March 3: Extra Edition

The great Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his wife, daughter, and house guests, have been seized in a raid by the Iranian government that is already spurring protests by film-makers around the globe. The international arts and intellectual community -- which I consider myself a part of, and if you are reading this, you should too -- must pull together as one on this issue, as they did for Salman Rushdie, as we should whenever free expression is threatened in this way. This is serious business, and we do not know where it might lead. We need to remember what happened to Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria, his trial and hanging by a supposedly legitimate government. Critics and communicators, artists, intellectuals, academics, and journalists, are often "made an example of" because they use their voices -- just as Jafar Panahi has always done, as the deeply humane man that he is. Let this outrage not go unanswered.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7047488.ece

Michael Orthofer at The Complete Review describes an exceptionally interesting literary hoax by French novelist Romain Gary:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/garyr/pseudo.htm

John Douglas Marshall at Book Beast champions three "overlooked gems" of which I'd been unaware. I'm predisposed to like a book with the vivid title Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-27/three-overlooked-gems/

stevereads follows up his earlier "Nine Lives" list of worthy biographies with nine more:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/stevereads/2010/02/nine-lives-2/

The Museo Picasso Malaga has mounted a major retrospective of the Czech modernist painter Frantosek Kupka (1871-1957):

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36302

http://www2.museopicassomalaga.org/i_03_1frameset.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franti%C5%A1ek_Kupka

This is somewhat hard to believe, but Professor Joseph Weiler is being sued for libel in a French court by Professor Karin Calvo-Goller because he wrote a negative review of her book. This isn't quite at the level of jailing a dissident film director, but it is still a ridiculous assault on free expression. Dear Prof. Calvo-Goller: Get a life.

http://chronicle.com/article/NYU-Professor-Faces-Libel/64370/

The yet-to-be-built Guangzhou Metro Authority, a prize-winning design y Perkins Eastman, will have undeniable presence:

http://www.designscene.net/2010/02/guangzhou-metro-authority-by-perkins.html

That building will be a big statement. But the architectural websites and blogs bring news of appealing little statements, too, such as this command post in Saint Samson, France:

http://www.archdaily.com/50630/command-post-in-saint-samson-bruno-pourveer/

As a major fan of wolverines (well, maybe not in the same room with me), I am delighted that they seem to be cropping up in places where they have long been thought to be eradicated. It is unlikely that all these out-of-place wolverines are escapes, since there would generally be documentation on an escaped wolverine! A wolverine was confirmed with a photograph in Michigan's Lower Peninsula in 2004:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4374309/

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/mar/22/spi-captures-rare-wolverine-on-video/


There have been persistent sightings in Wisconsin, too, and now that I have relocated to Nevada, the wolverines have apparently followed me; there was great excitement when a wolverine was captured on video in the Sierra Nevada Mountains just north of Lake Tahoe in 2008, and it has been seen again in 2009 and 2010:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14476288



Go wolverines!