Arts and Culture | Truthdig

Herman Cain Will Not Dance With the Stars

2012-02-15T00:11:26+00:00

The former GOP front-runner seemed to enjoy the spotlight, so it comes as some surprise that he rebuffed ABC when it offered to let him cha-cha among other B-list (and below) celebrities on “Dancing With the Stars.” Apparently he does not have moves like Jagger and/or Tom DeLay.

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Giving Famous Nudes the Photoshop Treatment

2012-02-14T18:41:47+00:00

So much for Rubenesque: An artist by the memorable name of Anna Utopia Giordano has reshaped the famous figures of several nudes from classical paintings—think Velazquez, Bouguereau and Botticelli—to give them a 21st-century sensibility. (Read: They’re a lot skinnier.)

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Hollywood Republicans: Rare, but Still There

2012-02-13T21:39:37+00:00

The Hollywood Republican is an uncommon breed, and many specimens apparently feel that their chosen professional habitat does not allow them to proliferate as freely as their less conservative counterparts. But sightings are more common during election season. (Above, Vince Vaughn, a supporter of Ron Paul.)

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Whitney Houston and the Politics of Posthumous Pricing

2012-02-13T19:25:25+00:00

Early on Sunday morning, somewhere around 4 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, the going price of “The Ultimate Collection,” a greatest-hits compilation by the newly departed musical icon Whitney Houston, jumped 60 percent on the U.K. version of Apple’s iTunes store. By Sunday night, the price had dropped, but by then The Guardian had also taken note.

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Tumbrils and the English Language

2012-02-11T23:14:41+00:00

As George Orwell pointed out more than half a century ago, the storehouse of the English language occasionally needs a good sweep. In the hands of excited, careless or tired writers, words and phrases that once were new or uniquely descriptive become so overused that they seem to threaten the integrity of the language itself. With a broom (or rather, cartwheel) in hand, CounterPunch editor Alexander Cockburn attempts a cleaning.

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‘Crazy Horse’: A Study in Erotic Abstraction

2012-02-10T06:19:16+00:00

The cabaret’s women are half-naked so much of the time that they are, as it were, clothed in their own nudity. More significantly, I think, the show often presents them very abstractly. In particular, the lighting presents this or that aspect of their bodies in such a way that they lose all particularity. They are not, in these representations, “women,” but are “woman.”

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Political Divide

2012-02-10T05:21:36+00:00

By Thomas Byrne Edsall

Are voters as polarized as their elected officials? The question, which has serious implications in an election year, has put political scientists at loggerheads in several new and recent books.

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And Now, This Presidential Appraisal From Scarlett Johansson

2012-02-08T19:15:15+00:00

There may be untold millions of onetime Obama boosters whose feelings of hope have significantly diminished since, say, November 2008—and with good reason. But on Tuesday night, one of the president’s celebrity supporters, Scarlett Johansson, showed she’s still willing to stump for Obama at a gathering in New York that brought fashionistas and politicos together.

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‘Lorax’ Banks on Green Marketing

2012-02-08T09:26:50+00:00

Animated movies make a bundle on commercial tie-ins, but “The Lorax” presented something of a challenge for Universal. After all, you can’t have plastic replicas of Dr. Seuss’ champion of the environment piling up in a landfill somewhere. The studio found a way to cash in by greenwashing its licensing with help from the EPA and Whole Foods.

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Norris Throws Down for ‘Warrior’ Gingrich

2012-02-06T17:53:53+00:00

Conservative power ranger Chuck Norris has come out swinging for the GOP once again—this time, he’s willing to lend his unique celebrity brand to give Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign a boost with a memorably worded endorsement only he could compose.

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