Day: October 23, 2022

Climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum to protest fossil fuel extraction Sunday but caused no damage to the artwork.

Two activists from the group Last Generation, which has called on the German government to take drastic action to protect the climate and stop using fossil fuels, approached Monet’s “Les Meules” at Potsdam’s Barberini Museum and threw a thick substance over the painting and its gold frame.

The group later confirmed via a post on Twitter that the mixture was mashed potatoes. The two activists, both wearing orange high-visibility vests, also glued themselves to the wall below the painting.

“If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!” the group wrote on Twitter, along with a video of the incident.

In total, four people were involved in the incident, according to German news agency dpa.

The Barberini Museum said later Sunday that because the painting was enclosed in glass, the mashed potatoes didn’t cause any damage. The painting, part of Monet’s “Haystacks” series, is expected to be back on display Wednesday.

“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.

Police told dpa they had responded to the incident, but further information about arrests or charges was not immediately available.

The Monet painting is the latest artwork in a museum to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.

The British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery earlier this month.

Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” in the National Gallery.
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Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand following an attack on stage at a literary event in western New York in August, his agent said.

Andrew Wylie, who represents literary giants such as Saul Bellow and Roberto Bolano, described the extent of the injuries Rushdie suffered in the “brutal” attack in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Wylie described the author’s wounds as “profound,” and noted the loss of sight of one eye. “He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso.”

The agent declined to say whether “The Satanic Verses” author, 75, was still in the hospital more than two months after police said a 24-year-old New Jersey man stabbed the writer in the neck and torso just before Rushdie was to give a lecture at Chautauqua Institution, a retreat about 19 km from Lake Erie.

The novelist was rushed to the hospital after sustaining severe injuries in the attack, including nerve damage in his arm, wounds to his liver, and the likely loss of an eye, Wylie said at the time.

The attack came 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s Supreme Leader, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after “The Satanic Verses” was published. Some Muslims saw passages in the novel about the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, has lived with a bounty on his head, and spent nine years in hiding under British police protection.

While Iran’s pro-reform government of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa in the late 1990s, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over Rushdie’s head kept growing and the fatwa was never lifted.

Khomeini’s successor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa against Rushdie was “irrevocable.”

The man accused of attacking the novelist has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges. He is being held without bail in a western New York jail. 
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Many preparations go into the celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which starts Monday.

There’s cleaning and decorating the house, buying new clothes, visiting friends and family — and of course preparing and sharing food. And although the foods associated with Diwali vary from culture to culture, one central theme is snacks and sweets.

The holiday honors the goddess Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. It celebrates light over darkness, new beginnings, and the triumph of good over evil.

Roni Mazumdar is the founder and CEO of Unapologetic Foods, a restaurant group that includes Dhamaka and Semma in New York City. He moved to the U.S. from Kolkata when he was 12 and misses the Diwali celebrations of his youth.

“In India, every single relative would be there, and that’s what made it Diwali to me,” he says.

The sweet that encapsulates the delight of the holiday for him is fresh rasgulla, a Bengali sweet with jaggery, a type of brown cane sugar.

“Imagine these little cheese dumplings that are dipped in a sweet jaggery syrup that you can just pop into your mouth all day long. It’s like a divine intervention of mankind,” he says.

The rasgulla he most associates with Diwali are made from nolen gur, a jaggery syrup made from the sap of date palms, which is harvested as Diwali approaches, when the weather gets cooler.

Milk is also a big part of the sweets from Kolkata and eastern India, he says. He loves kacha gulla, made from milk that has been curdled and has a loose texture “like ricotta cheese.” It’s used in many kinds of sweets.

Raghavan Iyer, a cookbook author and James Beard Award winner, has fond memories of Diwali celebrations in Mumbai, where he lived until age 21.

“The food itself is important, but it’s also about the exchange of foods with relatives and friends — that is the fun part of it,” he says. “Growing up, we always knew which neighbors to go to — the houses where the goodies would be really great.”

He remembers fondly a steamed-rice, flour-based dumpling called kozhukattai. His family made two versions: a sweet one made with fresh coconut and jaggery, and a savory one filled with lentils and chilies.

Iyer says Diwali always featured kaaju barfi, bars made from pureed cashews, ghee (clarified butter) and sugar. (Hint to his sister: He is hoping you send him some this year!)

And many desserts, he says, are finished by soaking them in a sweet syrup. One of his favorites is jalebi, which features chickpea flour. It’s dipped in sugar syrup laced with cardamom, saffron and lime.

Leela Mahase from Queens, New York, grew up in a Hindu family in Trinidad. Her Diwali sweets include ladoos, which she makes with a paste made from ground split peas and turmeric. It is fried in oil, then ground again, and combined with a syrup made from brown sugar, various spices and condensed milk. It’s formed into balls for eating.

Mahase also makes prasad, made by toasting flour in ghee, then adding cream of wheat. In a separate pot, she simmers evaporated milk with water, raisins, cinnamon and cardamom. This milk-based syrup is added to the cream of wheat mixture, and cooked until the liquid has evaporated. It has a texture she compares to mashed potatoes, and is eaten with the fingers.

Maneesha Sharma, a lawyer and mother of three in New York City, celebrates Diwali along the traditions of northern India, where her family is from.

“Diwali is celebrated with grandeur. You decorate the front door with lights, you put out your finery, and you eat delicacies you would not eat on a daily basis,” she says.

In India, she says, it is common to give others boxes and hampers with food and gold coins featuring images of gods, such as Ganesh and Lakshmi.

Sharma says that “as part of the prayer service when you light the flame, you make a food offering — always a sweet — to the gods.”

She says that including crushed nuts in desserts is a traditional way to both demonstrate wealth and offer respect. Pistachios and almonds are popular.

Here too, milk is featured in many desserts, she says, including phirni, a custard baked in a ramekin, sprinkled with pistachios and served cold. There’s also burfi, cut into small fudge-like squares.
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Joanna Simon, an acclaimed mezzo-soprano, Emmy-winning TV correspondent and one of the three singing Simon sisters who include pop star Carly, has died at age 85.

Simon, the eldest of four, died Wednesday, just a day before her sister Lucy died, according to Lucy’s daughter, Julie Simon. Their brother Peter, a photographer, died in 2018 at 71. All three had cancer.

“In the last 2 days, I’ve been by the side of both my mother and my aunt, Joanna, and watched them pass into the next world. I can’t truly comprehend this,” Julie wrote on Facebook.

Joanna Simon, who died of thyroid cancer, rose to fame in the opera world and as a concert performer in the 1960s. She was a frequent guest on TV talk shows. After her retirement from singing, she became an arts correspondent for PBS’s MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, where she won an Emmy in 1991 for a report on mental illness and creativity.

“I am filled with sorrow to speak about the passing of Joanna and Lucy Simon. Their loss will be long and haunting. As sad as this day is, it’s impossible to mourn them without celebrating their incredible lives that they lived,” Carly Simon said in a statement Saturday.

She added: “We were three sisters who not only took turns blazing trails and marking courses for one another. We were each other’s secret shares. The co-keepers of each other’s memories.”

Joanna Simon was married to novelist and journalist Gerald Walker from 1976 until his death in 2004. She was the companion of Walter Cronkite from 2005 until his death in 2009.

Onstage, she made her professional debut in 1962 as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at New York City Opera. That year, she won the Marian Anderson Award for promising young singers. Simon took on a range of material. As a concert performer, she leaned into classic and contemporary songs of her time.

The siblings were born to publishing giant Richard Simon and his wife, Andrea. Carly and Lucy once performed as the Simon Sisters, opening for other acts in Greenwich Village folk clubs.

“I have no words to explain the feeling of suddenly being the only remaining direct offspring of Richard and Andrea Simon,” Carly Simon said. “They touched everyone they knew and those of us they’ve left behind will be lucky and honored to carry their memories forward.”
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