Barney Balaban, Paramount; Harry Cohn, Columbia Pictures; Nicholas M. Schenck, Loew’s; Will H. Hays, and Leo Spitz, RKO. Back row, left to right: Sidney Kent, 20th Century Fox; N.J. Blumberg, Universal; and Albert Warner, Warner Bros., in 1938. Harris & Ewing, photographer – Library of Congress by Norman Schwartz Until recently, Hollywood was a patriarchal society…
Amal Chatterjee
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Amal Chatterjee: The Return
Pexels, Photo by Alex P Bright black tarmac and the tang of tropical sea in the air. At last. The coconut palms fringing the airport as tall as they had looked matchstick-like from the air. She remembered photographs of lazy days bathed in brilliant sunshine, smiling shiny faces and lush,…
Argentina
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Luis Benítez
. ”The Argentinian poet, narrator and essayist Luis Benítez’s poems presented here show him to be an acutely political writer who captures the pulse of his time with unflinching candour. He writes about “assassins who are not so far away as they wait in the belly of the same horse…
Al Andaluz
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The Rosy-Fingered Dawn of Eurabia
Granada behind an ornamented wall in Al Hamra / Alhambra, Photo by Çisellee Forget fear mongering! Arab, Turkish and European unification is the way forward . by Phil Hall . The Mediterranean has always been a crucible of civilisations, a vast, interconnected world where cultures, religions, and peoples have mingled…
Leon Kreel
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Portrait of the South Downs Coast
Belle Toute, Leon Kreel © by Leon Kreel . Leon Kreel has exhibited in salons around the world. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. His photographic trips have taken him to Yellowstone National Park, Iceland, Namibia and India. Leon uses photography to immerse himself in new and old…
Ajahn Chah
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Letters from America: Dave Blazer
The Politics of the USA are Unreal . Dear Dave, Over here in Europe we’ve been almost saturated with news about the USA presidential election and its aftermath to date, and I think it’s fair to say that a great many of us have looked on with various degrees of…
James Wood
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That Was Hugo Blythe MP
James Wood interviews seasoned author and publisher Peter Cowlam on the subject of his new book . Wood That Was Hugo Blythe MP looks back to the early 2000s. To what extent were you conscious when writing this book of the comparisons that will be made by readers between the…
Almond Macadamia Gazpacho
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Classics are Classics for a Reason
Charlie’s Bar, Photo sourced online The heart of classical cooking is connection by Arun Kapil . Classic cooking, in an environment designed to inspire and bring joy, stands the test of time. In a frantic world, classic dishes shine. I love the new and the innovative—bold flavours and mixed textures….
Andrew Birch
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MEETING ANDREW BIRCH
The Ascent of Man (Backbiter) ©Andrew Birch by Paul Halas . Anyone who has read Private Eye over the past few decades will be familiar with Andrew Birch’s cartoons, similarly his work has regularly appeared in The Oldie, The Guardian, The Observer, The Big Issue, The Sunday Times, The Independent……
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
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Pantomime at the US-Mexico Border
Rio Grande Bend near Boquillas Canyon (Big Bend National Park, TX), photo Glysiak Wikimedia Commons by Phil Hall The cartels are not merely Mexican; they are Amexican. For the cartels, the border is imaginary. They operate on both sides of it, with American and Mexican nationals working together in a sophisticated…
2024 Nobel Peace Prize
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Hope from Hiroshima?
Genbaku Dome, a Peace Memorial in Hiroshima Shinso Hamai. A-Bomb Mayor – Warnings and Hope From Hiroshima Published 2010 by Publication Committee for The English Version of the A-bomb Mayor, Elizabeth W. Baldwin [Translator] Review by Mark Stanley Frankel . Shinzo Hamai This book shows how a determined and upright…
Cheryl Crawford
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3. MYOPIC AMBITION
The Group Theatre: Roman Bohnen, Luther Adler, Leif Erickson, Frances Farmer, Ruth Nelson, Sanford Meisner, Phoebe Brand, Eleanor Lynn, Irwin Shaw, Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman and Morris Carnovsky Elia Kazan—Rebel with a Cause by Norman B. Schwartz In 1898, the director Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1838) convinced a Russian medical doctor and…
Arun Kapil
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How to Spice up 2025
Spice King, Arun Kapil Cook with spice to improve your health, and discover a whole new bunch of flavours . by Arun Kapil, Food Editor of AN Editions . We’re at that point, that oh-so-familiar point when we know we should probably get ourselves kick-started into the new year, yet…
Blood Meridien
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THE POWER & THE GORY
Closeup of the Alamo Defenders, Gillphoto, Wikimedia Commons Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian by Phil Hall + ‘What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.’ Francis Galton, Eugenicist, Darwin’s…
China
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SOUTH KOREA AT THE CROSSROADS
President Yoon at his inauguration in 2022, official Flickr account of the Republic of Korea After Yoon Suk-Yeol, South Korea Faces Trouble at Home and Abroad by Yin Xuan Peng South Korea faces a series of thorny problems after President Yoon’s short-lived declaration of martial law. His illegal declaration angered…
Ahmed al-Louh
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DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGERS!
By Tina Bexson (2025 updates on the fate of Palestinian journalists are provided at the end of the article) Journalists are under attack and press freedom is under siege in a way that has never happened before – from the record numbers of Palestinian journalists and media workers targeted and…
Barrow-in-Furness
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6. From Hut to Hostel
by Margaret Yip We arrived at the hostel early Monday morning in 1977. I think it was late August or September. We were met by Mr. Parker, the warden. He lived on the premises with his wife. We all gathered in his office, surrounded by black bin bags containing our…
Actors' Laboratory Theater
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2. MARILYN MONROE ASCENDENT
Marilyn Monroe starring in The Asphalt Jungle with Sterling Hayden (1950) by Norman B. Schwartz Because she was so convincing as the quintessential blonde bimbo, many to this day conclude that Marilyn Monroe must have been one. She was not. Neither was she the latter-day saint, the innocent victim of…
Avenida Madero
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Ulysses in the City
Fotografías de la Ciudad de México desde el aire, Gobierno de Mexico Mexico City is open beauty, the heart that rests on a lake by Ulises Paniagua This city, Mexico City, is a palimpsest. City upon city, city of cities. It has been woven from layers invisible to the passage…
Photography
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POET-PORTRAITS
‘Meditation’ (2024) Copyright photograph by Sudeep Sen (inspired by photographs shot by poet Sudeep Sen in Bhutan, June 2024) . by JHILAM CHATTARAJ an ekphrastic poem . Far, in the plains, sun-sleeved daylight ushers a cool, cobalt evening— . an echo of a word-shepherd chanting hymns across hypnotic hills….
Alexander Medved
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TAKHTI, THE IRANIAN PEOPLE’S CHAMPION
Takhti receiving a medal from the Iranian government with Mossadegh in attendance The embodiment of Fotovat by Ali Hosseyni Gholamreza Takhti’s غلامرضا تختی name is all over Iran and in ever city and town there are wrestling clubs with Takhti’s smiling photograph hanging on the wall in a position of honour. There is…
Art
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SKY, SEA AND VELD
Dirt Road to Hanover, Karoo © Walter Voigt 2024 WALTER VOIGT’S PAINTINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA by Paul Halas While some painters need a sense of detachment to produce their best work, others can’t but help show a sense of intimacy with their subjects. This is mainly true with artists and…
Golem
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When Hollywood rewrote South African History
Hollywood’s Golem version of Mandela by Phil Hall The Western media approved of what seemed like Nelson Mandela’s overly conciliatory beginnings after his release in 1990 and later saw the reflection of their own intentions in the strategies and policies of Thabo Mbeki’s government, the government that followed Mandela’s. In…
Acting
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1. ACTING PRESIDENTS
Bronze statue of FDR with his dog, Fala, Pexels by Norman B. Schwartz In his younger and leaner days, Orson Welles was summoned to the White House by the President of the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt greeted the actor, who he admired. “I am delighted to meet the second…
Community
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A Plop in the Ocean
Are offshore tankers a temporary solution to the sewage crisis? by Paul Halas, Phil Hall, Steve Parker, Nicole Stocks, Karl Rutledge . . Officially, the United Kingdom ceased to be a developing country when Sir Joseph Bazalgette CB, a descendent of French Huguenots, designed a new sewage system to solve…
Art
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Seán Lennon’s Rock Dreams
Martin Hayes, Seán Lennon© 2024 . . Kris Kristofferson ‘Thank you for the sadness that you saved me from the madness, baby all I’m crying now are tears of joy..’ ‘In the park I saw a daddyWith a laughin’ little girl that he was swingin’And I stopped beside a Sunday schoolAnd…
Foreign policy realism
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Is Keir Starmer really a foreign policy realist?
Firing British Stormshadow missiles into Russian Federation territory would be absolutely SUICIDAL! by Phil Hall I know that nearly all of us on the left have given up on Keir Starmer and remember his personal betrayal of Jeremy Corbyn with a deep bitterness. But we have to recognise that he…
Politics
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The Assignment
a short story by P.W. Bridgman A Common Destination By different pathways, in early 1951, two men eventually found their separate ways to a common destination. They arrived within a week of one another, Mr. Bell by his own steam, Jesse Nazaire not. Nazaire: Feral, Fit, of Sound Mind and…
Aquatic comfort
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Photo essay: The Aquatic Comfort of the Gulf
John Lawrence swimming, Phil Hall by Phil Hall ‘And your Lord taught the honey bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in habitations; Then to eat of all the produce of the earth, and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within…
Gaza
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‘Palestine Wail’ by Yahia Lababidi, reviewed by Tina Bexson
Silence and complicity are active ingredients in the cocktail of death that is Gaza. Perhaps even more so than the bombs, rockets, bullets, disease, starvation, and torture that, according to a study published by The Lancet in July, have already likely wiped out near 186,000 people once indirect deaths are…
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