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In November, 2011, a group of American creative giants—Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma, and others—traveled to Beijing for a high-culture take on ping-pong diplomacy. TheU.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culturewas the work of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, headed by Orville Schell, and it produced a four-day mash-up intended to give each side more exposure to the other, beyond the contentious debates over economic and politics. The filmmakers Joel Coen and Lu Chuan talked movies; the chef Alice Waters and the author Michael Pollan discussed organic cuisine with Chinese food activists. It culminated in a performance of music, poetry, and dance at “The Egg,” China’s national opera house, arranged by Yo-Yo Ma and Damien Woetzel, the former principle dancer from the New York City Ballet.
Among the visitors, only one was making his first trip outside the United States—or, for that matter, was the first member of his family to do so. Charles (Lil Buck) Riley is “the Baryshnikov of jookin,” as he was once described in theTimes. He is the most famous practitioner of the Memphis style of hip-hop footwork. When Lil Buck’s earlier collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma was posted to YouTube, it drew more than two million views.
His four days of dancing across Beijing—and on the Great Wall of China—have been distilled into a short film by Ole Schell (son of Orville), who discovered that traveling around Beijing in Lil Buck’s orbit was like “experiencing the culture again for the first time.” Older Chinese viewers were baffled, but “you go into any Beijing or Shanghai club and they will be blasting the latest from rap songs from the United States”—without ever having seen it up-close.
The film, here, will remind you of the thrill of seeing China for the first time. I posed some questions to Lil Buck, at the link below.
Click-through to read Evan Osnos’s Q&A with Lil Buck: http://nyr.kr/128gzgZ
(Source: newyorker.com)
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"Zusya on the Roof"→
Read new fiction by Nicole Krauss featured in this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/Xy6DVp
…and here, Krauss discusses her story with fiction editor Deborah Treisman: http://nyr.kr/SZU9t6
“Clark Kent has Superman, Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce, and I have old Jewish men…”
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Fiction editor Deborah Treisman talks to George Saunders about his new book, “Tenth of December”: http://nyr.kr/Wprlav
Photograph: Damon Winter/The New York Times/Redux
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"I like a little bit of revolution. I think it’s a very good hobby for a young woman. Better than squash."
— Sally Errico talks to the London Times columnist Caitlin Moran about feminism, her influences, celebrities, and sex. Click-through to read. -
Ben Greenman:
The long, hilarious career of the filmmaker, comedian, actor, and performer Mel Brooks has been documented before, but never quite like it has been on the new box set “The Incredible Mel Brooks: An Irresistible Collection of Unhinged Comedy.” While previous career retrospectives have focussed on Brooks’s films, this collection assembles odds and ends from around the margins of his career, ranging from classic inteviews with Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson to sitcom appearances on shows such as “Mad About You” to rarities such as the 1978 parody newsmagazine “Peeping Times” and Brooks’s teaser trailer for the 1962 Italian film “My Son, the Hero.”
The set will be released today. While we are pleased to offer the exclusive clip above—it’s a snippet from a 1981 British documentary in which Brooks reflects on his early years, explains his relationship with his mother, and generally acts the tummler—we are doubly pleased that Brooks agreed to discuss the new collection with us. Click-through to read the conversation. -
“E.T.” Turns Thirty
Melissa Mathison, the screenwriter for Steven Spielberg’s “E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial,” talks about what inspired some of the film’s best lines: http://nyr.kr/UG3Rga
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Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu Win MacArthur Grants→
Congratulations to the New Yorker contributors Junot Díaz and Dinaw Mengestu on being awarded MacArthur “genius” grants this week. Díaz has published thirteen stories in the magazine, and Mengestu was included in 20 Under 40, The New Yorker’s 2010 selection of young fiction writers. Here are links to stories we’ve run by these two distinguished writers, along with Q. & A.s they’ve done with their editors about their work.
Junot Díaz:
“How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)”
“The Sun, the Moon, the Stars”
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”
Q. & A. about “The Pura Principle”
“The Cheater’s Guide to Love” Q .& A. about “The Cheater’s Guide to Love”
Dinaw Mengetsu:
Photographs courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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The Toronto trio METZ is rude, severe, and excellent. They make rock music, all of it loud, most of it precise without feeling checked. It’s raucous stuff, heavily indebted to music recorded for the Chicago label Tough & Go in the eighties, and recordings made in the nineties for the D.C. label Dischord. We are happy to be streaming their self-titled début album, exclusively, for one week. A few days ago, I spoke on the phone with the band’s guitarist and singer, Alex Edkins.
Click-through to hear the album, and for more from Sasha Frere-Jones on METZ: http://nyr.kr/PoslIw
Photograph by Robby Reis.
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Ben Greenman talks to Rickie Lee Jones about her new album “The Devil You Know,” its predecessors, and the art of the cover song. Listen to Jones’s song “Reason to Believe,” and then click-through to read her interview with Greenman: http://nyr.kr/RhaHue
(Source: newyorker.com / The New Yorker)
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"You know, there are times when I am in a mode of substantial grief about what happened to those kids. And then I switch into times of grieving for myself, and my colleagues, and the Paterno family, who I know so well, and the community that’s suffering here."
— Former Penn State President Graham Spanier makes his first public comments after Sandusky to Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker: http://nyr.kr/PxfDuy Click-through to read an edited version of their conversation.(Source: newyorker.com)
