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June 2009
A wall of Lucien Freud drawings that was in R.J. Kitaj's house in Westwood
Yes, that's a drawing of Francis Bacon doing a not very butch hands-on-hips pose. It's from a terrific catalog I found at the PCC:
Who could resist Ezra Pound lurking on the floor like that? Or this 1983 portrait of Catherine Lampert by Frank Auerbach:
La Traviata on ice @ Dorothy Chandler
Last
night the curtain went up to reveal a town house that looked more of less 19th
century, inhabited by people dressed in more or less 19th century
Parisian costume. Thank goodness L.A. Opera ditched the flapper era sets from
the 2006 production. Violetta’s home is now 100% free of white limousines and
snowstorms. But even so, the evening fell flat. Elizabeth Futral (Violetta),
Alexey Dolgov (Alfredo) and Stephen Powell (Alfredo’s dad) were musically
adept, but dramatically inert. The first half of the evening they seemed to
have no idea what to do with themselves, and paced the stage--out of nerves or boredom or both. Things
improved in the second half, when the characters spend their time being stunned or dying and
hence stand still. Then it was possible to detect that something serious was
transpiring. Didn’t anybody tell them this is a spectacle of crazy love?
Tiananmen's 20th
On April 26, 1989, The People's Daily commented on the protest:
Flaunting the banner of democracy, they undermined democracy and the legal system. Their purpose was to sow dissension among the people, plunge the whole country into chaos and sabotage the political situation of stability and unity. This is a planned conspiracy and a disturbance. Its essence is to, once and for all, negate the leadership of the CPC and the socialist system. This is a serious political struggle confronting the whole party and the people of all nationalities throughout the country.
If we are tolerant of or conniving with this disturbance and let it go unchecked, a seriously chaotic state will appear. Then, the reform and opening up; the improvement of the economic environment and the rectification of the economic order, construction, and development; the control over prices; the improvement of our living standards; the drive to oppose corruption; and the development of democracy and the legal system expected by the people throughout the country, including the young students, will all become empty hopes. Even the tremendous achievements scored in the reform during the past decade may be completely lost, and the great aspiration of the revitalization of China cherished by the whole nation will be hard to realize. A China with very good prospects and a very bright future will become a chaotic and unstable China without any future.
Today The People's Daily reported:
On June 2, GM announced that it had reached a memorandum of understanding with Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Tengzhong Corp. will acquire the GM's Hummer brand and its management and operation teams.