Incidentally...

[selenak]

James MacAvoy interview, apropos his playing the title role in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (which appearantly leans into homerotic subtext for Cyrano/Christian), which contains this gem:

I once sat with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen and both of them had a ‘Macbeth-off’ where they started speaking Macbeth to each other. I had just finished doing Macbeth and I swear I could not remember a syllable, man. It was awful.”

Now we know how everyone entertained themselves when shooting Days of Fuiture Past. I wish there was a recording!


Farscape:

Deep is a John/Scorpius vid which is already a few years old but which I've only seen today, so I am newly enthused about its fabulousness!

Lastly, liraen, get this: according to this article in the SZ, the fantastic Dürer exhibition from Aachen moved on to London - only for the National Gallery to exchange two thirds of the exhibited content and completely change the focus from Dürer in the Netherlands to Dürer in Italy, then be surprised when as opposed to the very popular and successful Aix-La-Chapelle original, the result flopped. Boo. Hiss.

Comments

[liriaen]

It’s a bit of a shame, isn’t it, when curators don’t properly do their job and let you, the visitor, do it instead? I think one should be able to go to an exhibition and be drawn in, be enthralled and enthused, not kept out. And if it’s seemingly dry matter, then there’s something missing- a narrative context. Albrecht’s graphics were his bread and butter, (also a funny kind of arms race with his onetime pupil Grien), and it’s so sad when an exhibition can’t bring that across.

[selenak]

Very true. Though my pal kathyh just as been to the London version and says she found it fascinating, which is a bit reassuring.

Last year there was this fantastic exhibition in Mainz around various medieval Emperors which among other things offered the Manesse Codex and Theophanu's wedding contract to view, but also managed to paint a picture of every day life for both the nobility and the commoners and do so in an informative, non-patronizing way. Meaning: it wasn't just for history geeks (though definitely fun for them, too!), but reached out to a wider audience. Despite having to explain a lot. It can be done!