. Though he, his wife, Regina, and their son, Harry, have remained safe, he knows several people who were stricken by the coronavirus, some of whom died from it. And he is deeply frustrated by what he feels have been inconsistent, nationwide efforts to inform people about the pandemic and mitigate its spread. While hardly its most devastating casualty, Letterman’s Netflix interview show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” returns Wednesday but nearly came to a halt. He had recorded two episodes, with Kim Kardashian West and with Robert Downey Jr., before the pandemic, and believed the season — if not the series — was finished. Instead, he was able to produce two more episodes over the summer, under substantially different circumstances: one with Dave Chappelle, which was recorded at an outdoor pavilion in Yellow Springs, Ohio; and one with Lizzo, at her home studio in Los Angeles, which had no audience at all. For Letterman, each of these episodes offered him a further education in the evolution of entertainment and deeper insights as an interviewer and observer of human nature. Even so, he found himself yearning for what he called “the carefree days of nonsense” when he could “bring people into a theater and talk to them for an hour, and when we were done I would go out into the crowd and shake hands, and everybody would want to tongue-kiss me.” “We don’t do that anymore,” he added. Letterman spoke further about his pandemic experience, the making of his Netflix series and what he hopes the future might hold for him. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Q: How has the pandemic been for you? What is it like for you now? A: Like everybody else, you forget about it. Six, eight months into it, you go on talking as though things are normal, and then it’s, oh, no, we can’t do that because of the pandemic. In the beginning, it was more than ghastly. The husband of a woman that worked at (“Late Show”), he died. A teacher at Harry’s school died. Paul Shaffer and his wife both had it. Cathy, his wife, was hospitalized. Barbara Gaines, who was a producer on the show, she and her wife both had it. And on and on and on. Q: How do you feel when you come into contact with people elsewhere in the country who don’t seem to be taking the pandemic as seriously? A: That makes me very sad. Because we learned a lesson that these other people are dismissing. I was talking to a friend of mine, and he was furious at the mayor of his city for keeping it closed, and he said, “Well, that guy will never be reelected.” And I just thought, do I tell him what this really can be? We’re looking at a quarter of a million people dead soon. But I just didn’t want to have that fight. Q: After the 9/11 attacks, you gave several “Late Show” monologues where you tried to rally your viewers’ spirits and bring them together. Do you ever feel like saying anything similar now? A: Something applicable to these times? I wish I had the wherewithal to say something meaningful. But all of these people who are resisting the idea of prevention, I just keep thinking: What about the families of the 220,000 people who are dead? I wonder how they’re feeling. I don’t get it. I have no solution other than to do what is told: Take care of yourself and your family. Q: How did the pandemic affect your work on your Netflix series? A: I thought we were done for good. Really. In the beginning, it really seemed like, holy God, they’re coming over the wall, we’re all going to die. People keep reminding me that, at my age, I’m particularly vulnerable. Which I don’t appreciate at all. “Dad, you know you’re close to 100, you’d better not go out.” Q: How did you decide to continue with your season? A: We had two more episodes (with Lizzo and Dave Chappelle) in preproduction, and we were eager to do something. We did them within a very short period of time, and then we came home. By that point, there were protocols in place from the production company and from Netflix that we had to observe, gladly, and we got through it OK. Q: Kim Kardashian West, who is now a prized guest on your Netflix series, was a frequent target of mockery in your “Late Show” days. A: Oh, I was at the head of that list. I can remember when she would be booked on the show, it was like, I don’t know anything about her, and I’ve never seen her show. And then when we went to talk to Kanye, I thought, oh, I’ve misjudged this woman. Q: What changed your mind about her? A: After we met with Kanye West (for the previous season of the Netflix series), I had a long talk with her at their home, and I started to think about how I had used her as a joke and regarded her as someone not to be taken seriously. I found that that impression was not the end of the story. She had a family. She has her prison reform program. I won’t comment on the ease of being married to Kanye West. And if she can keep a show like that on the air for all those years, that’s an accomplishment. If you can stay in business on television that long, good for you. Q: You went to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to interview Dave Chappelle. Did you perform at his outdoor comedy show there? A: Yes. I think I did it. (To his publicist) Did I do it? (Publicist answers: “You did it.”) I’m being told I did it (laughs). It was grand. The setting is unique. It’s outdoors. Everybody’s tested, everybody social distanced. He had three or four comics on and each comic made my heart sink deeper. Because when I was doing comedy, a lot of it was (weakly) “Hey, where you from?” But these men and women, whoa — the level of it, the intellect of it, the presentation of it is so much more than it was when me and my little buddies were, “Hey, how ya doin’, I just got in from Indiana.” Really? No one cares. Get outta here. Q: Do you ever have moments in these interviews where you feel as if you don’t have a shared frame of reference to talk to some of these guests? A: Yes. Because the experience is barely parallel. We’re all in show business, but that’s as close a comparison as you can make, culturally. I did feel like, is this going to look stupid? An old guy here, trying to talk to people who are thriving and alive and dominating the world through social media? I felt like it was a wreck. That’s the inner dialogue. Q: How do you get past this? A: Like anybody else that you talk to, every human being, there are situations that helped develop into what they are. So you’re going to get a story out of anybody. It may not happen in the first five minutes, but in every one of these experiences, there’s always a conduit for mutual experience. “Oh yeah? You think that’s something? Well, one time I choked on a peanut-butter sandwich and nearly died.” You have to make everybody a good interview. Q: Do you think that late-night television, a genre that you helped to pioneer, has been diminished in recent years — that so much of it has become political comedy that doesn’t really move the needle and crowds out everything else? A: I know that people have been hugely successful with it. Stephen (Colbert) has done a great job with my old show — his show now. In my day, the goal was just anything to make the audience laugh. That may be part of the dynamic now. People have this hunger to see the current administration being assailed and embarrassing itself. So I think that’s what (late-night shows) worked toward. I don’t fault them for that. After a while, it wears thin, but the appetite for it has not worn thin. I think they still do enough business to keep people happy. Q: Do you ever find yourself fearing for the future of this country? A: I really did, until recently. And now I am confident — or more confident than I’ve been in the last four years — that we’re changing presidents in a couple of weeks. And it will be a huge victory. Not just for our culture and our government, but the simple act of voting will have been the reason that the rest of our country is put back together and, in many ways, saved from what appears to be tyranny, certainly jeopardy. I think it will be a huge victory on many fronts, not the least of which is calling attention to the valuable freedom of voting. Q: Please don’t mistake this for a suggestion, but do you ever think about packing it in as a broadcaster entirely? A: First of all, you can’t hurt my feelings because I’m dead inside. But the Netflix people put me back in business in a way that has been, for me, really, really fun. On the other hand, I recognize my own shelf life. I’m way overdue. When it happens, I still will enjoy little things here and there, and that’ll be enough. But there’s other people more capable. I got no problem with that. If there is any kind of schedule, it would be when my son is finished with high school. But if it’s tomorrow, that’s fine. Q: Your son, Harry, is 16 now. Are you worried about how the pandemic is going to affect his life? A: I think it’s every parent’s concern, regardless of the age of their kids. But for Harry and his buddies, the junior year of high school is a crucial experience. Now they’re starting to look beyond high school, and it’s not good. For guys Harry’s age and older, it might be a setback. Time takes care of everything, and one hopes that that’s the case here. Q: How do you talk about these feelings with him? A: I had a conversation with my son the other night that went this way. Because of the pandemic and the fact that he’s getting older, I said, Harry, your mother and I have two responsibilities. One is to keep you safe. And other than the time that your mother let you roll off the bed and land on your head, we have kept you safe. The other responsibility is your happiness. And he said, “Have you been drinking?” So that’s how that works at my house.

David Letterman isn’t here to cheer you up this time

Paintings, photographs, films and poetry by children and young people across England are now being displayed alongside world famous works of art as part of a new online exhibition on lockdown life.

Young people create art to reflect lockdown life

A group of LGBT activists opened a cultural center called "Eucalyptus 20" a few months ago in an old house in the Mexican capital's downtown where they show LGBT art without prejudice.

LGBT activists open culture center to show art without prejudice

The Royal Ballet, Britain's largest ballet company, leaps back into action on Friday (October 9) after seven months of COVID-19 gloom with an extravaganza that mixes classics such as Romeo and Juliet and Don Quixote with playful modern dance.

Royal Ballet leaps out of lockdown with online extravaganza

Self-employed musicians staged a performance in London's Parliament Square on Tuesday (October 6) to publicise the need for support for those in the performing arts sector.

Musicians call for UK government support over loss of work

Banksy's contemporary take on Claude Monet's iconic water lily pond will be sold for an estimated £3-5 million in Sotheby's online auction on October 21.

Banksy's contemporary take on Monet up for online auction at Sotheby's

Dozens of mask-wearing music enthusiasts in a church in an eastern German town on Saturday (September 5) witnessed the first note change in seven years in the world's longest lasting pipe organ performance.

As slow as possible: German organ changes note for first time in years

Moscow's famous Bolshoi theatre on Friday (September 5) rehearsed Don Carlo for the final time, preparing for the new season opening following the global pandemic.

Russia's Bolshoi Theatre opens 245th season with a socially-distanced 'Don Carlo'

Mexico City residents and visitors will once again be able to admire the world-famous artworks at two of the city's top museums as a gradual reopening of cultural institutions proceeds after five months of lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mexico City museums reopen to art admirers after pandemic lockdown

Stars of "The World to Come" lit up the Venice Film Festival red carpet on Sunday (September 6) evening as they attended the highly anticipated movie's world premiere.

'The World to Come' cast, Oliver Stone and Iran's Majid Majidi walk Venice red carpet

The show must go on, and that was certainly the case for the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires as it moved online on Wednesday (August 26) in keeping with social distancing norms.

Dancing cheek to cheek? World Tango Championship moves online

Fearing their creations may violate a national security law imposed by Beijing, some of Hong Kong's artists are turning to self-censorship while others are moving their works abroad or are planning to leave the city themselves.

Hong Kong's new security law inhibits anxious artists

As the world struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Latin music superstar Gloria Estefan hopes her new album will help fans escape the daily onslaught of bad news.

Latin superstar Gloria Estefan hopes new album brings joy amid pandemic

South Korea's popular boy band BTS' management label, Big Hit Entertainment, on Thursday (August 13) released an online presentation video and said it saw a 27% jump in half-year profits as its online concert and merchandise sales more than offset event cancellations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

K-Pop group BTS' label Big Hit posts profit jump as it prepares for IPO 

Renaissance master Raphael probably did not like his nose. So the painter, who sought perfection in everything, may have done a nose job in his self-portrait and other works where he inserted himself among persons.

Raphael did a nose-job in self-portrait, face 3D reconstruction suggests

Thousands of paddle boarders rode down the canals of St Petersburg at the annual Fontanka-SUP festival on Saturday (August 8).

Thousands of paddle boarders ride thorugh St Petersburg canals

culture-0

Culture, News on Culture, stories on Culture, articles on Culture, Culture stories at Wion, Culture news, Culture latest news

culture 0

Rare Botticelli portrait sells for record $92.2 million at NY auction

Tintin painting could fetch up to 2.8 million euros at Paris auction

Tribal elders are dying from the pandemic, causing a cultural crisis for American Indians

Artefact found in Scotland cigar box could unveil mysteries of Great Pyramid

Curtain falls on London's theatres again due to Covid-19

Musicians from every country form Earth Orchestra to record unique song

Old Master paintings on display at The Queen's Gallery

Guggenheim Museum to open Kandinsky exhibition despite COVID challenges

Munich art installation with 111 mannequins calls for more "mindfulness"

Art scene goes virtual due to corona pandemic

Marie Antoinette's silk shoe goes up for sale in Versailles

How 'The Queen's Gambit' started a new debate about sexism in chess

'The Great Gatsby' back on stage in London

'The Great Gatsby' back on stage in London

Royal Opera House sells Hockney for £12.8 million amid crisis

David Letterman isn’t here to cheer you up this time

Young people create art to reflect lockdown life

LGBT activists open culture center to show art without prejudice

Royal Ballet leaps out of lockdown with online extravaganza

Musicians call for UK government support over loss of work

Banksy's contemporary take on Monet up for online auction at Sotheby's

As slow as possible: German organ changes note for first time in years

Russia's Bolshoi Theatre opens 245th season with a socially-distanced 'Don Carlo'

Mexico City museums reopen to art admirers after pandemic lockdown

'The World to Come' cast, Oliver Stone and Iran's Majid Majidi walk Venice red carpet

Dancing cheek to cheek? World Tango Championship moves online