FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009

Left, ‘The House at the End of the World’ (2005) by David LaChapelle, on show in Paris; above, handbag by Maria Hees, in Amsterdam; below, ‘My Brother, My Enemy’ (2001), by Erbossyn Meldibekov, in Lille.

Prague art “Prague Biennale” is an international exhibition of art and photography exploring the latest developments in international art. Karlin Hall This is Until July 26 % 420-222-5123-76 www.praguebiennale.org Schwyz design “The Swiss Army Knife—A Tool That’s Become an Icon” presents a selection of historic pocket knives, a magazine some dating back to the Roman period, as well as some examples of Swiss daggers, exploring the history of the famous Swiss Army knife. Forum of Swiss History May 16-Oct 18 % 41-41-8196-011 www.landesmuseen.ch Stockholm photography “Nature Photographer Lennart Nilsson” shows images from 50 years of nature and wildlife photography by acclaimed Swedish photojournalist and filmmaker

David LaChapelle Lennart Nilsson (born 1922). s National Museum of Natural Amsterdam www.kunstmuseumbern.ch signer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). the New West is the New East…” History fashion Laituri is an art festival dedicated to Until Aug. 30 “Timeless Handbags: 30 years of Brussels May 22-Aug. 29 Eastern Europe and Istanbul with % 46-8519-5400-0 Maria Hees” shows purses and hand- art % 358-9-3103-7390 2,500 events. www.nrm.se bags by the Dutch artist (born 1948). “A Memory of Paper” illustrates a cen- laituri.hel.fi Lille 3000 St. Petersburg Museum of Bags and Purses tury of Jewish life through collected Until July 12 ballet and opera Until June 1 postcards depicting people and places Lausanne % 33-3-2852-3000 “White Nights Arts Festival 2009” is an international ballet and opera % 31-20-5246-452 from Belgian Jewish life. photography www.lille3000.com festival, offering performances by www.tassenmuseum.nl Musée Juif de Belgique “Carlo Valsecchi: Lumen” exhibits large London Maria Guleghina, Anna Netrebko, Until Oct. 15 format photography Italian photogra- photography violinist Leonidas Kavakos and art % 32-2-5121-963 pher Carlo Valsecchi (born 1965). “Bob Dylan 1966 European Tour: others. “Jan Lievens (1607-1674)—A Child www.new.mjb-jmb.org Musée de l'Elysée Photographs by Barry Feinstein” Mariinsky Theatre Prodigy’s Career” exhibits works by Until June 14 documents Bob Dylan’s 1966 European tour. May 21-July 19 the Dutch painter. Dresden % 41-21-3169-911 National Portrait Gallery % 7-812-3264-141 Museum het Rembrandthuis music www.elysee.ch Until Aug. 30 www.mariinskiy.com May 17-Aug. 9 “Dresden Music Festival 2009” offers Liège % 44-20-7306-0055 Stuttgart % 31-20-5200-400 concerts and performances by the art www.rembrandthuis.nl www.npg.org.uk art Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vi- “Of Tomorrow by Delvaux” “Viennese Actionism” explores the enna Philharmonic, Juilliard Dance and showcases paintings featuring Madrid art and artists behind “Viennese Berlin others under the theme “New World.” stations, trains and tramways by Actionism,” part of a series of art art May 20-June 7 Belgian Surrealist artist Paul avant garde movements after the “John Flaxman and the Renaissance” % 49-351-4866-666 Delvaux (1897-1994). “Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)” end of the World War II. presents the “Adoration of the Magi,” www.musikfestspiele.com Le Grand Curtius Museum brings together about 100 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Contents in a can a marble relief by the British artist Until June 28 paintings by Spanish artist Joaquín Until July 5 John Flaxman (1755-1826). Helsinki % 32-4-2219-325 Sorolla. % 49-711-4704-00 Bode Museum architecture www.grandcurtiusliege.be Museo Nacional del Prado www.staatsgalerie.de and other ways to play Until July 12 ”Alvar Aalto’s Helsinki Legacy” pre- Lille May 26-Sept. 6 Utrecht % % 49-30-2090-5577 sents 20 buildings in Helsinki de- art 34-91-3302-800 art with the print medium www.smb.museum signed by the Finnish architect and de- “Lille 3000: Europe XXL East is www.museodelprado.es “Masterly Manuscripts—The Middle Munich Ages in Gold and Ink” shows over history photography 100 manuscripts from the 14th “President Barack Obama—On the “Zoe Leonard: Photographs” shows and 15th century. tracks of the Kennedys?” showcases works by the American Museum Catharijneconvent photographs by the official White photographer (born 1961). May 16-Aug. 23 House photographer, Pete Souza. Pinakothek der Moderne % 31-30-2313-835 Kennedy Museum Until July 5 www.catharijneconvent.nl Until Aug. 2 % 49-89-2380-5360 Zurich % 49-30-2065-3570 www.pinakothek.de humor www.thekennedys.de Paris “Witzerland: A Guide to Swiss photography Humour” is a multimedia look at Bern “David LaChapelle” is a humorous interpretations of art retrospective of 200 works by the Switzerland. “Tracey Emin—20 Years” is a retro- American photographer, video, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum spective exhibition of sculptures, paint- commercial and film director (born Until Sept. 13 ings and video work by contemporary 1963). % 41-44-218-6511 British artist Tracey Emin (born 1963). Musée de la Monnaie www.witzerland.ch Kunstmuseum Bern Until May 31 Until June 21 % 33-1-4046-5666 Source: ArtBase Global Arts News % 41-31-3280-944 Maxime Dufour Photographies www.monnaiedeparis.com Service, WSJE research. s Raiders of the lost archives A landmark ‘Waiting for Godot’ W16 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL v Taste 8-9 | Cover story Design 10-11 | Design Masterpiece / By Jill Jonnes Contents Skin deep t 7 Reinventing thoughts That ‘Odious Column’ of Metal 3 | Fashion Collecting: Today the Eiffel Tower, the composer Charles Gounod and ar- The Americans did not hide the miracle of recorded sound at come to see the Eiffel Tower,” Edi- On Style: Briefs encounter the magazine Craftwork world’s most celebrated monu- chitect Charles Garnier all signed their chagrin when they learned the Edison exhibit. son told a mob of journalists Publications that play with the ment and the iconic symbol of this epistolary call to arms, stat- that at 1,000 feet the Eiffel Those emerging from the ele- when he sailed into Le Havre. Af- 4-5 | Belgium’s comic-book crisis Paris, celebrates its 120th anniver- ing that “the Eiffel Tower, which Tower would dethrone their own vator at the tower’s pinnacle ter his first visit to the fair, Edi- Film print medium sary. Strikingly, the fame and al- even commercial America would 555-foot-tall Washington Monu- might have glimpsed Gustave son said: “The Tower is a great lure of this improbable wrought- not have, is without a doubt the ment, finally completed in 1884. Eiffel himself, attired in dark idea. The glory of Eiffel is in the Morgenstern on ‘The Soloist’ 14 | iron masterpiece have only dishonor of Paris.” Sniffed the New York Times’ Prince Albert suit and silk top magnitude of the conception and Top Picks grown with the passing decades. Gustave Eiffel, a self-made mil- Paris correspondent: “The French hat, squiring around yet an- the nerve in the execution.” Nor The tower, built by railway- lionaire whose firm constructed admit [the tower’s] origi- could Edison refrain Soderbergh gets real McKellen and bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel, much-admired bridges all over nality and value, but from boasting that the has become a ubiquitous global the world, happily twitted his they deplore its ugliness U.S. would “build one of Stewart in ‘Godot’ image connoting modernity and critics: “They begin by declaring . . . au fond, they are not 2,000 feet. We’ll go Making ‘Angels & Demons’ glamour, while visitors who expe- that my tower is not French. It is proud to show this gigan- Eiffel 100% better, with- The many faces of Buddha rience it firsthand big enough and tic iron structure to out discount.” 6-7 are still amazed by clumsy enough for strangers. . . . [T]hey When Eiffel heard of | Books the tower’s potent The Eiffel the English or vote it an abomination this later, he said, “We’ll 15 | mixture of spare ele- Tower Americans, but it is and eyesore.” The Times- see about that.” And not Raiders of the lost archives Taste gance, immensity not our style, they man insisted that the until 1929 (six years af- and complexity. And wasn’t always say. We are more Washington Monument ter Eiffel’s death) did an- t Eiffel’s ‘odious column’ of metal when the Eiffel a beloved icon. occupied by little is “after all, more artis- other structure surpass Tower opens to its artistic bibelots. . . tic than the Eiffel the Eiffel Tower in adoring public each . Why should we Tower.” In truth, as the height. It was the 16 | Time Off day, the structure comes to life not show the world what we can Eiffel Tower rose grace- Chrysler Building at as crowds gaily clamber up and do in the way of great engineer- fully into the Parisian 1,046 feet. Two years down its stairs, eating, drinking ing projects?” sky, its unique modern later, the Empire State Our arts and culture calendar and flirting on the three plat- In fact, Eiffel was actually beauty catapulted it to Building wrested away forms high in the sky. Open to erecting what ambitious English world acclaim. An entire that title by reaching the elements, enveloped in and American engineers had only industry rushed to churn 1,250 feet. Moreover, Eiffel’s distinctive design, visitors dreamed of for decades: a thou- out Eiffel Tower repli- while Gustave Eiffel’s Cover photo: Òscar Fuentes can see and touch parts of the sand-foot tower. “What was the cas, as Phillip Cate notes original contract called 18,038 pieces of iron (welded to- main obstacle I had to overcome in his book “Eiffel for him to disassemble WSJ.com gether with 2.5 million rivets) as in designing the tower?” asked Tower: A Tour de his tower after 20 years, they ascend heavenward. (and then answered) Eiffel: “Its Force”—tiny gold he ensured the survival The tower is so beloved that resistance to wind” — a foe he charms, solid chocolate of his magnum opus by The suburban dream Re-enter the dragon Travels through time few today remember the storm of had long ago bested in such pio- confections, giant gar- making it an indispens- Craig Winneker Editor vitriol, mockery and lawsuits pro- neering bridge designs as his Pia den ornaments, or the able part of the French At home in Los Angeles A new TV series looks The strange journey Barbara Tina Fuhr Deputy editor voked by its selection as the star- Maria railway bridge in Oporto, myriad images executed military’s radio network. with a ‘Desperate at how Bruce Lee of a collection of Fahire Kurt Art director tling centerpiece of the 1889 Portugal. “And I submit that the in “pen, pencil, and Megaskyscrapers Kathleen Van Den Broeck Assistant art director Paris Exposition Universelle. (One curves of [the tower’s] four piers brush, in photo and li- have long since over- Housewives’ husband. changed the world. ornate Chinese clocks. Matthew Kaminski Taste page editor of the losing entries was a gigan- as produced by our calculations, thography, in oil and pas- shadowed the Eiffel Tow- WSJ.com/Lifestyle WSJ.com/Lifestyle WSJ.com/Asia Questions or comments? Write to [email protected]. tic working guillotine!) Even as rising from an enormous base tel, on paper, canvas, on er’s status as the Please include your full name and address. Eiffel was breaking ground by the and narrowing toward the top, wood and ivory, on world’s tallest structure.

Seine River in February 1887, 47 will give a great impression of china, steel, and zinc.” Getty Images And yet, the Eiffel of France’s greatest names de- strength and beauty.” Eiffel the From the day the Gustave Eiffel’s creation turns 120 years old on May 15. Tower still speaks cried in a letter to Le Temps the ardent republican wondered why Eiffel Tower first opened uniquely to the human “odious column of bolted metal.” his nay-saying compatriots could on May 15, 1889, at 11:50 a.m., other politician, famous actor, fascination with science and tech- THE JOURNAL CROSSWORD / Edited by Mike Shenk 62 Turn in the park Down 47 Asylum seekers 78 Tad What person of good taste, this not see the glory. France, a lone fairgoers flocked to ascend its gold-brocaded royal from nology and to the human desire 63 Some skid row residents 1 He was captured in 48 CrossAction toothbrush 80 Decide when the flock of intellectuals asked, could republic surrounded by monar- giddy heights. From high up, they France’s new colonial empire, or for pleasure and joie de vivre. In December 2003 maker wedding will be 22 Prefix meaning 33 King in 46 High homes 64 Lightweight letter endure the thought of this “diz- chies, was building “the tallest ed- savored the spectacle of Paris Buffalo Bill Cody, whose Wild 1889, Jules Simon, the republican Across 2 Eight-time Best Actor 49 Injured again, 82 Arts and crafts gadgets 1 Absorb “strange” “The Tempest” 48 Bit of regalia 66 Puzzle pioneer Sam zily ridiculous tower dominating ifice ever raised by man,” a com- looking tiny and the crowds West show in Neuilly was a sold- politician and philosopher, de- Oscar loser as a rotator cuff 84 California daily, for short 23 Like the Parthenon 35 Knight mare 51 Outdoorsman 67 Actress Hunter’s sounds Paris like a black and gigantic fac- pletely original industrial- down below coursing through the out sensation. clared, “We are all citizens of the 6 Chop shop? 50 Mantra from an infant? 24 Sixth of 24 37 Summer starter Gibbons of disgust? Woof! 3 Sitting room 85 Paper tiger, say tory chimney, crushing [all] be- strength monument made possi- rococo Exposition, enjoying such By the time Gustave Eiffel wel- Eiffel Tower,” a sentiment as true 10 Like “The Book Woof! of Taliesin” 25 One who 39 Rates 52 Granola grain 70 Audition goal 4 Canton in central 86 Like brushback pitches neath its barbarous mass”? The ble by new knowledge and tech- novelties as Egyptian belly danc- comed Thomas Edison to his cele- today as it was then. Switzerland 53 Peer group 15 Lover boy? insults Yahtzee 40 Part of QED 53 Jazz club event 71 265-acre New York 87 Sundial number revered painters Ernest Meisso- nologies, a colossal modern won- ing, Japanese tea houses, Jav- brated monument that Septem- equipment? Woof! 5 Road that’s a sixth of 55 Folly 19 Missile 41 One of the 54 Juice-extracting attraction 88 Distinctive flair nier and William-Adolphe Bou- der of the world designed to anese dancers, wine from the ber, the tower was perhaps as fa- Ms. Jonnes is the author of an inch wide? Woof! 57 Somebody else Command 27 Point, on the NYSE Gilmore girls utensils 73 Home Depot selection 89 Alda’s “Same Time, guereau, writers Guy de Maupas- draw vast throngs to France’s Ex- world’s largest oaken cask (pulled mous as America’s most famous “Eiffel’s Tower,” available in Eu- 6 Get some shut-eye 58 Like producer 28 New or golden 42 Follow your gut 56 Pub potable 74 Jai alai basket Next Year” co-star sant and Alexandre Dumas fils, position Universelle. to Paris by 10 pair of oxen), and inventor. “Like everyone else I’ve rope in June. follower 7 Describe too glowingly 59 Florida senator Martinez ___ 20 Easy-Off target instinct? 59 2005 75 First name on 90 system 21 Warm 30 Fine-tune 43 Sightseeing trip for Spielberg the Food Network 8 Jacuzzi feature 60 Angry 43rd president? (luxury car option) Woof! welcome? 32 Paternity tester burglars? Woof! movie 76 Bit 9 Really hot 92 Scuzzballs 61 Summertime top 95 Marcus’s partner 77 John of “20/20” 10 Got one’s feet wet? Who Let the Dog Out? / by Peter Gordon 63 First name in comedy? 96 Pictures 79 Carrier to Stockholm 11 “On the Waterfront” How an Evolutionary Garden Grows director Kazan 64 Two of racing’s Unsers 97 Circumvented 12345 6789 1011121314 15161718 80 Ms. Pac-Man ghost 12 Bars 65 Dry and crumbly 99 Castle barriers 81 She’s a hip-hop fan 19 20 21 22 13 “Thar ___ blows!” 67 Commando weapons 100 Hurler’s pride 83 Twisted By James Taranto tion that became Darwin’s life childhood trip to California’s Se- book by Swiss botanist A.P. de garden. As we stand amid the ma- 23 24 25 26 14 Only just 68 Fútbol score 101 City Hall bigwig 84 Miserable work. It was Henslow who recom- quoia National Park, and Mr. Candolle. Mr. Parker explains ples, Mr. Parker says those trees 15 An American in Paris, 69 Brit’s buddy 105 Sandusky’s county Cambridge, England mended Darwin to the captain of Parker explains why: “These are how this works when we stop in are “quite difficult for us to grow, 27 28 29 30 31 32 87 Uprising by children maybe of the 1970s? Woof! 72 Picture of health? 107 Interlock This year marks the bicenten- the HMS Beagle. babies. These are only 150 years the Systematic Bed, which holds because they tend to require an 16 Some email messages 74 Staying within the lines 110 Brewery vessel 33 34 35 36 37 38 91 Dada father nial of Charles Darwin, who revolu- Henslow left another legacy: old. They’re about 120 feet in 1,600 species from 100 families of acid soil. This is a terrible soil, 17 Stickball relative pretty well? Woof! 112 Antique auto the Cambridge University Botanic height”—one-third as tall as a herbaceous plants, divided into because it’s really chalky, very cal- 39 40 41 42 92 Honorably mention tionized our understanding of 18 Icy treats 76 “You bet!” 114 Fortas of the 93 Island feast life’s origins. Listen to John Garden, which he established in full-grown redwood. “The oldest groups according to de Candolle. careous, and it’s not good for 43 44 45 46 47 26 Powerful pols 77 ___ vous plaît Supreme Court 1831 to grow trees one we know is Mr. Parker shows us how one plant life of any sort.” 94 Nice home Parker, though, and you almost 29 Turn wonder if we’re celebrating the and other plants for 3,500 years old, so group is arranged: “[Henslow] If modern agriculture can com- 48 49 50 51 52 53 98 Coffee liqueur 31 Hoses down wrong man: “Darwin was an indo- research and teach- at 150, this is still took the first page of that group— pensate, Henslow’s heirs aren’t 101 Battle site of 1914 and 1918 Last Week’s Solution ‘These trees 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 34 Small swig lent, beetle-collecting, drinking, ing. Mr. Parker is in its nappie stage.” and it’s the buttercup family, Ra- interested: “We do not dig if we 102 Maid who doesn’t commute 36 Place for climbers THAWS ALT I AGORA DUO gourmandizing nobody.” He was now the garden’s di- are The Main Walk, nunculaceae—put it in, in the far can avoid it, we do not fertilize, 62 63 64 65 103 Disregard 38 1967 Calder Trophy winner MAR I E F ORM TOMA S C E R T studying divinity at Cambridge rector. On a rainy the only straight corner of his particular quadrant we do not water, we do not 104 Campus bigwigs the survivors.’ 66 67 68 69 70 41 Safari sound S I GNS ACAB LOBSTERB I B University when John Stevens Hen- spring afternoon, he line in the garden, here, turned the pages, and you spray. The plants either survive TOGA RACE UPREAR 106 Feds 44 “Rushmore” director slow, a professor of mineralogy led a group of jour- showcases the conif- work your way all the way round. or die,” Mr. Parker says. “The rea- 71 72 73 74 C I NEMA TEACADDY EZ I NE 108 Like Sen. Sanders Anderson nalists, visiting for a Templeton erous (cone-bearing) trees, includ- The last page of the entire book son that these trees look so good PANDERTO TAPES EYEON and botany, awakened his interest 109 Request to Tussaud to 75 76 77 78 45 Ballet slipper ONE E I RE RHUMBA FLY in natural history. “Henslow spot- Fund conference, on an hour-long ing pines, cedars and spruces. On is an American family called the . . . is that these are the survi- change? Woof! 46 iPod model available ted something extraordinary in ramble of our own. either side are curved paths with Phytolaccaceae, the pokeweeds, vors. They will survive under our 79 80 81 82 83 SAX MUS I CALS SLA 111 Unswerving in nine hues SPURTS ADS SENATOR Darwin,” Mr. Parker says. “He cre- The centerpiece of the flowering trees: chestnuts, ma- which is on the opposite side of conditions....Yougrowthem 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 113 Dungeons & Dragons fan ELSIE AMEER ROYALWE ated somebody who was able to 40-acre garden is its 1,500 trees ples, poplars. Each genus of tree the hedge from the buttercups. tough, they’ll stay tough.” 115 Give off RODGERSANDHAMMERSTE I N think. . . . Without Henslow, there of 1,000 different species. Just is planted in clusters of different So you’ve gone all the way round In case anyone hasn’t gotten 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 WSJ.com 116 Deck’s kin EPAULET ONEND TOALL would have been no Darwin.” inside the main gate is a giant species or subspecies, showing the book and you’ve come back the point, he adds, “This is an PEER ING TWO HENRYS 98 99 100 101 102 117 Urges Crossword online Henslow himself had begun redwood, “probably the biggest both continuity and variety—for where you started.” evolutionary garden. What would ARN CAROUSEL XER 118 Surname of Bo For an interactive his research in botany in the organism that’s ever existed on example, cedars from Lebanon, He adds: “There’s nowhere else you expect us to do?” 103 104 105 106 107 108 SEA EYELET STIR MAN the Portuguese water version of The Wall AL I FT MASUR AI RROUTE 1820s, before Darwin arrived at the face of the Earth,” says Mr. Morocco and the Himalayas. where a book has been translated dog’s family 109 110 111 112 113 114 Street Journal Crossword, POLAR WENTDEEP SEPTET Cambridge. As Mr. Parker ex- Parker. Two more stand some “They’re arranged in a particular onto the ground in this way. . . . Mr. Taranto, a member of The 119 Deadly septet WSJ.com subscribers GRAHAM HA I R NEAL plains, “The major consideration 600 feet away, at the other end order, and they’re arranged in fam- Everything Henslow did, he did Wall Street Journal’s editorial 115 116 117 118 120 Stock unit can go to DRUMMERBOY IMNO ARNAZ of the day, according to Henslow, of the garden’s Main Walk. The ilies,” Mr. Parker tells us as we for art as well as for science.” board, writes the Best of the 119 120 121 122 121 Quick bite WSJ.com/WeekendJournal VANS STERE ROTS MATTE was, What is the nature of spe- redwoods here look a lot smaller stroll along one of the paths. Cambridge is not necessarily Web Today column for Opinion- 122 Thompson of “SNL” DDS SYRUP ENOS ESSEN cies?” This, of course, is the ques- than the ones I remember from a That order was set out in a the ideal location for a botanic Journal.com.

W2 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W15 v Top Picks v Fashion A ‘Godot’ worth waiting for High anxiety in the underwear department

London: Audiences no longer Patrick Stewart’s Vladimir, whose National Archive OXERS OR BRIEFS? For de- length pants. cotton knits he wears at have much difficulty with Samuel bladder problems present his com- ‘View of New Amsterdam’ (circa 1665), cades, this choice has been The prices have changed, too. home. Pondering a pair Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” No- panion with repeated comic opportu- by Johannes Vingboons. Bconsidered a key to a man’s in- The Calvin Klein Steel Gripper of trunks, he com- body now bewails its obscurity. But nities. In his role Mr. Stewart looks ner self. Trunk is $24. At Target, a two-pack mented, “Somehow it even though director Sean Mathi- as though he’s capable of extending No more. Assailing men’s identi- of men’s Merona house-brand box- looks just like a brief, as’s new production at the Theatre the tender sympathy he shows Es- ties are a jumble of underwear op- ers is just $4. Many of the new un- doesn’t it?” For the Royal Haymarket emphasizes the tragon to the whole world—yet he Dutch artifacts tions, such as the boxer-brief and dergarments arrive in fancy packag- record, trunks are work’s comic, even playful aspects, too manages to make the prospect of the gripper trunk, not to mention ing such as mirrored cellophane and shorter than a knit our abundant laughter does not dis- a double hanging seem like an invita- from the time they the Y-back thong. carry exotic, inscrutable names boxer but longer than tract from the tragic seriousness of tion to the best party imaginable. As my husband learned while such as Calvin Klein’s BXR-Matrix briefs. “I just want some- the overall vision. When the play’s other two main took Manhattan shopping last week, men’s under- line, which sounds like a motorbike thing in gray,” he said Beckett sets the play at a cross- characters appear, and Estragon Amsterdam: There is, next to but is actually knit boxers. several times. roads, the sole feature of which is and Vladimir have no lines for a long some wonderful 17th-century por- “We’re doing underwear with all Soon, Jim was pacing, the tree from whose boughs the two stretch, these two old stagers be- traits of native Americans, one On Style of our energy and all of our creativ- brows knitted, with handfuls elderly tramps, Estragon and have almost as a single organism. eye-catching painting in the exhibi- CHRISTINA BINKLEY ity,” says Bob Mazzoli, chief cre- of underwear. Each rack of- Vladimir, contemplate with relish They have the perfect timing of vet- tion “Return to Manhattan” at the ative officer of Calvin Klein Under- fered a fresh discovery. Jockey’s the prospect of hanging themselves. eran comic actors, listening, laugh- Rijksmuseum: a view of New Am- wear, which was an early leader in low-cut “Echelon” boxers came in Designer Stephen Brimson Lewis en- ing and accepting the outrageous- sterdam, painted in watercolor by wear these days is a whole new fash- introducing stylish men’s under- gray, which pleased him, but then he larges on this with a beautiful set of ness of the ringmaster, Pozzo, and Johannes Vingboons in 1665. We ion segment. Men’s undies come in a wear. began to consider shaking things the shell of a theater, showing the his demented slave, Lucky. see a harbor, a windmill, a church variety of silhouettes (such as Though its best sellers in the U.S. up with white. back wall, with the tree sprouting Simon Callow is a fine, pear- and lots of tiny houses with red boxer, brief or trunk), rises (such as are the classic brief and the classic Often, men’s fashion deci- from the ruins of the stage, encased shaped Pozzo, with careful diction roofs. The atmosphere is peaceful, low, mid or high), fit options (such boxer-brief, Calvin Klein offers 15 sions get relegated to the women within a decrepit proscenium arch and monstrous selfishness. As with green meadows in a not so as relaxed or slim), colors and pat- underwear “groups,” such as Steel who love them—women being ac- of a Beaux Arts playhouse. The idea Lucky, Ronald Pickup manages bril- far distance. Who could have terns. The fabrics include not only and Pro-Stretch. Mr. Mazzoli says customed to an array of choices. The for the set comes from Beckett’s liantly to keep his undignified si- guessed that this is actually the the traditional woven or knit cotton all the different styles seek to entice vast majority of men’s clothing in hints throughout the text that the lence, to act entirely with his body tip of Manhattan? The English sea but also Lycra, Spandex and various different types of customers, such the U.S. is purchased by women, says duo, during the 50 years they’ve and his eyes, until it is time for his captain Henry Hudson discovered “microfiber” synthetics. as “comfort men”—likely to go for Bridget Brennan, chief executive of known each other intimately, extended, breath-defying rant, the this site some 60 years earlier, in Jockey’s 3D-Innovations Seam- briefs—and “sports men”—inter- Female Factor, a consulting agency worked together in the music hall. pent-up memories of the ages ex- 1609. free Microfiber undies have “eight- ested in such features as support focused on marketing to women. “In

Great productions of “Godot” pressed in a very long monologue. This exhibition marks the way stretch” and offer the service of and stretchy fabrics. almost every society in the world, Lori Hawkins/Elaine Korn Ltd for The Wall Street Journal; Model: Greg Nalbone of Parts Models, NY are not uncommon, and this hugely To Mr. Mathias’s credit, these 400th anniversary of his find with “sculpting and supporting muscular “We want to give him something women bring procurement into the anticipated one joins the historic four memorably moving perfor- a collection of artworks and arti- movement”—which sounds suspi- that he can engage with and not be home,” says Ms. Brennan, who buys “Would you get me these?” he shopping was unfinished and he roll of honor if only because of its mances celebrate and illuminate the facts, such as the original agree- ciously like a men’s version of the just that boring choice,” Mr. Maz- her husband’s underwear. asked. “Honestly?” was running late. He made a mad casting. As Estragon, the smelly- text of this great work. In the end, ment the Dutch East India Com- Spanx body-shapers. To further flat- zoli says. “We don’t think of it as This is true in our home, too. Yet His attention was also arrested dash for the cash register. footed one whose boots pinch pain- despite the complex pessimism of pany had with Hudson. Other ter the male physique, there are pad- just underwear.” Jim seemed intrigued by the possi- by a line called “sculptured sup- Later, Jim discovered that a box fully, Ian McKellen’s face crinkles the play, your spirits are lifted by items include a letter detailing the ded briefs and “profile-enhancing” My husband thinks of it as just bilities. Indeed, choice seemed to port.” He figured he could wear the claiming to contain a thigh-hugging with humor and humanity. Oddly, the sheer physicality and control of purchase of Manhattan in 1626 briefs. underwear. When we went shop- loosen Jim’s natural reserve. He undershirts on his daily runs until I gripper trunk actually held a pair of his Estragon seems younger than their performances. Not so much by from the island’s native Americans “What was once a commodity ping last week, Jim planned to rush stopped at a rack of green and yel- blurted that they looked like ladies’ low-rise, button-front briefs. No Sir Ian’s own 70 years, because he ex- the cheerfulness that keeps break- in exchange for goods valued at seems to have become a fashion ac- to an important meeting after grab- low Polo Ralph Lauren boxer shorts shapewear. He sped away. matter. I tried them on, and I like udes resilience; though his despair ing through as by the feeling that 60 guilders. There is also the origi- cessory,” says Alan Feldman, a cot- bing a handful of his favorite boxer- with hula girls and palm trees. Thirty-five minutes later, Jim’s them. is believable, it seems to proceed misery can be redeemed by art. nal 1667 Treaty of Breda, which ton-boxers man who lives and shops briefs. He had 30 minutes in Macy’s from existential boredom, and not —Paul Levy ended the second Anglo-Dutch in Las Vegas. underwear department, which from the nightly beating he endures Until July 26 War. —Willem Bruls Men’s underwear was once a seemed like plenty of time. Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen at the hands of young thugs. www.waitingforgodottheplay. Until June 1 staid area. Fathers passed their hab- Then he began shopping. He be- as Estragon in ‘Waiting for Godot.’ He is matched mightily by com www.rijksmuseum.nl its and brands along to their sons. A gan opening boxes of “body-stretch Sasha Gusov man who wore boxers in his twen- lo-rise trunks” to ascertain whether ties could expect to meet his maker they looked anything like the gray in the same style. Today, men are confronted with four glorious rooms, arranged so Buddha in the first room here. Its were to be portrayed. new styles in nearly every aspect of WSJ.com as to be conducive to asking ques- curly hair and oval face could eas- One of the great pleasures of their lives, from shampoo to shoes. New V&A gallery Briefs encounter tions of this order. ily mark a descendant of Alex- strolling through these rooms is Newfangled materials and fashion- Watch a video of Christina Binkley Though during the life of its ander the Great. the paradox of seeing how these forward silhouettes encourage men explores the many take her husband Jim founder, Siddhartha Gautama The doctrines common to all unchanging canons actually to shop more, so the casual-clothes shopping for underwear, at faces of Buddha (circa 563 B.C.-483 B.C.), Bud- schools of Buddhism stress evolved. Wall panels and brief department is now a sea of grom- WSJ.com/Fashion dhism was a philosophy suspi- change: Our desires bind us to the films help you see what to look mets, shrunken jackets and flood- London: Have you ever won- cious of image-making, within physical world only because we for in the posture, gaze, eyes, dered why the smile on the face 500 years it had a rich iconogra- do not understand their transient hair, head and hand movements, of the Buddha manages to be se- phy, which traveled from its birth- © V&A Images nature; the only permanent state and signs conveyed by ears, rene without being smug? After place in the northeastern part of is transience. On the face of it, brows, the third eye and the all, someone who’s achieved total the Indian subcontinent through this belief is not very compatible bump of wisdom. The gallery fea- The long and short of men’s underwear enlightenment and complete self- much of the world along trade with art, and particularly not tures about 50 pieces dating be- Men now face a variety of choices. Here are some of the most common styles: knowledge, and has transcended routes. We tend to forget that with sculpture, which produces tween 200 A.D. and 1850. The ex- all desire, is surely allowed a lit- merchants carried it north to Af- objects permanently frozen in hibits range from small portable t Briefs Fourth-century tle self-satisfaction. The new Rob- ghanistan, where Buddhist art space as well as in time. More- objects to an entire 19th-century Buddha head ert H. N. Ho Foundation Buddhist bumped into classical Western over, each of the major schools de- Buddhist shrine from Mandalay. The classic best seller made from Sculpture Gallery at the Victoria art, producing the poignant veloped conventions for how the —Paul Levy unforgettable by Tom Cruise

Afghanistan. and Albert Museum consists of Fourth-century Gandhara head of Buddha, and later his disciples, www.vam.ac.uk in ‘Risky Business.’ These days, it comes in all sorts of t colors, patterns and knits, from cotton to microfiber. Boxers Some versions come with The originals were In Munich, Hals and other stars from the Golden Age of Dutch painting lifting support. made of woven shirting fabric, but Munich: “Frans Hals and Haar- The newly self-confident burghers work Hals chose simpler composi- boxers these days

Boxer-Briefs t lem’s Masters of the Golden Age,” commissioned artists to portray tions and a more sober palette. are also made of at the Kunsthalle der Hypo Kul- themselves, their families and the This phase culminated in the two A knitwear cross between knitwear. They come turstiftung, highlights a time in organizations they served. None masterpieces painted two years be- boxers and briefs, this in the wildest colors the 17th century when the Dutch did it better than Frans Hals fore his death showing the Re- is another best-selling and patterns. city of Haarlem was undergoing (1582-1666), whose work vividly gents and the Regentesses of the category that comes in fundamental political, religious catches the nuance and expression Old Men’s Alms House (1664). every textile imaginable, and social changes. While the of his subjects. This comprehensive show also and with various levels Thongs south of Holland was still em- Especially impressive are the includes still lifes, as well as of support. A big hit in These come in two varieties—an “Fifty Fathoms Automatique” broiled in the Eighty Years’ War, large group portraits showing com- genre, landscape and architectural the U.S. athletically inspired two-strap version (ref. 5015-3630-52) the northern provinces enjoyed panies of the civic guards or the paintings, and monumental ma- and another designed more like women’s prosperity and autonomy. Artists, militia, symbolic of the optimism rine scenes. Hendrick Vroom’s “Ar- thongs, with one strap in the back. who had previously served the of the men who established the rival of Frederick V of the Palati- t t church, turned to new subjects af- new Dutch republic. Among the nate and Elizabeth Stuart in Vliss- Trunks ter the Reformation and found works on display is Hals’s “Assem- ingen” (1623) is a detailed view of A newer knitwear entrant, new patrons in the growing mid- bly of the Officers of the Arquebu- the harbor and the ships bearing trunks are shorter than dle class. siers Guild” (1633). The artist the arriving dignitaries. boxer-briefs but longer than The portrait came into its own. takes care to emphasize the weap- —Mariana Schroeder briefs. They are particularly This show of more than 130 works ons and rich clothing indicating Until June 7 Frans Hals Museum popular in Europe and Asia. WWW.BLANCPAIN.COM contains some stunning examples. the power and wealth. In his later www.hypo-kunsthalle.de ‘Still-Life with Fruits, Nuts and Cheese’ (1613), by Floris van Dijck.

W14 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W3 v Film Virtuoso performances in ‘The Soloist’

HE SOLOIST” IS actually a duet on the theme of re- ‘Tdemption. It’s scored for two very different though equally re- markable actors, and performed with uncanny bravura. Jamie Foxx is Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic street musician who was once a dis- tinguished student at Juilliard. Rob- ert Downey Jr. is Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles Times columnist who

Film JOE MORGENSTERN first befriended Ayers in 2005, then wrote about their friendship in a se- ries of columns and a book that in- spired the movie. The fictional ver- sion, directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Susannah Grant, occa- sionally suffers from a surfeit of in- Sony Pictures Classics spirationalism, but its core is mar- WSJ.com his capacity as philosophical narra- velously alive and complex. My tor, Batuta traces soccer’s roots to sense of the experience was pre-Colombian games that used a summed up by a moment when Opening this week in Europe severed head for a ball.) Nathaniel, sitting in on an L.A. Phil- n Adventureland Turkey Sibling rivalry provides much of harmonic rehearsal at Disney Hall, n Confessions of a Shopaholic France the film’s text, but its comic texture says with intense pleasure, “It’s the n Coraline Bulgaria is woven from the brothers’ foolish way it should be.” n Defiance Denmark dreams of glory, their charmingly Should be, and seldom is. Films n Everlasting Moments U.K. fatuous delight in newfound wealth— have romanticized mental illness, n Observe and Report Norway Cursi buys a yellow Hummer for a as in “Shine,” or surrealized it, as in n Role Models Italy girlfriend who has gold-digger writ- “A Beautiful Mind,” but this one ten all over her gorgeous face—and n Rudo y Cursi Portugal plays essentially fair with it. Music their belief that they’re in control of n Sunshine Cleaning Germany is Nathaniel’s only refuge from the their lives. (They’re not the only n The Uninvited Denmark, Lithuania terrors and confusions of a merci- ones. Rudo’s wife thinks she’s on her less brain disease that ravaged his Source: IMDB way to prosperity by selling a Herb- talent, destroyed his shining future WSJ.com subscribers can read reviews of alife-like product called Wonder- these films and others at WSJ.com/FilmReview as a classical cellist and defies any- life.) thing resembling a cure. The movie DreamWorks You’d never know this was a de- is no less successful in its portrait of Above, Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie geles with the spacious grandeur of but film. Unlike Rudo and Cursi, a journalist working at his craft. Foxx in ‘The Soloist’; right, Johannes a Beethoven symphony. Mr. Wright who don’t know their left from their Other films, most recently “State of Krisch and Ursula Strauss in ‘Revanche’; and his colleagues have made a right, Mr. Cuarón directs with a Play,” reach for the fraught drama of top right, Diego Luna in ‘Rudo y Cursi.’ movie with a spaciousness of its hand that’s as sure as it is deft. The contemporary journalism, but this own, a brave willingness to explore music is terrific, and Adam Kim- one nails a host of authentic details— such mysteries of the mind and mel’s cinematography bathes the Steve Lopez’s paper has already be- oquies that sound like the spiritual heart as the torture that madness movie’s cheerful absurdities in a gun the slide that imperils its future— equivalent of a racing engine and a can inflict, and the rapture that mu- beautiful glow. along with a special spirit. Far from slipping clutch. By sharp contrast, sic can confer. Bravo to all con- ‘Revanche’ being a bleeding heart, Lopez starts Mr. Downey’s columnist provides a cerned. his journey of discovery as a self- bracing coolness, at least at first. ‘Rudo y Cursi’ It’s amazing how much drama ironic reporter on the trail of a good Equipped with the actor’s character- can come out of repression and re- story. istically clipped vocal rhythms, “Rudo y Cursi,” a fable of two straint. Götz Spielmann’s Oscar- Although movies often borrow Steve tries to resist taking on re- poor brothers who become soccer nominated “Revanche,” a powerful the emotional power of great music, sponsibility for his subject’s tumul- sensations, reunites three alumni of German-language film, centers on “The Soloist” boasts its own rich dy- tuous life. It’s hard to imagine these the now-classic Mexican movie “Y four people who are not, to put it namics and contrasting tonalities. roles played by anyone else, even Janus Films Tu Mamá También”—the co-stars mildly, flamboyant. One of the men, Mr. Foxx’s musician provides the though Mr. Foxx played another pas- At certain points less might have Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, an ex-con named Alex (a stunning passion. Nathaniel cuts a bizarre fig- sionate musician, Ray Charles, not been more: the overuse of orches- and the writer, Carlos Cuarón, who performance by Johannes Krisch), ure as he plays a two-stringed violin long ago. The co-stars are both virtu- tral power; the over-lyrical flight of makes his directorial debut, work- can’t express the love he feels for in a downtown park near a statue of osos, and their styles combine to cre- symbolic birds (and camera cranes); ing from his own script. (The earlier Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrai- his beloved Beethoven. Still, his gar- ate a harmony of friendship that can- the decision to make Nathaniel a mu- film was directed by his brother Al- nian prostitute in the Austrian ish clothes barely hint at the florid not fix the unfixable, or redeem the sical genius right up there with Ros- fonso.) It’s a happy occasion for all brothel where he works. The other disorder of his mind, which makes it- irredeemable, but gradually grows tropovich rather than a merely nota- concerned, a comedy of substance man, a village cop named Robert self known through enthralling solil- into mutual help and a kind of love. ble talent; the false note that ensues that feels as casual as a pickup game (Andreas Lust), can’t confide in his when he seems unfamiliar with played on a dirt field. wife, Susanne (Ursula Strauss), Bach’s peerless cello suites. Instead In fact, the staging of the soccer who’s working through the grief of a Arbitrage of the hell on earth that was skid sequences could hardly be more ca- recent miscarriage. By the end, row in downtown L.A. when the sual, or less convincing. Don’t though, we know all four better story begins, the movie evokes a cir- bother with this one if you’re look- than they’ve ever known them- The price of Bob Dylan’s CD cle of Dante’s Inferno. The religious ing for a sports epic, but do seek it selves, and care more about them zealotry of a professional cellist is a out if you’re up for picaresque riffs than we could have imagined during clumsily written intrusion. The on the perils of overnight success, the slow, deliberate beginning. ‘Together Through Life’ script, which fictionalizes Steve Lo- and for the pleasure of watching The title means “revenge,” but pez into a divorcé, insists overmuch first-rate actors in action. Mr. Luna that’s a deliberate simplification; Local on similarities between his fear of is the goalie Rudo—his nickname Mr. Spielmann’s film is full of sur- City currency Œ becoming responsible for Nathaniel means “tough”—a goofball with a prises and, in its distinctive way, full and his failings in married life (al- gambling habit and an appetite for of life. The less you know about the Hong Kong HK$105 Œ10 though Catherine Keener, wonder- cocaine. Mr. Bernal is the lineman plot the better, though there’s no New York $14 Œ10 fully appealing as his ex-wife, is es- Cursi, which means “corny”; he cher- harm in saying it’s a construction pecially so in the scene that draws ishes the notion, despite the ab- that brings both couples to the inter- London £10 Œ11 the parallels most closely.) sence of supporting evidence, that section of violence and compassion. Brussels Œ13 Œ13 Yet these are smallish blemishes he’s an even better singer than he is Does that sound pretentious? “Re- on a beautiful whole, and a beauti- an athlete. Guillermo Francella, a vanche” is anything but. It’s cer- Frankfurt Œ13 Œ13 fully photographed whole: Seamus marvelous actor from Argentina, is tainly spare, yet never for a moment Paris Œ15 Œ15 McGarvey, who shot Joe Wright’s the slippery-smart soccer scout Bat- uninvolving. The very first shot— previous film, “Atonement,” has uta. He brings Rudo and Cursi from Martin Gschlacht did the superb cin- Rome Œ19 Œ19 done superb work in sequence after a banana plantation in the boon- ematography—predicts what’s to sequence, including some down- docks to Mexico City, where they come: A rock shatters a pond’s tran- Tokyo ¥2,520 Œ19 ward-looking helicopter shots that flourish on opposing teams before quil surface, sending waves in every Note: Prices, including taxes, as provided by retailers in each city, averaged and converted into euros. juxtapose the eerie sprawl of Los An- taking their foredoomed falls. (In direction.

W4 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W13 DISTINCTIVE PROPERTIES &ESTATES Lights, camera, transaction

By Candace Jackson SCAR-WINNING director Steven Soderbergh is known Ofor going back and forth be- tween genres with his films. His credits include the star-driven pop- corn flick “Ocean’s Thirteen”; the critically-acclaimed 2000 hit, “Traf- fic”; and the two-part, four-hour Spanish-language film “Che.” With its $1.8 million budget, improvised script and a porn actress in the lead, his latest film may be one of his most unusual. Set during the very recent past— October 2008—“The Girlfriend Ex- Corbis perience” chronicles six days in the Adult film star Sasha Grey (left) stars life of a $2,000-an-hour call girl in in ‘The Girlfriend Experience,’ directed the midst of an economically uncer- by Steven Soderbergh (above). tain era. The film, which hits the- Magnolia Pictures aters in New York and Los Angeles how to expand her “brand” to reach give you a job.”’ The exchange lasted Space page. “I write him back and they all look like they’re in porn, the on May 22, and opens in France on more customers. about eight minutes, and was edited say, ‘OK, how am I supposed to be- way they’re coiffed. It’s really crazy. July 15, was shot on location at a va- Mr. Soderbergh says after experi- down to a one minute scene in the fi- lieve you?”’ says Ms. Grey, who There’s this like hyper-grooming riety of of-the-moment restaurants menting by casting a few politicians nal version of the film. “My experi- didn’t have a manager at the time. thing going on now, men and women. and hotels in Manhattan over 16 and journalists to play themselves in ence has been, the more takes you Then, “I got home one day and there I was never thinking, oh, what an days leading up to the 2008 U.S. previous movies like “Erin Brockov- do, the worse it gets,” says Mr. was a voicemail [from] Steven outré thing to do to put a porn actor presidential election. It stars a cast ich” and “Traffic,” he wanted to Soderbergh. Soderbergh and I pretty much lost in a quote-unquote normal movie. I of mostly non-professional actors. make an entire film with a cast of Since being cast in the film, Ms. it, it was pretty amazing,” says the just thought she was interesting.” The screenplay is by Brian Koppel- non-actors. New York magazine Grey, who has starred in over 150 actress. Despite the subject matter and man and David Levien, a duo that’s writer Mark Jacobson plays a jour- adult films since turning 18 (many A few weeks ago, Ms. Grey the casting, the “Girlfriend Experi- scripted such films as “Rounders” nalist and Chelsea’s real boyfriend, a of them on the hardcore end of the formed her own production com- ence” isn’t really about sex at all, and “Ocean’s Thirteen.” personal trainer, is played by Chris porn spectrum) has drawn compari- pany, and plans to produce and di- says Mr. Soderbergh, who also di- Twenty-one-year-old adult film Santos, a personal trainer. “It’s a way sons to Jenna Jameson, another rect her own adult films. She says rected the 1989 film “Sex, Lies and star Sasha Grey plays Chelsea, or to retain a messiness or life-like feel- adult film actor who has crossed she has no illusions about becoming Videotape.” It’s more about “trans- Christine, as she’s also known, an ing of not being too planned out,” over to the mainstream with a best- a conventional movie star, but she actions,” he says. emotionally steely young woman says Mr. Soderbergh. “You never selling book and guest hosting slots hopes to have a career that crosses The October timing of the shoot juggling her job as a girlfriend-for- know what you’re going to get.” on E!. Ms. Grey has modeled for over into the mainstream. “I think was a lucky break, allowing the ac- hire and her relationship with her For instance, a scene where Mr. American Apparel and appeared in the climate is right, though I do tors to naturally engage in anxious real-life boyfriend. There’s not Santos’s character interviews for a a music video for the rock band know I have an uphill battle,” says discussions about the economic col- much nudity in the film, though Ms. job at a gym was done in a single Smashing Pumpkins. Mr. Soder- Ms. Grey. lapse and the election. “I think it cer- Grey’s character keeps a detailed take. Mr. Soderbergh says he simply bergh says he discovered her when Mr. Soderbergh says it’s no tainly plays to the core of the movie record of her work. (“I met with set up two cameras and instructed he read an interview in a Los Ange- longer taboo to hire porn actors for that everybody was obsessed with Philip on October 5th and 6th,” she Mr. Santos and the gym’s actual les magazine where she discussed jobs outside the sex industry. “It’s so the economy during this period we says. “I wore Michael Kors dress manager to do a mock interview. “I her career choice. One of film’s mainstream now,” he says. “When were making the movie,” he says. and shoes with La Perla lingerie un- just said, ‘try and get a job from this screenwriters then contacted her by you look at people who are transmit- “For me, it was just fun to listen to derneath.”) She also frets about guy. See if you can convince him to sending a message through her My- ting the news to you on television them talk.” Code warrior: Ron Howard on directing the ‘Da Vinci’ sequel By Peter Sanders It’s a really thrilling and pres- N HIS NEARLY FIVE decades in surized experience. The city of IHollywood, Ron Howard has Rome gave us finite amounts of checked almost every accomplish- time for each scene down to the ment off the list, from acting to pro- hour. I had several dyed-in-the- ducing to winning an Academy wool New Yorkers on my crew who Award for best director. With his said it was a bit like shooting in latest film “Angels & Demons,” Times Square every day. Always tir- he’ll finally be able to cross “mak- ing, but doable. ing a sequel” off his list. The fol- low-up to 2006’s blockbuster hit Q: Did the production hit any “The Da Vinci Code” is also based speed bumps in Italy because of on a novel by author Dan Brown sensitivities regarding the Catho- and again stars Tom Hanks in the lic Church and the movie’s plot? role of symbologist Robert Lang- There were some locations, that don as he pursues mysteries by all rights we were supposed to within the Catholic Church. Mr. have access to—in front of certain Howard, 55 years old, is also a pro- A scene from ‘Angels & Demons,’ churches, for instance. But two or ducer on the film. directed by Ron Howard (left). three days beforehand we were re-

Photos: Columbia Pictures quested not to shoot there by local Q: “Angels & Demons” was ac- officials. I think that church offi- tually published in 2000, three got pushed back by about six There’s still a lot of pressure be- Code” in theaters that just isn’t cials gave the word to the local gov- years before “The Da Vinci months. How did that affect the cause while “The Da Vinci Code” there this time. Why is that? ernment that they didn’t want us Co-ops & Condos East MIAMI'S ELEGANT BRICKELL AVE. SALE HOUSE Code.” What was the thinking be- project as a whole? sold 80 million copies, this one First, I don’t think “Angels & De- filming in certain places. Manhattan - 50's East Villa Regina designed by Yaacov Agam. Tower hind how you decided to treat First, it meant that I got a little still sold 40 million. And while the mons” holds that unique position 57th St 1100 S.F Penthouse unique 1/1 on Biscayne Bay w/spec- 350m2 in restored medieval castle tacular 180 deg. views of bay, ocean & city. 200 30m north Rome “Angels & Demons” as sequel in- more sleep. But pushing it back movie doesn’t cost what the big in pop culture like “The Da Vinci Q: Did that have a big impact PIED-À-TERRE sf balcony, 12' ceilings, marble floors, 2 cov/pk 7 acres park pool tennis etc. stead of a prequel? was also a function of the process comic-book movies cost, it’s still Code” did. As a storyteller, I was on how the film turned out? Sizzling Italian Masterpiece! spaces, marine space available. Great amenities Euro 1.300,00 Well, this is the first sequel I’ve of adapting something as compli- an expensive Hollywood movie aware of a lot of different audi- I don’t think so. We did what we Hi Flr Renov. Furn. 1BR, 1.5B incl. gym, sauna, pool & meeting rooms, 24 hour (39) 39 11 33 847 and cated as the book. We didn’t want and there’s awareness and antici- ences that approached “The Da Pogen Pohl Kit TERR concierge, valet & security. Central location. ever made and we felt that the story could and despite the various chal- City vus Move in $330,000 Negotiable - Cell: 1-239-263-6707 [email protected] could be shaped in a way that made to rush it into production if it pation for the story. Of course, it Vinci Code” from their own per- lenges, I think we managed to w/Hotel services. it clear it was a Robert Langdon ad- wasn’t ready to go. And, we were means a lot to Sony, too. All that sonal vantage points. With “Angels make a film that will take people Web# 1015943 venture, not necessarily tied to any basically doing “Frost/Nixon” and said, it’s a fraction of the pressure I & Demons,” while it’s still thought- on this adventure. Ellen Schatz 212.891.7673 specific timeline. We felt that we “Angels & Demons” simulta- felt making “The Da Vinci Code,” provoking and very original terri- MAKE GREAT To advertise could take the story in “Angels” and neously and [the delay] meant that since the novel was already contro- tory for a mystery thriller, it I got to do them back-to-back in- versial and had been viewed from doesn’t carry with it all the pres- WSJ.com Emma Balogun using Tom’s [Hanks] evolution as CONNECTIONS the Langdon character really just stead. That’s easier on the direc- so many different vantages and ence of existing at the center of the The Wall Street Journal Europe Screening room CHEAP AMERICAN LAND IN EUROPE. make it work as a follow-up. tor, no question. perspectives. pop culture zeitgeist. +44 207 842 9608 See clips from ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ and Call 912-729-5544 THE WALL STREET [email protected] Q: How does the experience of Q: It seems like there was Q: I know you shot a bunch of Q: Last year’s screenwriters’ ‘Angels & Demons,’ at making “Angels & Demons” com- much more hoopla surrounding exterior scenes in Rome. What or visit JOURNAL EUROPE. strike delayed the start of pro- WSJ.com/Lifestyle duction and the movie’s release pare to “The Da Vinci Code”? the arrival of “The Da Vinci was that experience like? www.VacantLandAmerica.com

W12 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W5 v Books Belgium’s comic-book crisis The next Age of Discovery: Jean Van Hamme seeks a worthy successor to provide words for the country’s beloved graphic novels

By Daniel Michaels Scholars race to digitize archives EAN VAN HAMME IS a giant of Belgium’s comic-book world Jeven though he can’t draw. By Alexandra Alter The 70-year-old former market- N A 21ST-CENTURY version of ing executive writes the stories the age of discovery, teams of that fill the white bubbles of Bel- Icomputer scientists, conserva- gium’s best-selling graphic-novel tionists and scholars are fanning series. Hits ranging from “Largo out across the globe in a race to Winch,” a saga of business in- digitize crumbling literary trea- trigue, to “Thorgal,” a Viking fan- sures. tasy adventure, have been trans- In the process, they’re uncover- lated into 25 languages. His 19-vol- ing unexpected troves of new ume “XIII,” a riff on Robert Lud- finds, including never-before-seen lum’s “Bourne Identity,” recently versions of the Christian Gospels, aired as a TV miniseries in the U.S. fragments of Greek poetry and In his native land, this makes commentaries on Aristotle. Im- Mr. Van Hamme a comic-book proved technology is allowing re- hero. searchers to scan ancient texts Belgium is so comic-crazy that that were once unreadable—black- the books are published in hard- ened in fires or by chemical ero- cover, printed in rich colors on Above, a cover and page from the sion, painted over or simply too glossy paper and sell for about Largo Winch series by Philippe Francq fragile to unroll. $15 apiece. Publishers churned out & Jean Van Hamme (pictured at left); Now, scholars are studying more than 4,000 new titles last far left, a cartoon mural in Brussels. these works with X-ray fluores- year. Museums and art-school cur- cence, multispectral imaging used ricula are devoted to comics. by NASA to photograph Mars and Around Brussels, murals of comic- Verstappen, a clerk at a comics CAT scans used by medical techni- book characters adorn 37 build- store in Brussels. Says Mr. Van cians. ings. A towering picture of Tintin, Hamme: “My goal is to be a popu- A Benedictine monk from Min- Belgium’s most famous cartoon, lar storyteller.” nesota is scouring libraries in greets train travelers arriving Some of Mr. Van Hamme’s big- Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and from Paris and London. Brussels gest successes came through the Georgia for rare, ancient Christian officials Thursday unveiled what exploration of subjects that few manuscripts that are threatened they said is the world’s largest would have dared tackle in com- by wars and black-market looters; comic, a 21-by-32-meter reproduc- ics, says Mr. Verstappen. so far, more than 16,500 of his tion of one page from a Tintin ad- “SOS Happiness” examines the finds have been digitized. This venture, amid celebrations mark- tradeoff between security and free- summer, a professor of computer ing 2009 as the city’s “year of the dom in a quasi-totalitarian Euro- science at the University of Ken- comic strip.” pean society 20 years in the fu- tucky plans to test 3-D X-ray scan- Wayne Torborg Now, as Mr. Van Hamme nears ture, and protagonists deal with ning on two papyrus scrolls from the end of his career, he’s search- issues such as medical care. Pompeii that were charred by vol- For as long as great manu- 1,200 texts and artifacts and is ex- which date to the 10th and 11th ies and churches, and trains local ing for a worthy successor. “I will ing the world as a marketing man- “The Barley Masters”—the tale canic ash in 79 A.D. Scholars have script collections have existed, pected to grow to house millions centuries. Some works photo- people to scan the manuscripts. probably be dead in 10 years, so ager for U.S. Steel, Mr. Van of a brewing dynasty that begins never before been able to read or their contents have been vulnera- of items. graphed by the monastery have Once the labs are set up, the part of my role is to pass the Hamme started drafting one or in the late 19th century and spins even open the scrolls, which now ble. The ancient Library of Alexan- One of the most ambitious digi- since turned up on the black mar- projects cost roughly $20,000 a torch,” he says during an inter- two stories a year for a Belgian into 20th-century corporate Amer- sit in the French National Insti- dria in Egypt burned down in 48 tal preservation projects is being ket or eBay, he says. year in private donations. A simi- view in his study as he lights a comics magazine as a hobby. ica—is as much socioeconomic his- tute in Paris. B.C., incinerating works by Aeschy- led, fittingly, by a Benedictine Among the treasures that Rev. lar effort to digitize Greek New Gauloises and examines the draft After five years, a friend con- tory as soap opera. By taking high-resolution digi- lus, Euripides and Sophocles; to- monk. Father Columba Stewart, ex- Stewart has digitally captured: a Testament manuscripts by the cover art for a new comic. nected Mr. Van Hamme with an Mr. Van Hamme’s most unlikely tal images in 14 different light day, out of more than 120 plays by ecutive director of the Hill Mu- unique Syriac manuscript of a Texas-based Center for the Study There’s a problem, however: He American comics publisher to ex- success came as he resurrected wavelengths, ranging from infra- Sophocles, only seven survive. seum and Manuscript Library at 12th-century account of the Cru- of New Testament Manuscripts says the scripts he gets from aspir- plore creating an ambitious Bel- Largo Winch again, but as a comic red to ultraviolet, Oxford scholars While conservationists are St. John’s Abbey and University in sades, written by Syrian Christian costs roughly $10,000 a week for ing Belgian writers are hopeless. gian-style series that might sell in strip. are reading bits of papyrus that quick to stress that pixels and Minnesota, cites his monastic or- patriarch Michael the Great. The staffing, travel and equipment. Aficionados are worried, too. the U.S. Mr. Van Hamme proposed The feature, which chronicles were discovered in 1898 in an an- bytes can never replace priceless der’s long tradition of copying text, a composite of historical ac- Even as companies such as Goo- “There are so few good writ- making the protagonist a rich play- adventures of a dashing young cient garbage dump in central physical artifacts, many see digiti- texts to ensure their survival as counts and fables, was last stud- gle try to take digital archiving ers.…It’s a crisis,” laments Rey- boy, Largo Winch. That project col- man who unexpectedly inherits a Egypt. So far, researchers have dig- zation as a vital tool for increas- inspiration. ied in the 1890s by a French mainstream, uploading entire col- nold Leclercq, who owns one of lapsed, but Mr. Van Hamme kept conglomerate based in Manhattan, itized about 80% of the collection ing public access to rare items, His mission: digitizing some scholar who made an incomplete lections remains prohibitively ex- the 20 or so stores in Brussels de- thinking about how to bring his spills over with both attractive of 500,000 fragments, dating from while at the same time creating a 30,000 endangered manuscripts handwritten copy. Western schol- pensive. Scanning books costs voted to comics. character to life. women and paunchy men in suits. the 2nd century B.C. to the 8th disaster-proof record and perhaps within the Eastern Christian tradi- ars have never studied the com- roughly 10 cents a page for regu- Most Belgians who want a ca- In 1976, when Mr. Van Hamme Textbook-like Largo Winch titles century A.D. The texts include unearthing new information. tions, a canon that includes liturgi- plete original, which was locked in lar books, and up to $100 or even reer in comics aspire to be illustra- was a manager at Philips Electron- such as “Takeover Bid” and “The fragments of unknown works by A digital arms race has been cal texts, Biblical commentaries a church vault in Aleppo, Syria. $1,000 per book for rare manu- tors, not wordsmiths. At the coun- ics in Belgium, he changed course. Price of Money” didn’t deter famous authors of antiquity, lost heating up in recent years as com- and historical accounts in half a Rev. Stewart and his crew per- scripts that require special han- try’s many comic fairs, it’s the art- “One day I decided that being the young readers, even in France, gospels and early Islamic manu- panies pour millions into large- dozen languages, including Arabic, suaded church leaders to let them dling and care. ists around whom thousands director of a department in a mul- where brash American-style capi- scripts. scale digitization projects, includ- Coptic and Syriac, the written photograph it last summer. A re- Many conservationists are pes- swarm for autographs. An exhibi- tinational wasn’t my future,” he talism has long been scorned. A Among their latest findings: an ing Microsoft’s effort to scan form of Aramaic. Rev. Stewart has production will be published this simistic about the prospect of put- tion currently on display at the recalls. He quit to become a full- recent installment in the series alternate version of the Greek play 80,000 books at the British Li- expanded the library’s work to 23 summer, and a digital version will ting entire library collections on- Royal Museums of Fine Arts in time novelist. deals with business corruption in Medea, later immortalized in a ver- brary and IBM’s multimillion-dol- sites, including collections in be available through the library’s line within our lifetimes. The New Brussels called “Belgian Comics: His first effort was to resurrect China. sion by Euripides, on a darkened lar project to create a virtual ver- Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, up Web site. York Public Library—one of the li- Frames of Reference” profiles 20 Largo Winch in novels. The series, “He’s a better economics

piece of papyrus, dated to the 2nd sion of China’s Forbidden City. from two in 2003. He has over- In February, Rev. Stewart trav- brary collections partnering with current comic creators. Only four Photos: Philippe Francq & Jean van Hamme/Cinebook Ltd/Dupuis (2); Daniel Michaels/The Wall Street Journal (2) which was panned as a poor man’s teacher than most economists, be- century A.D. In the newly discov- The Ford Foundation and other or- seen the digital preservation of eled to Assyrian and Chaldean Google—has digitally archived are writers, including Mr. Van James Bond, flopped. cause he’s more credible,” says Di- ered version—written by Greek ganizations are funding a drive to some 16,500 manuscripts, some of Christian communities in Kurdish some 800,000 items, including Hamme. lishers are taking books to which wanted to tell stories,” Mr. De At the same time, Mr. Van dier Pasamonik, a curator of the playwright Neophron—Medea translate and digitize some villages in northern Iraq, where he 30,000 in the last nine months, The silver-haired master, who they own rights and hiring illustra- Graeve says. Hamme also wrote comics, includ- Royal Museums’ exhibition on doesn’t kill her children, says Dirk 700,000 manuscripts in Timbuktu, hopes to soon begin work on col- but still has close to 50 million writes in French, says he wants to tors to create graphic novels. Even That changed in the 1960s. “A ing one called “Story Without comics. Mr. Pasamonik compares Obbink, director of Oxford’s Oxy- Mali. The world’s oldest function- lections in ancient monastic librar- books and artifacts available only help aspiring writers succeed. To American authors, such as crime new generation of artists wanted Hero,” about a group of plane- Mr. Van Hamme to renowned rhynchus Papyri Project. ing monastery, St. Catherine’s in ies. in print. develop new talent, he recently se- writer Donald Westlake and 19th- to show that comics were not just crash survivors. Then “Thorgal” French 19th-century novelists War and political instability in Egypt, is digitally photographing “You have these ancient Chris- “In the current economic cli- lected 10 authors to create century realist Stephen Crane, for children,” says Mr. De Graeve. and “XIII” took off. By the early Émile Zola and Honoré de Balzac artifact-rich regions such as Af- its collection of roughly 5,000 tian communities, there since the mate, the idea of really broad, spinoffs of his “XIII” series. Each now have French-language comics. Illustrators became like cinematog- 1980s, his stories were selling hun- for his ability to wrap complex so- ghanistan and Iraq, where untold scrolls and manuscripts, including beginning of Christianity, which deep digitization of a large scale author is expanding upon one of At the Belgian Comic Strip Cen- raphers, striving to create increas- dreds of thousands of copies, in a cial issues or the workings of mun- numbers of antiquities have been the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates are evaporating,” he says. He’s is really off the table for the next the minor characters in the series, ter, a museum in Brussels, spokes- ingly elaborate frames conveying business accustomed to selling a dane business transactions into lost through looting and destruc- to 330 A.D. and is thought to be now seeking access to manuscript couple of years,” says Joshua extending their stories into whole man Willem De Graeve says the mood, emotion and action. small fraction of that. page-turning narratives. tion, have ignited the push to digi- the oldest Bible in the world. collections in Iran and Georgia. Greenberg, director of digital strat- books. Mr. Van Hamme says he’s shortage marks a big shift from As a child, Mr. Van Hamme was “With Van Hamme, comics be- Mr. Van Hamme, who traces tize rare documents. Recent trage- Last month, the United Nations With his black monk’s habit, egy and scholarship for the New sending the authors back for re- the post-World War II era, when an avid reader of comics. “It was came best sellers,” says Frédéric his literary roots to disposable dies, such as the earthquake in launched a “World Digital Library” trimmed gray beard and deferen- York Public Library. “It’s a shame, write after rewrite, “like a drill Belgium’s comic classics were pro- like our mother’s milk, but I never Niffle, a Belgian comics publisher comic strips of the 1940s, laughs L’Aquila, Italy, and the collapse with materials from 30 libraries tial manner, Rev. Stewart has been because we’re at the point where sergeant.” duced. thought about making comics,” he and biographer of Mr. Van off the lofty comparison. “I will this past March of the Cologne and archives around the world, in- able to make inroads into closed we really know how to do it.” Nine of the 10 authors are from Tintin, the Smurfs and a car- recalls. Hamme. “He completely changed never write a great novel,” he city archives in Germany, where cluding the oracle bones, which communities that are often suspi- An even more pressing concern France. “I couldn’t find any prom- toon cowboy named Lucky Luke While earning degrees in law, the industry.” says. conservationists are still working hold the earliest Chinese writings, cious of Western scholars and for some scholars is that shoddy ising young Belgians,” Mr. Van became famous as much for their engineering, finance and journal- By the 1990s, Mr. Van Hamme’s Still, he’s disappointed that he frantically to retrieve texts from and an 8,000-year-old rock paint- fiercely protective of their texts. imaging work might damage manu- Hamme says. yarns as their pictures. Tintin cre- ism in the mid-1960s, he worked comics were selling so well that hasn’t inspired more competition. the rain-soaked rubble, serve as ing from South Africa. The Armed with 23-megapixel cameras scripts or fail to capture key de- Bereft of good writers to feed ator Georges Prosper Remi, who translating Peanuts and Blondie “many alternative artists saw him “I would love to have a lot of reminders of how quickly cultural project, which cost $10 million in and scanning cradles, he sets up tails, such as binding styles, which Belgium’s highly trained artists went by the pen name Hergé, comics into French for Belgian as the enemy—only doing enter- young lions trying to eat me,” he relics can be wiped out. private donations, has images of imaging labs on site in monaster- give clues to a manuscript’s date with stories, several Belgian pub- “learned to draw because he newspapers. In 1968, while travel- tainment for money,” says Nicolas says. The Archimedes Palimpsest Project

W6 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W11 v Design

A new kind of skin magazine Clicking on the past By Andrew Losowsky In the era of instant information, libraries, collections and make them available online. Special to The Wall Street Journal museums and universities are racing to Here are some of the most significant ARC STRÖMBERG IS a scan rare manuscripts and artifacts in their artifacts now on view on the Web: 22-year-old graphic de- Msigner in Umeå, Sweden, and his leg is still sore. He creates The British Library record sleeves and posters for bands, and in his spare time he runs Marc Strömberg working www.bl.uk his own magazine, Tare Lugnt. In- on a magazine cover; The library began a massive digitization project in 2005 with Microsoft, and plans to scan 25 million book pages. stead of publishing the latest edi- above right, the graphic Courtesy of Filip Hammarberg tion in traditional paper and ink, he designer’s left leg with Yeah, I think the tattooist did a t Mozart’s composition books has had issue three entirely tat- issue three of Tare Lugnt. great job. I wasn’t looking for a typi- dating from 1784 to 1791, tooed onto his left leg. The leg has cal magazine layout, perfectly left- when he composed some now been photographed, and large- centered in clean-cut columns. The of his most famous works, scale prints are due to go on display text is entirely in my and the tattoo- including five operas, several in Göteborg and Stockholm this ist’s handwriting, except for the piano sonatas and his last month. Tare Lugnt headline. I wanted it three major symphonies. Body manipulation has long stripped down, basic and no-frills, www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ been a feature of both art and like the old sailor and Russian ttp/mozart/accessible/ graphic design. The Austrian de- prison tattoos. introduction.html

signer Stefan Sagmeister famously I have actually found one spell- had his assistant carve the details of ing error, but that’s kind of charm- Allen Brisson-Smith for The Wall Street Journal t a forthcoming talk onto his chest ing as well. Very honest and authen-

Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks t Jane Austen’s “History of England,” with a small blade, a photograph of tic. I was kind of hoping for it. It Clockwise from far left: a 17th-century A collection of loose papers and notes, hand-written by Austen in 1791 when the result being the event’s poster. feels more real. Christian Book of Hours, written in these 28 pages outline Leonardo’s she was 15. The work is an engaging Mr. Strömberg himself quotes as an Arabic, from a monastery in Lebanon; fascination with mechanics, bird flight parody of British history textbooks— influence the artist Shelley Jack- Q: Will you ever have the maga- Father Columba Stewart holds a and studies on reflections and Austen calls herself a “partial, son, who in 2003 tattooed different zine removed? 19th-century Ethiopian prayer scroll; curved mirrors. The Italian script prejudiced and ignorant Historian.” individual words on 2,095 partici- I don’t think I will ever remove a scientists use CAT scans to read is written in Leonardo’s typical www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/austen/ pants, putting them all together one tattoo. Like I said, every tattoo is ancient papyrus rolls from left-to-right “mirror writing.” accessible/introduction.html time to make up a novella. However, like a journal entry, and it repre- Herculaneum; multispectral imaging of

Marc Strömberg www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ this is the first time that the tran- sents different periods and places in a 13th-century prayer book (bottom) leonardo/accessible/introduction.html sience of a magazine has combined the one down on the side of my should explore new mediums, all rare giant squid. I considered every my life. revealed treatises by Archimedes. with permanent body modification knee. the time. We should experiment and article carefully but I was never wor- in such an extreme way. (Images of have the guts to do something that ried that I would regret it. I see tat- Q: How do you follow this with The Library of Congress, ‘American Memory’ Tare Lugnt and a making-of video Q: When did you decide to have stands out. It would have been bor- toos as a journal of my life. Each tat- issue four? images through clouds—has can be viewed at www.tarel- it tattooed onto your skin? ing to do just another magazine on too that I have reminds me of a cer- I don’t know how to follow this, proved remarkably effective on ev- memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html ugnt.se.) I had been thinking about get- paper. I originally wanted to do a tain time and place in my life, and seriously. Maybe I can get one of erything from ancient papyrus This archive of American manuscripts, recordings, maps, films and images ting number two tattooed onto me, pair of long underwear, with the arti- they each make me remember a lot those Batman sign lights, and blow scrolls to medieval manuscripts was launched in the mid-1990s and now contains about 15 million items. Q: What is your magazine Tare but I never thought I would actually cles printed on the material, so you of happy things. up the whole magazine on the night that were scraped off and written Lugnt about? do it, because it seemed kind of ex- could wear them, lie down on the sky to display it to a whole city. Or over when scribes recycled parch-

The contents of Lincoln’s pockets on t Q: How long did it take? Tare Lugnt (which means “take treme. However, I already have couch and read the magazine off maybe I can record a CD containing ment pages. the night he was assassinated: includes it easy” in Swedish) is a fan- quite a lot of tattoos—basically on your own legs. It sprung from that I did four sessions, of about five only Morse code, so people will have Using the technique, which cap- Steve Bailey watch fob, pocket knife, handkerchief and zine/magazine project I started my whole body now except my back, idea, taken a little further. hours each. It’s a lot of lines, which I to decipher it before reading it. I tures high-resolution images in dif- confederate five-dollar bill. about a year ago. It features every- hands, neck and head—so it wasn’t didn’t quite realize until we sat don’t know yet but I’m going to step ferent light wavelengths, scholars memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/ Q: What are the articles in this thing from weird and funny artwork a really big step in the end. down the first time. It didn’t hurt it up for sure! I really hope that this and origin. Some experts say the can see details invisible to the na- stern-lincoln/objects.html to articles and novels. In previous is- issue about? that much. Tattooing my foot, ribs, will lead to a bunch of more interest- push toward online archiving ked eye: For example, infrared sues, I wrote about half of the con- Q: Why did you do it? They are about everything from stomach and elbows hurt a lot more. ing projects. I am really happy with could ultimately hurt scholarly light highlights ink containing car- tent, and some friends wrote the It seemed like a really untradi- how the X-chromosome makes us the way it turned out, and I hope work by creating the illusion that bon from crushed charcoal, while Former slaves’ narratives: audio files recorded in nine Southern states rest. But in this issue, number three, tional and extreme way to publish creative, to a story about the pan- Q: Are you pleased with the that people can see the joy that I put everything is available online, ultraviolet light picks up ink con- t I wrote all of the articles except one— the magazine. I think that everyone da’s thumb, to an article about the work of the tattooist? into it. when the digital record remains taining iron. between 1932 and 1975, with 23 Four Walt Whitman notebooks, with full of holes. In the age of instant Researchers in Baltimore dis- interviewees. Some are being made writings from 1842 to 1937, including information, physical artifacts covered a veritable library of an- publicly available for the first time and poetry, prose, proofs and correspondence. seem increasingly at risk of being cient texts hidden in the pages of include transcripts. memory.loc.gov/ memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/ rendered obsolete. a single 13th-century Greek prayer ammem/collections/voices/ whitman/ For now, curators and conserva- book, including an unknown com- Combining craftsmanship and contemporary design tionists say capturing endangered mentary on Aristotle and two manuscripts should be a top prior- missing treatises by the Greek The World Digital Library OLLECT 2009, the interna- ity. mathematician Archimedes. Ctional art fair for contempo- “This could be our only Recently, multispectral imaging www.wdl.org/en Albert Einstein’s rary objects, runs this weekend chance,” says Daniel Wallace, exec- has gotten much less expensive, Last month, Unesco launched this new online archive of significant application for citizenship, in London with some 37 galleries utive director of the Center for allowing researchers to take their artifacts and manuscripts from 30 collections around the world. dated 1936, from the offering ceramics, glass, silver, From left, Miriam Hanid’s ‘Whirlpool Courtesy of Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger the Study of New Testament Manu- equipment into the field. The next National Archives and metalwork, wood and furniture Rosewater Bowl’ (2008), £3,200; scripts, the Texas-based center frontier, researchers say, is using Records Administration. by more than 300 artists. Junko Mori’s ‘A Silver Organism’ that is attempting to digitally pho- CAT scan and X-ray technology to Oracle Bone, about 1200 B.C., www.wdl.org/en/ t “The fair is about particularly (2008), £9,750; Bettina Dittlmann & tograph 2.6 million pages of Greek read brittle scrolls without even from the National Library item/2745/zoom.html Michael Jank’s ‘Foreverrings’ (2008) unique objects made by those do- New Testament manuscripts scat- unrolling them. of China. The flat piece of t in steel (left, £3,100) and silver tered in monasteries and libraries This summer, a new project to bone, inscribed with Chinese (right, £3,300). around the world. The group has decode ancient manuscripts with characters, was used for Collecting discovered 75 New Testament multispectral imaging will begin divination. MARGARET STUDER including “Argus” (2008), a bas- manuscripts, many with unique at the University of Michigan, Ber- www.wdl.org/en/item/290 ket made from peacock feathers commentaries, that were unknown keley, and Columbia. The project, with a poem inside that relates to scholars. led by scholars from Brigham t ing new things with materials Miriam Hanid, courtesy of Bishopsland Educational Trust to Argus, the ancient giant with Mr. Wallace says one of the Young, will scan 400 papyrus Christopher Columbus’s diary from 1493, in which the Courtesty of Adrian Sassoon and processes,” says Rosy Green- s 100 eyes that, according to myth, rare, 10th-century manuscripts pieces. Among the specimens: pa- explorer describes the lands he discovered, from the lees, executive director at the organic forms forged in silver. Lamb says he is more concerned U.K. artist-metalworker Mir- now adorn the peacock (£1,500). they photographed was in a pri- pyrus fragments from rolls that Center for the Study of the History of Mexico Carso. U.K. Crafts Council, the organizer Her “A silver organism” (2008), with function than aesthetic and iam Hanid, 23 years old, is a hot Bonhams on May 19 will hold vate collection and was later sold, were stuffed inside mummified www.wdl.org/en/item/2962 of the fair. Galleries come from a prickly flower-like object style. “I don’t see myself as a young talent. “I was a painter an auction of contemporary glass page by page, for $1,000 a piece. Egyptian crocodiles in the 1st cen- the U.K., Ireland, Central Europe, forged in fine silver, is priced at sculptor,” he says. “I’m simply originally,” she says. “So I ap- objects. The catalog cover fea- Others are simply disintegrating, tury B.C., which are thought to Scandinavia, the U.S., Japan and £9,750. fascinated with the material.” proach metals freely without tures a vessel formed from eaten away by rats and worms, or contain ancient legal documents, Recent breakthroughs Australia. Their stands are London dealer Katie Jones is His latest piece—a chair made strict rules.” At the fair, she has threads of bright color, “More rotting. contracts and perhaps literary spread over three floors at the also focused on objects from Ja- from granite found in Corn- a silver bowl in the shape of a Tropical Chaos” (1999), by Ameri- A cascade of groundbreaking works. Their efforts could reveal Digitization projects are also bringing previously unknown manuscripts to the Web, where scholars and Internet Saatchi Gallery on King’s Road. pan, where contemporary artists well—is at The Scottish Gallery. whirlpool that makes an unusual can artist Toots Zynsky (esti- discoveries in the past decade, un- text that scholars have been labor- surfers alike can look at high-resolution images of new discoveries from the ancient world. The contemporary objects sec- draw on the country’s long tradi- His works sell for between £800 table centerpiece (£3,200). It’s mate: £8,000-£10,000). The auc- leashed by new technology, has ing to read for decades, including tor took off in the U.S. in the tion of decorative arts to make and £10,000. for sale at the stand of Bishop- tion illustrates the enormous va- stoked the sense of urgency. Multi- a partially obscured play by Eurip- The Archimedes Palimpsest The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Codex Sinaiticus 1980s and 1990s, and has seen dynamic new pieces. Among the Germany’s Bettina Dittlmann sland Educational Trust, a U.K. riety of the handmade glass mar- spectral imaging—originally devel- ides. archimedespalimpsest.org www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/ growth more recently in Europe, works on her stand: a glass vase and Michael Jank worked for 10 organization that offers postgrad- ket—from the purely aesthetic to oped by NASA to capture satellite “It’s being called a second Re- Researchers at the Walters Art This represents one of the largest manuscript.aspx says Claire Beck of Adrian Sas- reminiscent of cascading water years on their jewelry project uate training workshops for sil- objects that make more of a naissance,” says Todd Hickey, a cu- Museum in Baltimore uncovered a collections of ancient papyri, Portions of the 4th-century Bible soon, a leading London contem- by Ritsui Mishima priced at “Foreverrings,” hammering an- versmiths. statement, such as British artist WSJ.com rator of papyri at the University 10th-century copy of two treatises some 500,000 pieces excavated manuscript are now scattered porary ceramics and glass gal- £7,000-£7,500; and a pair of mon- cient-looking rings in gold, silver, Scottish artist Anna S. King David Reekie’s “Mindless Technol- of California, Berkeley, which has by the Greek mathematician around 1900 in Egypt. One sample in several collections around the Antiquities roadshow Archimedes, concealed underneath fragment on view online contains world, but the complete text is lery. Among the international umental copper vases by Toru copper or steel (price: weaves mysterious baskets that ogy” (2003), a group of four help- See a slideshow of digitally some 26,000 pieces of papyrus, the text of a 13th-century elegiac verses by seventh-century being reassembled, in digital form, names on her stand will be Ja- Kaneko (£6,000). Œ1,000-Œ4,000 at Galerie Rose- enclose a text. On the Craftscot- less-looking glass robots (esti- preserved ancient treasures, at many still unread. “It’s revealing pan’s Junko Mori, known for her U.K. designer-craftsman Max marie Jäger). land stand are 10 of her works mate: £6,000-£7,000). things that we didn’t have a hope prayerbook. B.C. poet Archilochus. on the Web. WSJ.com/Lifestyle of reading in the past.” iStockphoto (mouse cursor)

W10 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W7 v Design

Reinventing the magazine

By Andrew Losowsky Special to The Wall Street Journal

HEN ‘ASPEN’ arrives, the standard glossy format, experi- you don’t just read it— menting with different manifesta- you hear it, hang it, tions of what a magazine can be. feel it, fly it, project In doing so, they are offering their it, even sniff it.” readers special experiences that Such was the sales Web sites and other free-content ‘Wpitch in 1965 for Aspen magazine, digital distractions can’t match. probably the world’s first example These are publications that of what creator and former Ad revel in their 3D-ness, special ob- Age editor Phyllis Johnson called jects that demand deeper interac- a “multimedia magazine.” Each tion from their readers than the edition arrived at its subscribers’ average print magazine. Taking ad- homes in a small box, containing vantage of recent advances in anything from a miniature sculp- printing technology, these publica- ture to a brightly colored poster tions are determinedly noncon- to a reel of celluloid film. formist in everything they do. But From left: a page from Freestyle In some ways, Aspen was a they are, in essence, magazines— magazine; two cans of La Lata product of the 1960s, a time when curated, regular compilations of magazine; a 2006 edition of La art was drawing on popular cul- content with clear selection crite- Más Bella magazine, entitled ture and mechanical reproduction ria, consistent design and an indi- ‘La Más Bella Greatest Hits.’ La Más Bella to spread its messages. In other vidual voice. ways, it was ahead of its time. Aspen magazine lasted just 10 T-Post It’s a wallet, it’s an apron, it’s a vi- There was nothing quite like As- issues, and so never produced its nyl disc with a selection of sleeves, pen, beyond very short-run art promised “Buckminster Fuller is- It’s the magazine you can wear. Freestyle it’s a box of games, it’s a slideshow, La Lata projects, for nearly 30 years. But sue, with each article folding into Every six weeks, T-Post sends its it’s a home decoration kit… today, at a particularly tough time a geodesic dome.” 2,500 subscribers a new T-shirt: It Launching this July, Freestyle is La Más Bella (translation: “the La Lata calls itself a “magazine for magazines, a number of publi- Perhaps one of these maga- has a true story printed on the in- the creation of Berlin-based fashion most beautiful”) is many things. object,” and is an established favor- cations are again looking beyond zines will take up the challenge. side, chosen to make readers think, photographer and flying disc enthu- Above all, it’s an experimental art ite among Spanish contemporary while on the outside an artist inter- siast Jason McGlade. Each issue of magazine, published in Madrid by art collectors. Its name means “The prets the story to create a stylishly the magazine will be printed in ink Pepe Murciego and Diego Ortiz. The Can,” and that’s exactly what every unique piece of graphic clothing. on paper; however it will be circular first issue, created in 1993, looked issue arrives in. From restyled food The idea behind the magazine is in shape, and slotted inside a Fris- like a normal magazine. The second cans to the latest issue, an eight-li- Publications that push the boundaries of the print medium that each design will provoke on- bee that has been styled by a se- issue was a normal magazine with a ter paint can with a fabric fringe, lookers to comment—and give the lected designer or illustrator. hole punched through the middle. each annual edition is hermetically owner of the T-shirt the opportu- Invented “for creative people Then they decided to try something sealed like a tin of beans—so if you nity to spread the story printed on who like to play,” the magazine will different. want to see what’s inside, you have the inside. The most recent issue, feature art, design, fashion, lifestyle Around 30 editions later, they’ve to break the object you’ve bought. Visionaire from March, addresses capital pun- and of course Frisbees. Mr. worked with more than 600 artists It’s worth the effort, however— ishment and was designed by Hun- McGlade, Freestyle’s editor-in- to create unique monographic edi- inside each can is a collection of At the start, its creators aimed to fashion events. Collaborators are garian illustrator David Foldvari. chief/creative director, says the Fris- tions with high production stan- unique artistic objects created make “something that people similarly renowned, and have in- T-Post, which began in February bee “appeals to all design-minded dards. Each issue comes in a limited around the issue’s theme by various wouldn’t throw out, that would be cluded Karl Lagerfeld, Mario Tes- 2004 and is based in Stockholm, people who appreciate a piece of edition of 1,000; the latest issue, artists. La Lata’s creators, Manuela filled with that you wanted to save.” tino and Spike Jonze. prints only enough shirts for its sub- plastic that is so simple yet can fly “Tapa,” includes specially designed Martínez and Carmen Palacios, say And they reasoned that “since ads The latest issue is a book of black- scribers, and back issues are not and inspire people—a true design toothpicks, salami badges, a lenticu- they “wanted to decontextualize control mass-market editorial con- and-white photographs that turn to available. Each issue costs Œ26 and classic.” lar place mat, a miniature bottle of the object of the tin, and generate tent,” they would just get rid of color when exposed to the sun. Each there is a minimum subscription of Originally from the north of Eng- vermouth, a hand-tattooed plastic an element of surprise” surround- them. edition has a theme, and previous is- two issues. land, Mr. McGlade has shot photos glass and much more. ing the sealed contents. And so began Visionaire in 1991, sues have included a box of taste Peter Lundgren, T-Post’s edi- for Vogue and Der Spiegel among The magazine varies in price The latest edition is themed an almost absurdist creation of lim- strips, a collection of tiny toys and a tor-in-chief, has plans to create fu- others. His catwalk access means from Œ12 to Œ50 and is entirely non- “Vice,” and includes, according to ited-edition opulence, involving un- selection of miniature perfumes. ture editions in a variety of differ- that issue zero of Freestyle has al- profitmaking: The creators host par- its creators, 70 pieces that are reflec- usual materials, strange formats The magazine publishes 3,000 to ent genres, from music to science— ready been photographed in the ties to encourage friends to help tions on everything “from chocolate and high-profile collaborators. It is 5,000 individually numbered copies but always on T-shirts. “For us, it’s a hands of some top fashion models. compile each copy. They’ve also cre- to biting your nails.” Each issue is also probably the most expensive up to three times a year; a four-issue way to use fashion and art to spread Issue one, in a limited edition of ated a special “Bellamatic” vending published in a limited edition of a magazine in the world, with one par- subscription costs $675. New York- the word about things that are im- 5,000 at a price of Œ15, is about to be- machine to sell back issues, and few hundred and costs Œ26. Pro- ticular issue costing $5,000. based Visionaire Publishing also portant to us and the world, by us- Above, the March 2009 issue of come available in select stores have run workshops world-wide, duced in Albacete, Spain, the maga- Courtesy of Visionaire 56 SOLAR (3) Editions are often sponsored by produces the more traditional quar- ing one of the best pop culture medi- T-Post, on capital punishment, with world-wide and on the magazine’s one of which led to their most tran- zine is usually launched at the Images from the Visionaire 56 SOLAR issue, published in collaboration with Calvin Klein Collection (from left): big-name brands such as Louis Vuit- terly fashion magazines V and V ums ever invented—the graphic illustration by David Foldvari; top, the Web site. As the Freestyle slogan sient edition yet: the La Más Bella Madrid annual art fair ARCO in Feb- the magazine’s cover, by Roe Ethridge; Calvin Klein models photographed by David Sims; a portrait of Carmen ton, Krug Champagne and Lacoste, Man. T-shirt,” he says. March 2007 issue, on altruism, with says, catch it if you can. salami and cheese sandwich. ruary. Kass by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin. and are launched at parties during www.visionaireworld.com www.t-post.se design by Jason Sho Green. www.freestylemagazine.co.uk www.lamasbella.org www.lalata.es

W8 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W9 v Design

Reinventing the magazine

By Andrew Losowsky Special to The Wall Street Journal

HEN ‘ASPEN’ arrives, the standard glossy format, experi- you don’t just read it— menting with different manifesta- you hear it, hang it, tions of what a magazine can be. feel it, fly it, project In doing so, they are offering their it, even sniff it.” readers special experiences that Such was the sales Web sites and other free-content ‘Wpitch in 1965 for Aspen magazine, digital distractions can’t match. probably the world’s first example These are publications that of what creator and former Ad revel in their 3D-ness, special ob- Age editor Phyllis Johnson called jects that demand deeper interac- a “multimedia magazine.” Each tion from their readers than the edition arrived at its subscribers’ average print magazine. Taking ad- homes in a small box, containing vantage of recent advances in anything from a miniature sculp- printing technology, these publica- ture to a brightly colored poster tions are determinedly noncon- to a reel of celluloid film. formist in everything they do. But From left: a page from Freestyle In some ways, Aspen was a they are, in essence, magazines— magazine; two cans of La Lata product of the 1960s, a time when curated, regular compilations of magazine; a 2006 edition of La art was drawing on popular cul- content with clear selection crite- Más Bella magazine, entitled ture and mechanical reproduction ria, consistent design and an indi- ‘La Más Bella Greatest Hits.’ La Más Bella to spread its messages. In other vidual voice. ways, it was ahead of its time. Aspen magazine lasted just 10 T-Post It’s a wallet, it’s an apron, it’s a vi- There was nothing quite like As- issues, and so never produced its nyl disc with a selection of sleeves, pen, beyond very short-run art promised “Buckminster Fuller is- It’s the magazine you can wear. Freestyle it’s a box of games, it’s a slideshow, La Lata projects, for nearly 30 years. But sue, with each article folding into Every six weeks, T-Post sends its it’s a home decoration kit… today, at a particularly tough time a geodesic dome.” 2,500 subscribers a new T-shirt: It Launching this July, Freestyle is La Más Bella (translation: “the La Lata calls itself a “magazine for magazines, a number of publi- Perhaps one of these maga- has a true story printed on the in- the creation of Berlin-based fashion most beautiful”) is many things. object,” and is an established favor- cations are again looking beyond zines will take up the challenge. side, chosen to make readers think, photographer and flying disc enthu- Above all, it’s an experimental art ite among Spanish contemporary while on the outside an artist inter- siast Jason McGlade. Each issue of magazine, published in Madrid by art collectors. Its name means “The prets the story to create a stylishly the magazine will be printed in ink Pepe Murciego and Diego Ortiz. The Can,” and that’s exactly what every unique piece of graphic clothing. on paper; however it will be circular first issue, created in 1993, looked issue arrives in. From restyled food The idea behind the magazine is in shape, and slotted inside a Fris- like a normal magazine. The second cans to the latest issue, an eight-li- Publications that push the boundaries of the print medium that each design will provoke on- bee that has been styled by a se- issue was a normal magazine with a ter paint can with a fabric fringe, lookers to comment—and give the lected designer or illustrator. hole punched through the middle. each annual edition is hermetically owner of the T-shirt the opportu- Invented “for creative people Then they decided to try something sealed like a tin of beans—so if you nity to spread the story printed on who like to play,” the magazine will different. want to see what’s inside, you have the inside. The most recent issue, feature art, design, fashion, lifestyle Around 30 editions later, they’ve to break the object you’ve bought. Visionaire from March, addresses capital pun- and of course Frisbees. Mr. worked with more than 600 artists It’s worth the effort, however— ishment and was designed by Hun- McGlade, Freestyle’s editor-in- to create unique monographic edi- inside each can is a collection of At the start, its creators aimed to fashion events. Collaborators are garian illustrator David Foldvari. chief/creative director, says the Fris- tions with high production stan- unique artistic objects created make “something that people similarly renowned, and have in- T-Post, which began in February bee “appeals to all design-minded dards. Each issue comes in a limited around the issue’s theme by various wouldn’t throw out, that would be cluded Karl Lagerfeld, Mario Tes- 2004 and is based in Stockholm, people who appreciate a piece of edition of 1,000; the latest issue, artists. La Lata’s creators, Manuela filled with that you wanted to save.” tino and Spike Jonze. prints only enough shirts for its sub- plastic that is so simple yet can fly “Tapa,” includes specially designed Martínez and Carmen Palacios, say And they reasoned that “since ads The latest issue is a book of black- scribers, and back issues are not and inspire people—a true design toothpicks, salami badges, a lenticu- they “wanted to decontextualize control mass-market editorial con- and-white photographs that turn to available. Each issue costs Œ26 and classic.” lar place mat, a miniature bottle of the object of the tin, and generate tent,” they would just get rid of color when exposed to the sun. Each there is a minimum subscription of Originally from the north of Eng- vermouth, a hand-tattooed plastic an element of surprise” surround- them. edition has a theme, and previous is- two issues. land, Mr. McGlade has shot photos glass and much more. ing the sealed contents. And so began Visionaire in 1991, sues have included a box of taste Peter Lundgren, T-Post’s edi- for Vogue and Der Spiegel among The magazine varies in price The latest edition is themed an almost absurdist creation of lim- strips, a collection of tiny toys and a tor-in-chief, has plans to create fu- others. His catwalk access means from Œ12 to Œ50 and is entirely non- “Vice,” and includes, according to ited-edition opulence, involving un- selection of miniature perfumes. ture editions in a variety of differ- that issue zero of Freestyle has al- profitmaking: The creators host par- its creators, 70 pieces that are reflec- usual materials, strange formats The magazine publishes 3,000 to ent genres, from music to science— ready been photographed in the ties to encourage friends to help tions on everything “from chocolate and high-profile collaborators. It is 5,000 individually numbered copies but always on T-shirts. “For us, it’s a hands of some top fashion models. compile each copy. They’ve also cre- to biting your nails.” Each issue is also probably the most expensive up to three times a year; a four-issue way to use fashion and art to spread Issue one, in a limited edition of ated a special “Bellamatic” vending published in a limited edition of a magazine in the world, with one par- subscription costs $675. New York- the word about things that are im- 5,000 at a price of Œ15, is about to be- machine to sell back issues, and few hundred and costs Œ26. Pro- ticular issue costing $5,000. based Visionaire Publishing also portant to us and the world, by us- Above, the March 2009 issue of come available in select stores have run workshops world-wide, duced in Albacete, Spain, the maga- Courtesy of Visionaire 56 SOLAR (3) Editions are often sponsored by produces the more traditional quar- ing one of the best pop culture medi- T-Post, on capital punishment, with world-wide and on the magazine’s one of which led to their most tran- zine is usually launched at the Images from the Visionaire 56 SOLAR issue, published in collaboration with Calvin Klein Collection (from left): big-name brands such as Louis Vuit- terly fashion magazines V and V ums ever invented—the graphic illustration by David Foldvari; top, the Web site. As the Freestyle slogan sient edition yet: the La Más Bella Madrid annual art fair ARCO in Feb- the magazine’s cover, by Roe Ethridge; Calvin Klein models photographed by David Sims; a portrait of Carmen ton, Krug Champagne and Lacoste, Man. T-shirt,” he says. March 2007 issue, on altruism, with says, catch it if you can. salami and cheese sandwich. ruary. Kass by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin. and are launched at parties during www.visionaireworld.com www.t-post.se design by Jason Sho Green. www.freestylemagazine.co.uk www.lamasbella.org www.lalata.es

W8 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W9 v Design

A new kind of skin magazine Clicking on the past By Andrew Losowsky In the era of instant information, libraries, collections and make them available online. Special to The Wall Street Journal museums and universities are racing to Here are some of the most significant ARC STRÖMBERG IS a scan rare manuscripts and artifacts in their artifacts now on view on the Web: 22-year-old graphic de- Msigner in Umeå, Sweden, and his leg is still sore. He creates The British Library record sleeves and posters for bands, and in his spare time he runs Marc Strömberg working www.bl.uk his own magazine, Tare Lugnt. In- on a magazine cover; The library began a massive digitization project in 2005 with Microsoft, and plans to scan 25 million book pages. stead of publishing the latest edi- above right, the graphic Courtesy of Filip Hammarberg tion in traditional paper and ink, he designer’s left leg with Yeah, I think the tattooist did a t Mozart’s composition books has had issue three entirely tat- issue three of Tare Lugnt. great job. I wasn’t looking for a typi- dating from 1784 to 1791, tooed onto his left leg. The leg has cal magazine layout, perfectly left- when he composed some now been photographed, and large- centered in clean-cut columns. The of his most famous works, scale prints are due to go on display text is entirely in my and the tattoo- including five operas, several in Göteborg and Stockholm this ist’s handwriting, except for the piano sonatas and his last month. Tare Lugnt headline. I wanted it three major symphonies. Body manipulation has long stripped down, basic and no-frills, www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ been a feature of both art and like the old sailor and Russian ttp/mozart/accessible/ graphic design. The Austrian de- prison tattoos. introduction.html

signer Stefan Sagmeister famously I have actually found one spell- had his assistant carve the details of ing error, but that’s kind of charm- Allen Brisson-Smith for The Wall Street Journal t a forthcoming talk onto his chest ing as well. Very honest and authen-

Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks t Jane Austen’s “History of England,” with a small blade, a photograph of tic. I was kind of hoping for it. It Clockwise from far left: a 17th-century A collection of loose papers and notes, hand-written by Austen in 1791 when the result being the event’s poster. feels more real. Christian Book of Hours, written in these 28 pages outline Leonardo’s she was 15. The work is an engaging Mr. Strömberg himself quotes as an Arabic, from a monastery in Lebanon; fascination with mechanics, bird flight parody of British history textbooks— influence the artist Shelley Jack- Q: Will you ever have the maga- Father Columba Stewart holds a and studies on reflections and Austen calls herself a “partial, son, who in 2003 tattooed different zine removed? 19th-century Ethiopian prayer scroll; curved mirrors. The Italian script prejudiced and ignorant Historian.” individual words on 2,095 partici- I don’t think I will ever remove a scientists use CAT scans to read is written in Leonardo’s typical www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/austen/ pants, putting them all together one tattoo. Like I said, every tattoo is ancient papyrus rolls from left-to-right “mirror writing.” accessible/introduction.html time to make up a novella. However, like a journal entry, and it repre- Herculaneum; multispectral imaging of

Marc Strömberg www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ this is the first time that the tran- sents different periods and places in a 13th-century prayer book (bottom) leonardo/accessible/introduction.html sience of a magazine has combined the one down on the side of my should explore new mediums, all rare giant squid. I considered every my life. revealed treatises by Archimedes. with permanent body modification knee. the time. We should experiment and article carefully but I was never wor- in such an extreme way. (Images of have the guts to do something that ried that I would regret it. I see tat- Q: How do you follow this with The Library of Congress, ‘American Memory’ Tare Lugnt and a making-of video Q: When did you decide to have stands out. It would have been bor- toos as a journal of my life. Each tat- issue four? images through clouds—has can be viewed at www.tarel- it tattooed onto your skin? ing to do just another magazine on too that I have reminds me of a cer- I don’t know how to follow this, proved remarkably effective on ev- memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html ugnt.se.) I had been thinking about get- paper. I originally wanted to do a tain time and place in my life, and seriously. Maybe I can get one of erything from ancient papyrus This archive of American manuscripts, recordings, maps, films and images ting number two tattooed onto me, pair of long underwear, with the arti- they each make me remember a lot those Batman sign lights, and blow scrolls to medieval manuscripts was launched in the mid-1990s and now contains about 15 million items. Q: What is your magazine Tare but I never thought I would actually cles printed on the material, so you of happy things. up the whole magazine on the night that were scraped off and written Lugnt about? do it, because it seemed kind of ex- could wear them, lie down on the sky to display it to a whole city. Or over when scribes recycled parch-

The contents of Lincoln’s pockets on t Q: How long did it take? Tare Lugnt (which means “take treme. However, I already have couch and read the magazine off maybe I can record a CD containing ment pages. the night he was assassinated: includes it easy” in Swedish) is a fan- quite a lot of tattoos—basically on your own legs. It sprung from that I did four sessions, of about five only Morse code, so people will have Using the technique, which cap- Steve Bailey watch fob, pocket knife, handkerchief and zine/magazine project I started my whole body now except my back, idea, taken a little further. hours each. It’s a lot of lines, which I to decipher it before reading it. I tures high-resolution images in dif- confederate five-dollar bill. about a year ago. It features every- hands, neck and head—so it wasn’t didn’t quite realize until we sat don’t know yet but I’m going to step ferent light wavelengths, scholars memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/ Q: What are the articles in this thing from weird and funny artwork a really big step in the end. down the first time. It didn’t hurt it up for sure! I really hope that this and origin. Some experts say the can see details invisible to the na- stern-lincoln/objects.html to articles and novels. In previous is- issue about? that much. Tattooing my foot, ribs, will lead to a bunch of more interest- push toward online archiving ked eye: For example, infrared sues, I wrote about half of the con- Q: Why did you do it? They are about everything from stomach and elbows hurt a lot more. ing projects. I am really happy with could ultimately hurt scholarly light highlights ink containing car- tent, and some friends wrote the It seemed like a really untradi- how the X-chromosome makes us the way it turned out, and I hope work by creating the illusion that bon from crushed charcoal, while Former slaves’ narratives: audio files recorded in nine Southern states rest. But in this issue, number three, tional and extreme way to publish creative, to a story about the pan- Q: Are you pleased with the that people can see the joy that I put everything is available online, ultraviolet light picks up ink con- t I wrote all of the articles except one— the magazine. I think that everyone da’s thumb, to an article about the work of the tattooist? into it. when the digital record remains taining iron. between 1932 and 1975, with 23 Four Walt Whitman notebooks, with full of holes. In the age of instant Researchers in Baltimore dis- interviewees. Some are being made writings from 1842 to 1937, including information, physical artifacts covered a veritable library of an- publicly available for the first time and poetry, prose, proofs and correspondence. seem increasingly at risk of being cient texts hidden in the pages of include transcripts. memory.loc.gov/ memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/ rendered obsolete. a single 13th-century Greek prayer ammem/collections/voices/ whitman/ For now, curators and conserva- book, including an unknown com- Combining craftsmanship and contemporary design tionists say capturing endangered mentary on Aristotle and two manuscripts should be a top prior- missing treatises by the Greek The World Digital Library OLLECT 2009, the interna- ity. mathematician Archimedes. Ctional art fair for contempo- “This could be our only Recently, multispectral imaging www.wdl.org/en Albert Einstein’s rary objects, runs this weekend chance,” says Daniel Wallace, exec- has gotten much less expensive, Last month, Unesco launched this new online archive of significant application for citizenship, in London with some 37 galleries utive director of the Center for allowing researchers to take their artifacts and manuscripts from 30 collections around the world. dated 1936, from the offering ceramics, glass, silver, From left, Miriam Hanid’s ‘Whirlpool Courtesy of Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger the Study of New Testament Manu- equipment into the field. The next National Archives and metalwork, wood and furniture Rosewater Bowl’ (2008), £3,200; scripts, the Texas-based center frontier, researchers say, is using Records Administration. by more than 300 artists. Junko Mori’s ‘A Silver Organism’ that is attempting to digitally pho- CAT scan and X-ray technology to Oracle Bone, about 1200 B.C., www.wdl.org/en/ t “The fair is about particularly (2008), £9,750; Bettina Dittlmann & tograph 2.6 million pages of Greek read brittle scrolls without even from the National Library item/2745/zoom.html Michael Jank’s ‘Foreverrings’ (2008) unique objects made by those do- New Testament manuscripts scat- unrolling them. of China. The flat piece of t in steel (left, £3,100) and silver tered in monasteries and libraries This summer, a new project to bone, inscribed with Chinese (right, £3,300). around the world. The group has decode ancient manuscripts with characters, was used for Collecting discovered 75 New Testament multispectral imaging will begin divination. MARGARET STUDER including “Argus” (2008), a bas- manuscripts, many with unique at the University of Michigan, Ber- www.wdl.org/en/item/290 ket made from peacock feathers commentaries, that were unknown keley, and Columbia. The project, with a poem inside that relates to scholars. led by scholars from Brigham t ing new things with materials Miriam Hanid, courtesy of Bishopsland Educational Trust to Argus, the ancient giant with Mr. Wallace says one of the Young, will scan 400 papyrus Christopher Columbus’s diary from 1493, in which the Courtesty of Adrian Sassoon and processes,” says Rosy Green- s 100 eyes that, according to myth, rare, 10th-century manuscripts pieces. Among the specimens: pa- explorer describes the lands he discovered, from the lees, executive director at the organic forms forged in silver. Lamb says he is more concerned U.K. artist-metalworker Mir- now adorn the peacock (£1,500). they photographed was in a pri- pyrus fragments from rolls that Center for the Study of the History of Mexico Carso. U.K. Crafts Council, the organizer Her “A silver organism” (2008), with function than aesthetic and iam Hanid, 23 years old, is a hot Bonhams on May 19 will hold vate collection and was later sold, were stuffed inside mummified www.wdl.org/en/item/2962 of the fair. Galleries come from a prickly flower-like object style. “I don’t see myself as a young talent. “I was a painter an auction of contemporary glass page by page, for $1,000 a piece. Egyptian crocodiles in the 1st cen- the U.K., Ireland, Central Europe, forged in fine silver, is priced at sculptor,” he says. “I’m simply originally,” she says. “So I ap- objects. The catalog cover fea- Others are simply disintegrating, tury B.C., which are thought to Scandinavia, the U.S., Japan and £9,750. fascinated with the material.” proach metals freely without tures a vessel formed from eaten away by rats and worms, or contain ancient legal documents, Recent breakthroughs Australia. Their stands are London dealer Katie Jones is His latest piece—a chair made strict rules.” At the fair, she has threads of bright color, “More rotting. contracts and perhaps literary spread over three floors at the also focused on objects from Ja- from granite found in Corn- a silver bowl in the shape of a Tropical Chaos” (1999), by Ameri- A cascade of groundbreaking works. Their efforts could reveal Digitization projects are also bringing previously unknown manuscripts to the Web, where scholars and Internet Saatchi Gallery on King’s Road. pan, where contemporary artists well—is at The Scottish Gallery. whirlpool that makes an unusual can artist Toots Zynsky (esti- discoveries in the past decade, un- text that scholars have been labor- surfers alike can look at high-resolution images of new discoveries from the ancient world. The contemporary objects sec- draw on the country’s long tradi- His works sell for between £800 table centerpiece (£3,200). It’s mate: £8,000-£10,000). The auc- leashed by new technology, has ing to read for decades, including tor took off in the U.S. in the tion of decorative arts to make and £10,000. for sale at the stand of Bishop- tion illustrates the enormous va- stoked the sense of urgency. Multi- a partially obscured play by Eurip- The Archimedes Palimpsest The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Codex Sinaiticus 1980s and 1990s, and has seen dynamic new pieces. Among the Germany’s Bettina Dittlmann sland Educational Trust, a U.K. riety of the handmade glass mar- spectral imaging—originally devel- ides. archimedespalimpsest.org www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/ growth more recently in Europe, works on her stand: a glass vase and Michael Jank worked for 10 organization that offers postgrad- ket—from the purely aesthetic to oped by NASA to capture satellite “It’s being called a second Re- Researchers at the Walters Art This represents one of the largest manuscript.aspx says Claire Beck of Adrian Sas- reminiscent of cascading water years on their jewelry project uate training workshops for sil- objects that make more of a naissance,” says Todd Hickey, a cu- Museum in Baltimore uncovered a collections of ancient papyri, Portions of the 4th-century Bible soon, a leading London contem- by Ritsui Mishima priced at “Foreverrings,” hammering an- versmiths. statement, such as British artist WSJ.com rator of papyri at the University 10th-century copy of two treatises some 500,000 pieces excavated manuscript are now scattered porary ceramics and glass gal- £7,000-£7,500; and a pair of mon- cient-looking rings in gold, silver, Scottish artist Anna S. King David Reekie’s “Mindless Technol- of California, Berkeley, which has by the Greek mathematician around 1900 in Egypt. One sample in several collections around the Antiquities roadshow Archimedes, concealed underneath fragment on view online contains world, but the complete text is lery. Among the international umental copper vases by Toru copper or steel (price: weaves mysterious baskets that ogy” (2003), a group of four help- See a slideshow of digitally some 26,000 pieces of papyrus, the text of a 13th-century elegiac verses by seventh-century being reassembled, in digital form, names on her stand will be Ja- Kaneko (£6,000). Œ1,000-Œ4,000 at Galerie Rose- enclose a text. On the Craftscot- less-looking glass robots (esti- preserved ancient treasures, at many still unread. “It’s revealing pan’s Junko Mori, known for her U.K. designer-craftsman Max marie Jäger). land stand are 10 of her works mate: £6,000-£7,000). things that we didn’t have a hope prayerbook. B.C. poet Archilochus. on the Web. WSJ.com/Lifestyle of reading in the past.” iStockphoto (mouse cursor)

W10 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W7 v Books Belgium’s comic-book crisis The next Age of Discovery: Jean Van Hamme seeks a worthy successor to provide words for the country’s beloved graphic novels

By Daniel Michaels Scholars race to digitize archives EAN VAN HAMME IS a giant of Belgium’s comic-book world Jeven though he can’t draw. By Alexandra Alter The 70-year-old former market- N A 21ST-CENTURY version of ing executive writes the stories the age of discovery, teams of that fill the white bubbles of Bel- Icomputer scientists, conserva- gium’s best-selling graphic-novel tionists and scholars are fanning series. Hits ranging from “Largo out across the globe in a race to Winch,” a saga of business in- digitize crumbling literary trea- trigue, to “Thorgal,” a Viking fan- sures. tasy adventure, have been trans- In the process, they’re uncover- lated into 25 languages. His 19-vol- ing unexpected troves of new ume “XIII,” a riff on Robert Lud- finds, including never-before-seen lum’s “Bourne Identity,” recently versions of the Christian Gospels, aired as a TV miniseries in the U.S. fragments of Greek poetry and In his native land, this makes commentaries on Aristotle. Im- Mr. Van Hamme a comic-book proved technology is allowing re- hero. searchers to scan ancient texts Belgium is so comic-crazy that that were once unreadable—black- the books are published in hard- ened in fires or by chemical ero- cover, printed in rich colors on Above, a cover and page from the sion, painted over or simply too glossy paper and sell for about Largo Winch series by Philippe Francq fragile to unroll. $15 apiece. Publishers churned out & Jean Van Hamme (pictured at left); Now, scholars are studying more than 4,000 new titles last far left, a cartoon mural in Brussels. these works with X-ray fluores- year. Museums and art-school cur- cence, multispectral imaging used ricula are devoted to comics. by NASA to photograph Mars and Around Brussels, murals of comic- Verstappen, a clerk at a comics CAT scans used by medical techni- book characters adorn 37 build- store in Brussels. Says Mr. Van cians. ings. A towering picture of Tintin, Hamme: “My goal is to be a popu- A Benedictine monk from Min- Belgium’s most famous cartoon, lar storyteller.” nesota is scouring libraries in greets train travelers arriving Some of Mr. Van Hamme’s big- Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and from Paris and London. Brussels gest successes came through the Georgia for rare, ancient Christian officials Thursday unveiled what exploration of subjects that few manuscripts that are threatened they said is the world’s largest would have dared tackle in com- by wars and black-market looters; comic, a 21-by-32-meter reproduc- ics, says Mr. Verstappen. so far, more than 16,500 of his tion of one page from a Tintin ad- “SOS Happiness” examines the finds have been digitized. This venture, amid celebrations mark- tradeoff between security and free- summer, a professor of computer ing 2009 as the city’s “year of the dom in a quasi-totalitarian Euro- science at the University of Ken- comic strip.” pean society 20 years in the fu- tucky plans to test 3-D X-ray scan- Wayne Torborg Now, as Mr. Van Hamme nears ture, and protagonists deal with ning on two papyrus scrolls from the end of his career, he’s search- issues such as medical care. Pompeii that were charred by vol- For as long as great manu- 1,200 texts and artifacts and is ex- which date to the 10th and 11th ies and churches, and trains local ing for a worthy successor. “I will ing the world as a marketing man- “The Barley Masters”—the tale canic ash in 79 A.D. Scholars have script collections have existed, pected to grow to house millions centuries. Some works photo- people to scan the manuscripts. probably be dead in 10 years, so ager for U.S. Steel, Mr. Van of a brewing dynasty that begins never before been able to read or their contents have been vulnera- of items. graphed by the monastery have Once the labs are set up, the part of my role is to pass the Hamme started drafting one or in the late 19th century and spins even open the scrolls, which now ble. The ancient Library of Alexan- One of the most ambitious digi- since turned up on the black mar- projects cost roughly $20,000 a torch,” he says during an inter- two stories a year for a Belgian into 20th-century corporate Amer- sit in the French National Insti- dria in Egypt burned down in 48 tal preservation projects is being ket or eBay, he says. year in private donations. A simi- view in his study as he lights a comics magazine as a hobby. ica—is as much socioeconomic his- tute in Paris. B.C., incinerating works by Aeschy- led, fittingly, by a Benedictine Among the treasures that Rev. lar effort to digitize Greek New Gauloises and examines the draft After five years, a friend con- tory as soap opera. By taking high-resolution digi- lus, Euripides and Sophocles; to- monk. Father Columba Stewart, ex- Stewart has digitally captured: a Testament manuscripts by the cover art for a new comic. nected Mr. Van Hamme with an Mr. Van Hamme’s most unlikely tal images in 14 different light day, out of more than 120 plays by ecutive director of the Hill Mu- unique Syriac manuscript of a Texas-based Center for the Study There’s a problem, however: He American comics publisher to ex- success came as he resurrected wavelengths, ranging from infra- Sophocles, only seven survive. seum and Manuscript Library at 12th-century account of the Cru- of New Testament Manuscripts says the scripts he gets from aspir- plore creating an ambitious Bel- Largo Winch again, but as a comic red to ultraviolet, Oxford scholars While conservationists are St. John’s Abbey and University in sades, written by Syrian Christian costs roughly $10,000 a week for ing Belgian writers are hopeless. gian-style series that might sell in strip. are reading bits of papyrus that quick to stress that pixels and Minnesota, cites his monastic or- patriarch Michael the Great. The staffing, travel and equipment. Aficionados are worried, too. the U.S. Mr. Van Hamme proposed The feature, which chronicles were discovered in 1898 in an an- bytes can never replace priceless der’s long tradition of copying text, a composite of historical ac- Even as companies such as Goo- “There are so few good writ- making the protagonist a rich play- adventures of a dashing young cient garbage dump in central physical artifacts, many see digiti- texts to ensure their survival as counts and fables, was last stud- gle try to take digital archiving ers.…It’s a crisis,” laments Rey- boy, Largo Winch. That project col- man who unexpectedly inherits a Egypt. So far, researchers have dig- zation as a vital tool for increas- inspiration. ied in the 1890s by a French mainstream, uploading entire col- nold Leclercq, who owns one of lapsed, but Mr. Van Hamme kept conglomerate based in Manhattan, itized about 80% of the collection ing public access to rare items, His mission: digitizing some scholar who made an incomplete lections remains prohibitively ex- the 20 or so stores in Brussels de- thinking about how to bring his spills over with both attractive of 500,000 fragments, dating from while at the same time creating a 30,000 endangered manuscripts handwritten copy. Western schol- pensive. Scanning books costs voted to comics. character to life. women and paunchy men in suits. the 2nd century B.C. to the 8th disaster-proof record and perhaps within the Eastern Christian tradi- ars have never studied the com- roughly 10 cents a page for regu- Most Belgians who want a ca- In 1976, when Mr. Van Hamme Textbook-like Largo Winch titles century A.D. The texts include unearthing new information. tions, a canon that includes liturgi- plete original, which was locked in lar books, and up to $100 or even reer in comics aspire to be illustra- was a manager at Philips Electron- such as “Takeover Bid” and “The fragments of unknown works by A digital arms race has been cal texts, Biblical commentaries a church vault in Aleppo, Syria. $1,000 per book for rare manu- tors, not wordsmiths. At the coun- ics in Belgium, he changed course. Price of Money” didn’t deter famous authors of antiquity, lost heating up in recent years as com- and historical accounts in half a Rev. Stewart and his crew per- scripts that require special han- try’s many comic fairs, it’s the art- “One day I decided that being the young readers, even in France, gospels and early Islamic manu- panies pour millions into large- dozen languages, including Arabic, suaded church leaders to let them dling and care. ists around whom thousands director of a department in a mul- where brash American-style capi- scripts. scale digitization projects, includ- Coptic and Syriac, the written photograph it last summer. A re- Many conservationists are pes- swarm for autographs. An exhibi- tinational wasn’t my future,” he talism has long been scorned. A Among their latest findings: an ing Microsoft’s effort to scan form of Aramaic. Rev. Stewart has production will be published this simistic about the prospect of put- tion currently on display at the recalls. He quit to become a full- recent installment in the series alternate version of the Greek play 80,000 books at the British Li- expanded the library’s work to 23 summer, and a digital version will ting entire library collections on- Royal Museums of Fine Arts in time novelist. deals with business corruption in Medea, later immortalized in a ver- brary and IBM’s multimillion-dol- sites, including collections in be available through the library’s line within our lifetimes. The New Brussels called “Belgian Comics: His first effort was to resurrect China. sion by Euripides, on a darkened lar project to create a virtual ver- Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, up Web site. York Public Library—one of the li- Frames of Reference” profiles 20 Largo Winch in novels. The series, “He’s a better economics

piece of papyrus, dated to the 2nd sion of China’s Forbidden City. from two in 2003. He has over- In February, Rev. Stewart trav- brary collections partnering with current comic creators. Only four Photos: Philippe Francq & Jean van Hamme/Cinebook Ltd/Dupuis (2); Daniel Michaels/The Wall Street Journal (2) which was panned as a poor man’s teacher than most economists, be- century A.D. In the newly discov- The Ford Foundation and other or- seen the digital preservation of eled to Assyrian and Chaldean Google—has digitally archived are writers, including Mr. Van James Bond, flopped. cause he’s more credible,” says Di- ered version—written by Greek ganizations are funding a drive to some 16,500 manuscripts, some of Christian communities in Kurdish some 800,000 items, including Hamme. lishers are taking books to which wanted to tell stories,” Mr. De At the same time, Mr. Van dier Pasamonik, a curator of the playwright Neophron—Medea translate and digitize some villages in northern Iraq, where he 30,000 in the last nine months, The silver-haired master, who they own rights and hiring illustra- Graeve says. Hamme also wrote comics, includ- Royal Museums’ exhibition on doesn’t kill her children, says Dirk 700,000 manuscripts in Timbuktu, hopes to soon begin work on col- but still has close to 50 million writes in French, says he wants to tors to create graphic novels. Even That changed in the 1960s. “A ing one called “Story Without comics. Mr. Pasamonik compares Obbink, director of Oxford’s Oxy- Mali. The world’s oldest function- lections in ancient monastic librar- books and artifacts available only help aspiring writers succeed. To American authors, such as crime new generation of artists wanted Hero,” about a group of plane- Mr. Van Hamme to renowned rhynchus Papyri Project. ing monastery, St. Catherine’s in ies. in print. develop new talent, he recently se- writer Donald Westlake and 19th- to show that comics were not just crash survivors. Then “Thorgal” French 19th-century novelists War and political instability in Egypt, is digitally photographing “You have these ancient Chris- “In the current economic cli- lected 10 authors to create century realist Stephen Crane, for children,” says Mr. De Graeve. and “XIII” took off. By the early Émile Zola and Honoré de Balzac artifact-rich regions such as Af- its collection of roughly 5,000 tian communities, there since the mate, the idea of really broad, spinoffs of his “XIII” series. Each now have French-language comics. Illustrators became like cinematog- 1980s, his stories were selling hun- for his ability to wrap complex so- ghanistan and Iraq, where untold scrolls and manuscripts, including beginning of Christianity, which deep digitization of a large scale author is expanding upon one of At the Belgian Comic Strip Cen- raphers, striving to create increas- dreds of thousands of copies, in a cial issues or the workings of mun- numbers of antiquities have been the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates are evaporating,” he says. He’s is really off the table for the next the minor characters in the series, ter, a museum in Brussels, spokes- ingly elaborate frames conveying business accustomed to selling a dane business transactions into lost through looting and destruc- to 330 A.D. and is thought to be now seeking access to manuscript couple of years,” says Joshua extending their stories into whole man Willem De Graeve says the mood, emotion and action. small fraction of that. page-turning narratives. tion, have ignited the push to digi- the oldest Bible in the world. collections in Iran and Georgia. Greenberg, director of digital strat- books. Mr. Van Hamme says he’s shortage marks a big shift from As a child, Mr. Van Hamme was “With Van Hamme, comics be- Mr. Van Hamme, who traces tize rare documents. Recent trage- Last month, the United Nations With his black monk’s habit, egy and scholarship for the New sending the authors back for re- the post-World War II era, when an avid reader of comics. “It was came best sellers,” says Frédéric his literary roots to disposable dies, such as the earthquake in launched a “World Digital Library” trimmed gray beard and deferen- York Public Library. “It’s a shame, write after rewrite, “like a drill Belgium’s comic classics were pro- like our mother’s milk, but I never Niffle, a Belgian comics publisher comic strips of the 1940s, laughs L’Aquila, Italy, and the collapse with materials from 30 libraries tial manner, Rev. Stewart has been because we’re at the point where sergeant.” duced. thought about making comics,” he and biographer of Mr. Van off the lofty comparison. “I will this past March of the Cologne and archives around the world, in- able to make inroads into closed we really know how to do it.” Nine of the 10 authors are from Tintin, the Smurfs and a car- recalls. Hamme. “He completely changed never write a great novel,” he city archives in Germany, where cluding the oracle bones, which communities that are often suspi- An even more pressing concern France. “I couldn’t find any prom- toon cowboy named Lucky Luke While earning degrees in law, the industry.” says. conservationists are still working hold the earliest Chinese writings, cious of Western scholars and for some scholars is that shoddy ising young Belgians,” Mr. Van became famous as much for their engineering, finance and journal- By the 1990s, Mr. Van Hamme’s Still, he’s disappointed that he frantically to retrieve texts from and an 8,000-year-old rock paint- fiercely protective of their texts. imaging work might damage manu- Hamme says. yarns as their pictures. Tintin cre- ism in the mid-1960s, he worked comics were selling so well that hasn’t inspired more competition. the rain-soaked rubble, serve as ing from South Africa. The Armed with 23-megapixel cameras scripts or fail to capture key de- Bereft of good writers to feed ator Georges Prosper Remi, who translating Peanuts and Blondie “many alternative artists saw him “I would love to have a lot of reminders of how quickly cultural project, which cost $10 million in and scanning cradles, he sets up tails, such as binding styles, which Belgium’s highly trained artists went by the pen name Hergé, comics into French for Belgian as the enemy—only doing enter- young lions trying to eat me,” he relics can be wiped out. private donations, has images of imaging labs on site in monaster- give clues to a manuscript’s date with stories, several Belgian pub- “learned to draw because he newspapers. In 1968, while travel- tainment for money,” says Nicolas says. The Archimedes Palimpsest Project

W6 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W11 DISTINCTIVE PROPERTIES &ESTATES Lights, camera, transaction

By Candace Jackson SCAR-WINNING director Steven Soderbergh is known Ofor going back and forth be- tween genres with his films. His credits include the star-driven pop- corn flick “Ocean’s Thirteen”; the critically-acclaimed 2000 hit, “Traf- fic”; and the two-part, four-hour Spanish-language film “Che.” With its $1.8 million budget, improvised script and a porn actress in the lead, his latest film may be one of his most unusual. Set during the very recent past— October 2008—“The Girlfriend Ex- Corbis perience” chronicles six days in the Adult film star Sasha Grey (left) stars life of a $2,000-an-hour call girl in in ‘The Girlfriend Experience,’ directed the midst of an economically uncer- by Steven Soderbergh (above). tain era. The film, which hits the- Magnolia Pictures aters in New York and Los Angeles how to expand her “brand” to reach give you a job.”’ The exchange lasted Space page. “I write him back and they all look like they’re in porn, the on May 22, and opens in France on more customers. about eight minutes, and was edited say, ‘OK, how am I supposed to be- way they’re coiffed. It’s really crazy. July 15, was shot on location at a va- Mr. Soderbergh says after experi- down to a one minute scene in the fi- lieve you?”’ says Ms. Grey, who There’s this like hyper-grooming riety of of-the-moment restaurants menting by casting a few politicians nal version of the film. “My experi- didn’t have a manager at the time. thing going on now, men and women. and hotels in Manhattan over 16 and journalists to play themselves in ence has been, the more takes you Then, “I got home one day and there I was never thinking, oh, what an days leading up to the 2008 U.S. previous movies like “Erin Brockov- do, the worse it gets,” says Mr. was a voicemail [from] Steven outré thing to do to put a porn actor presidential election. It stars a cast ich” and “Traffic,” he wanted to Soderbergh. Soderbergh and I pretty much lost in a quote-unquote normal movie. I of mostly non-professional actors. make an entire film with a cast of Since being cast in the film, Ms. it, it was pretty amazing,” says the just thought she was interesting.” The screenplay is by Brian Koppel- non-actors. New York magazine Grey, who has starred in over 150 actress. Despite the subject matter and man and David Levien, a duo that’s writer Mark Jacobson plays a jour- adult films since turning 18 (many A few weeks ago, Ms. Grey the casting, the “Girlfriend Experi- scripted such films as “Rounders” nalist and Chelsea’s real boyfriend, a of them on the hardcore end of the formed her own production com- ence” isn’t really about sex at all, and “Ocean’s Thirteen.” personal trainer, is played by Chris porn spectrum) has drawn compari- pany, and plans to produce and di- says Mr. Soderbergh, who also di- Twenty-one-year-old adult film Santos, a personal trainer. “It’s a way sons to Jenna Jameson, another rect her own adult films. She says rected the 1989 film “Sex, Lies and star Sasha Grey plays Chelsea, or to retain a messiness or life-like feel- adult film actor who has crossed she has no illusions about becoming Videotape.” It’s more about “trans- Christine, as she’s also known, an ing of not being too planned out,” over to the mainstream with a best- a conventional movie star, but she actions,” he says. emotionally steely young woman says Mr. Soderbergh. “You never selling book and guest hosting slots hopes to have a career that crosses The October timing of the shoot juggling her job as a girlfriend-for- know what you’re going to get.” on E!. Ms. Grey has modeled for over into the mainstream. “I think was a lucky break, allowing the ac- hire and her relationship with her For instance, a scene where Mr. American Apparel and appeared in the climate is right, though I do tors to naturally engage in anxious real-life boyfriend. There’s not Santos’s character interviews for a a music video for the rock band know I have an uphill battle,” says discussions about the economic col- much nudity in the film, though Ms. job at a gym was done in a single Smashing Pumpkins. Mr. Soder- Ms. Grey. lapse and the election. “I think it cer- Grey’s character keeps a detailed take. Mr. Soderbergh says he simply bergh says he discovered her when Mr. Soderbergh says it’s no tainly plays to the core of the movie record of her work. (“I met with set up two cameras and instructed he read an interview in a Los Ange- longer taboo to hire porn actors for that everybody was obsessed with Philip on October 5th and 6th,” she Mr. Santos and the gym’s actual les magazine where she discussed jobs outside the sex industry. “It’s so the economy during this period we says. “I wore Michael Kors dress manager to do a mock interview. “I her career choice. One of film’s mainstream now,” he says. “When were making the movie,” he says. and shoes with La Perla lingerie un- just said, ‘try and get a job from this screenwriters then contacted her by you look at people who are transmit- “For me, it was just fun to listen to derneath.”) She also frets about guy. See if you can convince him to sending a message through her My- ting the news to you on television them talk.” Code warrior: Ron Howard on directing the ‘Da Vinci’ sequel By Peter Sanders It’s a really thrilling and pres- N HIS NEARLY FIVE decades in surized experience. The city of IHollywood, Ron Howard has Rome gave us finite amounts of checked almost every accomplish- time for each scene down to the ment off the list, from acting to pro- hour. I had several dyed-in-the- ducing to winning an Academy wool New Yorkers on my crew who Award for best director. With his said it was a bit like shooting in latest film “Angels & Demons,” Times Square every day. Always tir- he’ll finally be able to cross “mak- ing, but doable. ing a sequel” off his list. The fol- low-up to 2006’s blockbuster hit Q: Did the production hit any “The Da Vinci Code” is also based speed bumps in Italy because of on a novel by author Dan Brown sensitivities regarding the Catho- and again stars Tom Hanks in the lic Church and the movie’s plot? role of symbologist Robert Lang- There were some locations, that don as he pursues mysteries by all rights we were supposed to within the Catholic Church. Mr. have access to—in front of certain Howard, 55 years old, is also a pro- A scene from ‘Angels & Demons,’ churches, for instance. But two or ducer on the film. directed by Ron Howard (left). three days beforehand we were re-

Photos: Columbia Pictures quested not to shoot there by local Q: “Angels & Demons” was ac- officials. I think that church offi- tually published in 2000, three got pushed back by about six There’s still a lot of pressure be- Code” in theaters that just isn’t cials gave the word to the local gov- years before “The Da Vinci months. How did that affect the cause while “The Da Vinci Code” there this time. Why is that? ernment that they didn’t want us Co-ops & Condos East MIAMI'S ELEGANT BRICKELL AVE. SALE HOUSE Code.” What was the thinking be- project as a whole? sold 80 million copies, this one First, I don’t think “Angels & De- filming in certain places. Manhattan - 50's East Villa Regina designed by Yaacov Agam. Tower hind how you decided to treat First, it meant that I got a little still sold 40 million. And while the mons” holds that unique position 57th St 1100 S.F Penthouse unique 1/1 on Biscayne Bay w/spec- 350m2 in restored medieval castle tacular 180 deg. views of bay, ocean & city. 200 30m north Rome “Angels & Demons” as sequel in- more sleep. But pushing it back movie doesn’t cost what the big in pop culture like “The Da Vinci Q: Did that have a big impact PIED-À-TERRE sf balcony, 12' ceilings, marble floors, 2 cov/pk 7 acres park pool tennis etc. stead of a prequel? was also a function of the process comic-book movies cost, it’s still Code” did. As a storyteller, I was on how the film turned out? Sizzling Italian Masterpiece! spaces, marine space available. Great amenities Euro 1.300,00 Well, this is the first sequel I’ve of adapting something as compli- an expensive Hollywood movie aware of a lot of different audi- I don’t think so. We did what we Hi Flr Renov. Furn. 1BR, 1.5B incl. gym, sauna, pool & meeting rooms, 24 hour (39) 39 11 33 847 and cated as the book. We didn’t want and there’s awareness and antici- ences that approached “The Da Pogen Pohl Kit TERR concierge, valet & security. Central location. ever made and we felt that the story could and despite the various chal- City vus Move in $330,000 Negotiable - Cell: 1-239-263-6707 [email protected] could be shaped in a way that made to rush it into production if it pation for the story. Of course, it Vinci Code” from their own per- lenges, I think we managed to w/Hotel services. it clear it was a Robert Langdon ad- wasn’t ready to go. And, we were means a lot to Sony, too. All that sonal vantage points. With “Angels make a film that will take people Web# 1015943 venture, not necessarily tied to any basically doing “Frost/Nixon” and said, it’s a fraction of the pressure I & Demons,” while it’s still thought- on this adventure. Ellen Schatz 212.891.7673 specific timeline. We felt that we “Angels & Demons” simulta- felt making “The Da Vinci Code,” provoking and very original terri- MAKE GREAT To advertise could take the story in “Angels” and neously and [the delay] meant that since the novel was already contro- tory for a mystery thriller, it I got to do them back-to-back in- versial and had been viewed from doesn’t carry with it all the pres- WSJ.com Emma Balogun using Tom’s [Hanks] evolution as CONNECTIONS the Langdon character really just stead. That’s easier on the direc- so many different vantages and ence of existing at the center of the The Wall Street Journal Europe Screening room CHEAP AMERICAN LAND IN EUROPE. make it work as a follow-up. tor, no question. perspectives. pop culture zeitgeist. +44 207 842 9608 See clips from ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ and Call 912-729-5544 THE WALL STREET [email protected] Q: How does the experience of Q: It seems like there was Q: I know you shot a bunch of Q: Last year’s screenwriters’ ‘Angels & Demons,’ at making “Angels & Demons” com- much more hoopla surrounding exterior scenes in Rome. What or visit JOURNAL EUROPE. strike delayed the start of pro- WSJ.com/Lifestyle duction and the movie’s release pare to “The Da Vinci Code”? the arrival of “The Da Vinci was that experience like? www.VacantLandAmerica.com

W12 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W5 v Film Virtuoso performances in ‘The Soloist’

HE SOLOIST” IS actually a duet on the theme of re- ‘Tdemption. It’s scored for two very different though equally re- markable actors, and performed with uncanny bravura. Jamie Foxx is Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic street musician who was once a dis- tinguished student at Juilliard. Rob- ert Downey Jr. is Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles Times columnist who

Film JOE MORGENSTERN first befriended Ayers in 2005, then wrote about their friendship in a se- ries of columns and a book that in- spired the movie. The fictional ver- sion, directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Susannah Grant, occa- sionally suffers from a surfeit of in- Sony Pictures Classics spirationalism, but its core is mar- WSJ.com his capacity as philosophical narra- velously alive and complex. My tor, Batuta traces soccer’s roots to sense of the experience was pre-Colombian games that used a summed up by a moment when Opening this week in Europe severed head for a ball.) Nathaniel, sitting in on an L.A. Phil- n Adventureland Turkey Sibling rivalry provides much of harmonic rehearsal at Disney Hall, n Confessions of a Shopaholic France the film’s text, but its comic texture says with intense pleasure, “It’s the n Coraline Bulgaria is woven from the brothers’ foolish way it should be.” n Defiance Denmark dreams of glory, their charmingly Should be, and seldom is. Films n Everlasting Moments U.K. fatuous delight in newfound wealth— have romanticized mental illness, n Observe and Report Norway Cursi buys a yellow Hummer for a as in “Shine,” or surrealized it, as in n Role Models Italy girlfriend who has gold-digger writ- “A Beautiful Mind,” but this one ten all over her gorgeous face—and n Rudo y Cursi Portugal plays essentially fair with it. Music their belief that they’re in control of n Sunshine Cleaning Germany is Nathaniel’s only refuge from the their lives. (They’re not the only n The Uninvited Denmark, Lithuania terrors and confusions of a merci- ones. Rudo’s wife thinks she’s on her less brain disease that ravaged his Source: IMDB way to prosperity by selling a Herb- talent, destroyed his shining future WSJ.com subscribers can read reviews of alife-like product called Wonder- these films and others at WSJ.com/FilmReview as a classical cellist and defies any- life.) thing resembling a cure. The movie DreamWorks You’d never know this was a de- is no less successful in its portrait of Above, Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie geles with the spacious grandeur of but film. Unlike Rudo and Cursi, a journalist working at his craft. Foxx in ‘The Soloist’; right, Johannes a Beethoven symphony. Mr. Wright who don’t know their left from their Other films, most recently “State of Krisch and Ursula Strauss in ‘Revanche’; and his colleagues have made a right, Mr. Cuarón directs with a Play,” reach for the fraught drama of top right, Diego Luna in ‘Rudo y Cursi.’ movie with a spaciousness of its hand that’s as sure as it is deft. The contemporary journalism, but this own, a brave willingness to explore music is terrific, and Adam Kim- one nails a host of authentic details— such mysteries of the mind and mel’s cinematography bathes the Steve Lopez’s paper has already be- oquies that sound like the spiritual heart as the torture that madness movie’s cheerful absurdities in a gun the slide that imperils its future— equivalent of a racing engine and a can inflict, and the rapture that mu- beautiful glow. along with a special spirit. Far from slipping clutch. By sharp contrast, sic can confer. Bravo to all con- ‘Revanche’ being a bleeding heart, Lopez starts Mr. Downey’s columnist provides a cerned. his journey of discovery as a self- bracing coolness, at least at first. ‘Rudo y Cursi’ It’s amazing how much drama ironic reporter on the trail of a good Equipped with the actor’s character- can come out of repression and re- story. istically clipped vocal rhythms, “Rudo y Cursi,” a fable of two straint. Götz Spielmann’s Oscar- Although movies often borrow Steve tries to resist taking on re- poor brothers who become soccer nominated “Revanche,” a powerful the emotional power of great music, sponsibility for his subject’s tumul- sensations, reunites three alumni of German-language film, centers on “The Soloist” boasts its own rich dy- tuous life. It’s hard to imagine these the now-classic Mexican movie “Y four people who are not, to put it namics and contrasting tonalities. roles played by anyone else, even Janus Films Tu Mamá También”—the co-stars mildly, flamboyant. One of the men, Mr. Foxx’s musician provides the though Mr. Foxx played another pas- At certain points less might have Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, an ex-con named Alex (a stunning passion. Nathaniel cuts a bizarre fig- sionate musician, Ray Charles, not been more: the overuse of orches- and the writer, Carlos Cuarón, who performance by Johannes Krisch), ure as he plays a two-stringed violin long ago. The co-stars are both virtu- tral power; the over-lyrical flight of makes his directorial debut, work- can’t express the love he feels for in a downtown park near a statue of osos, and their styles combine to cre- symbolic birds (and camera cranes); ing from his own script. (The earlier Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrai- his beloved Beethoven. Still, his gar- ate a harmony of friendship that can- the decision to make Nathaniel a mu- film was directed by his brother Al- nian prostitute in the Austrian ish clothes barely hint at the florid not fix the unfixable, or redeem the sical genius right up there with Ros- fonso.) It’s a happy occasion for all brothel where he works. The other disorder of his mind, which makes it- irredeemable, but gradually grows tropovich rather than a merely nota- concerned, a comedy of substance man, a village cop named Robert self known through enthralling solil- into mutual help and a kind of love. ble talent; the false note that ensues that feels as casual as a pickup game (Andreas Lust), can’t confide in his when he seems unfamiliar with played on a dirt field. wife, Susanne (Ursula Strauss), Bach’s peerless cello suites. Instead In fact, the staging of the soccer who’s working through the grief of a Arbitrage of the hell on earth that was skid sequences could hardly be more ca- recent miscarriage. By the end, row in downtown L.A. when the sual, or less convincing. Don’t though, we know all four better story begins, the movie evokes a cir- bother with this one if you’re look- than they’ve ever known them- The price of Bob Dylan’s CD cle of Dante’s Inferno. The religious ing for a sports epic, but do seek it selves, and care more about them zealotry of a professional cellist is a out if you’re up for picaresque riffs than we could have imagined during clumsily written intrusion. The on the perils of overnight success, the slow, deliberate beginning. ‘Together Through Life’ script, which fictionalizes Steve Lo- and for the pleasure of watching The title means “revenge,” but pez into a divorcé, insists overmuch first-rate actors in action. Mr. Luna that’s a deliberate simplification; Local on similarities between his fear of is the goalie Rudo—his nickname Mr. Spielmann’s film is full of sur- City currency Œ becoming responsible for Nathaniel means “tough”—a goofball with a prises and, in its distinctive way, full and his failings in married life (al- gambling habit and an appetite for of life. The less you know about the Hong Kong HK$105 Œ10 though Catherine Keener, wonder- cocaine. Mr. Bernal is the lineman plot the better, though there’s no New York $14 Œ10 fully appealing as his ex-wife, is es- Cursi, which means “corny”; he cher- harm in saying it’s a construction pecially so in the scene that draws ishes the notion, despite the ab- that brings both couples to the inter- London £10 Œ11 the parallels most closely.) sence of supporting evidence, that section of violence and compassion. Brussels Œ13 Œ13 Yet these are smallish blemishes he’s an even better singer than he is Does that sound pretentious? “Re- on a beautiful whole, and a beauti- an athlete. Guillermo Francella, a vanche” is anything but. It’s cer- Frankfurt Œ13 Œ13 fully photographed whole: Seamus marvelous actor from Argentina, is tainly spare, yet never for a moment Paris Œ15 Œ15 McGarvey, who shot Joe Wright’s the slippery-smart soccer scout Bat- uninvolving. The very first shot— previous film, “Atonement,” has uta. He brings Rudo and Cursi from Martin Gschlacht did the superb cin- Rome Œ19 Œ19 done superb work in sequence after a banana plantation in the boon- ematography—predicts what’s to sequence, including some down- docks to Mexico City, where they come: A rock shatters a pond’s tran- Tokyo ¥2,520 Œ19 ward-looking helicopter shots that flourish on opposing teams before quil surface, sending waves in every Note: Prices, including taxes, as provided by retailers in each city, averaged and converted into euros. juxtapose the eerie sprawl of Los An- taking their foredoomed falls. (In direction.

W4 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W13 v Top Picks v Fashion A ‘Godot’ worth waiting for High anxiety in the underwear department

London: Audiences no longer Patrick Stewart’s Vladimir, whose National Archive OXERS OR BRIEFS? For de- length pants. cotton knits he wears at have much difficulty with Samuel bladder problems present his com- ‘View of New Amsterdam’ (circa 1665), cades, this choice has been The prices have changed, too. home. Pondering a pair Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” No- panion with repeated comic opportu- by Johannes Vingboons. Bconsidered a key to a man’s in- The Calvin Klein Steel Gripper of trunks, he com- body now bewails its obscurity. But nities. In his role Mr. Stewart looks ner self. Trunk is $24. At Target, a two-pack mented, “Somehow it even though director Sean Mathi- as though he’s capable of extending No more. Assailing men’s identi- of men’s Merona house-brand box- looks just like a brief, as’s new production at the Theatre the tender sympathy he shows Es- ties are a jumble of underwear op- ers is just $4. Many of the new un- doesn’t it?” For the Royal Haymarket emphasizes the tragon to the whole world—yet he Dutch artifacts tions, such as the boxer-brief and dergarments arrive in fancy packag- record, trunks are work’s comic, even playful aspects, too manages to make the prospect of the gripper trunk, not to mention ing such as mirrored cellophane and shorter than a knit our abundant laughter does not dis- a double hanging seem like an invita- from the time they the Y-back thong. carry exotic, inscrutable names boxer but longer than tract from the tragic seriousness of tion to the best party imaginable. As my husband learned while such as Calvin Klein’s BXR-Matrix briefs. “I just want some- the overall vision. When the play’s other two main took Manhattan shopping last week, men’s under- line, which sounds like a motorbike thing in gray,” he said Beckett sets the play at a cross- characters appear, and Estragon Amsterdam: There is, next to but is actually knit boxers. several times. roads, the sole feature of which is and Vladimir have no lines for a long some wonderful 17th-century por- “We’re doing underwear with all Soon, Jim was pacing, the tree from whose boughs the two stretch, these two old stagers be- traits of native Americans, one On Style of our energy and all of our creativ- brows knitted, with handfuls elderly tramps, Estragon and have almost as a single organism. eye-catching painting in the exhibi- CHRISTINA BINKLEY ity,” says Bob Mazzoli, chief cre- of underwear. Each rack of- Vladimir, contemplate with relish They have the perfect timing of vet- tion “Return to Manhattan” at the ative officer of Calvin Klein Under- fered a fresh discovery. Jockey’s the prospect of hanging themselves. eran comic actors, listening, laugh- Rijksmuseum: a view of New Am- wear, which was an early leader in low-cut “Echelon” boxers came in Designer Stephen Brimson Lewis en- ing and accepting the outrageous- sterdam, painted in watercolor by wear these days is a whole new fash- introducing stylish men’s under- gray, which pleased him, but then he larges on this with a beautiful set of ness of the ringmaster, Pozzo, and Johannes Vingboons in 1665. We ion segment. Men’s undies come in a wear. began to consider shaking things the shell of a theater, showing the his demented slave, Lucky. see a harbor, a windmill, a church variety of silhouettes (such as Though its best sellers in the U.S. up with white. back wall, with the tree sprouting Simon Callow is a fine, pear- and lots of tiny houses with red boxer, brief or trunk), rises (such as are the classic brief and the classic Often, men’s fashion deci- from the ruins of the stage, encased shaped Pozzo, with careful diction roofs. The atmosphere is peaceful, low, mid or high), fit options (such boxer-brief, Calvin Klein offers 15 sions get relegated to the women within a decrepit proscenium arch and monstrous selfishness. As with green meadows in a not so as relaxed or slim), colors and pat- underwear “groups,” such as Steel who love them—women being ac- of a Beaux Arts playhouse. The idea Lucky, Ronald Pickup manages bril- far distance. Who could have terns. The fabrics include not only and Pro-Stretch. Mr. Mazzoli says customed to an array of choices. The for the set comes from Beckett’s liantly to keep his undignified si- guessed that this is actually the the traditional woven or knit cotton all the different styles seek to entice vast majority of men’s clothing in hints throughout the text that the lence, to act entirely with his body tip of Manhattan? The English sea but also Lycra, Spandex and various different types of customers, such the U.S. is purchased by women, says duo, during the 50 years they’ve and his eyes, until it is time for his captain Henry Hudson discovered “microfiber” synthetics. as “comfort men”—likely to go for Bridget Brennan, chief executive of known each other intimately, extended, breath-defying rant, the this site some 60 years earlier, in Jockey’s 3D-Innovations Seam- briefs—and “sports men”—inter- Female Factor, a consulting agency worked together in the music hall. pent-up memories of the ages ex- 1609. free Microfiber undies have “eight- ested in such features as support focused on marketing to women. “In

Great productions of “Godot” pressed in a very long monologue. This exhibition marks the way stretch” and offer the service of and stretchy fabrics. almost every society in the world, Lori Hawkins/Elaine Korn Ltd for The Wall Street Journal; Model: Greg Nalbone of Parts Models, NY are not uncommon, and this hugely To Mr. Mathias’s credit, these 400th anniversary of his find with “sculpting and supporting muscular “We want to give him something women bring procurement into the anticipated one joins the historic four memorably moving perfor- a collection of artworks and arti- movement”—which sounds suspi- that he can engage with and not be home,” says Ms. Brennan, who buys “Would you get me these?” he shopping was unfinished and he roll of honor if only because of its mances celebrate and illuminate the facts, such as the original agree- ciously like a men’s version of the just that boring choice,” Mr. Maz- her husband’s underwear. asked. “Honestly?” was running late. He made a mad casting. As Estragon, the smelly- text of this great work. In the end, ment the Dutch East India Com- Spanx body-shapers. To further flat- zoli says. “We don’t think of it as This is true in our home, too. Yet His attention was also arrested dash for the cash register. footed one whose boots pinch pain- despite the complex pessimism of pany had with Hudson. Other ter the male physique, there are pad- just underwear.” Jim seemed intrigued by the possi- by a line called “sculptured sup- Later, Jim discovered that a box fully, Ian McKellen’s face crinkles the play, your spirits are lifted by items include a letter detailing the ded briefs and “profile-enhancing” My husband thinks of it as just bilities. Indeed, choice seemed to port.” He figured he could wear the claiming to contain a thigh-hugging with humor and humanity. Oddly, the sheer physicality and control of purchase of Manhattan in 1626 briefs. underwear. When we went shop- loosen Jim’s natural reserve. He undershirts on his daily runs until I gripper trunk actually held a pair of his Estragon seems younger than their performances. Not so much by from the island’s native Americans “What was once a commodity ping last week, Jim planned to rush stopped at a rack of green and yel- blurted that they looked like ladies’ low-rise, button-front briefs. No Sir Ian’s own 70 years, because he ex- the cheerfulness that keeps break- in exchange for goods valued at seems to have become a fashion ac- to an important meeting after grab- low Polo Ralph Lauren boxer shorts shapewear. He sped away. matter. I tried them on, and I like udes resilience; though his despair ing through as by the feeling that 60 guilders. There is also the origi- cessory,” says Alan Feldman, a cot- bing a handful of his favorite boxer- with hula girls and palm trees. Thirty-five minutes later, Jim’s them. is believable, it seems to proceed misery can be redeemed by art. nal 1667 Treaty of Breda, which ton-boxers man who lives and shops briefs. He had 30 minutes in Macy’s from existential boredom, and not —Paul Levy ended the second Anglo-Dutch in Las Vegas. underwear department, which from the nightly beating he endures Until July 26 War. —Willem Bruls Men’s underwear was once a seemed like plenty of time. Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen at the hands of young thugs. www.waitingforgodottheplay. Until June 1 staid area. Fathers passed their hab- Then he began shopping. He be- as Estragon in ‘Waiting for Godot.’ He is matched mightily by com www.rijksmuseum.nl its and brands along to their sons. A gan opening boxes of “body-stretch Sasha Gusov man who wore boxers in his twen- lo-rise trunks” to ascertain whether ties could expect to meet his maker they looked anything like the gray in the same style. Today, men are confronted with four glorious rooms, arranged so Buddha in the first room here. Its were to be portrayed. new styles in nearly every aspect of WSJ.com as to be conducive to asking ques- curly hair and oval face could eas- One of the great pleasures of their lives, from shampoo to shoes. New V&A gallery Briefs encounter tions of this order. ily mark a descendant of Alex- strolling through these rooms is Newfangled materials and fashion- Watch a video of Christina Binkley Though during the life of its ander the Great. the paradox of seeing how these forward silhouettes encourage men explores the many take her husband Jim founder, Siddhartha Gautama The doctrines common to all unchanging canons actually to shop more, so the casual-clothes shopping for underwear, at faces of Buddha (circa 563 B.C.-483 B.C.), Bud- schools of Buddhism stress evolved. Wall panels and brief department is now a sea of grom- WSJ.com/Fashion dhism was a philosophy suspi- change: Our desires bind us to the films help you see what to look mets, shrunken jackets and flood- London: Have you ever won- cious of image-making, within physical world only because we for in the posture, gaze, eyes, dered why the smile on the face 500 years it had a rich iconogra- do not understand their transient hair, head and hand movements, of the Buddha manages to be se- phy, which traveled from its birth- © V&A Images nature; the only permanent state and signs conveyed by ears, rene without being smug? After place in the northeastern part of is transience. On the face of it, brows, the third eye and the all, someone who’s achieved total the Indian subcontinent through this belief is not very compatible bump of wisdom. The gallery fea- The long and short of men’s underwear enlightenment and complete self- much of the world along trade with art, and particularly not tures about 50 pieces dating be- Men now face a variety of choices. Here are some of the most common styles: knowledge, and has transcended routes. We tend to forget that with sculpture, which produces tween 200 A.D. and 1850. The ex- all desire, is surely allowed a lit- merchants carried it north to Af- objects permanently frozen in hibits range from small portable t Briefs Fourth-century tle self-satisfaction. The new Rob- ghanistan, where Buddhist art space as well as in time. More- objects to an entire 19th-century Buddha head ert H. N. Ho Foundation Buddhist bumped into classical Western over, each of the major schools de- Buddhist shrine from Mandalay. The classic best seller made from Sculpture Gallery at the Victoria art, producing the poignant veloped conventions for how the —Paul Levy unforgettable by Tom Cruise

Afghanistan. and Albert Museum consists of Fourth-century Gandhara head of Buddha, and later his disciples, www.vam.ac.uk in ‘Risky Business.’ These days, it comes in all sorts of t colors, patterns and knits, from cotton to microfiber. Boxers Some versions come with The originals were In Munich, Hals and other stars from the Golden Age of Dutch painting lifting support. made of woven shirting fabric, but Munich: “Frans Hals and Haar- The newly self-confident burghers work Hals chose simpler composi- boxers these days

Boxer-Briefs t lem’s Masters of the Golden Age,” commissioned artists to portray tions and a more sober palette. are also made of at the Kunsthalle der Hypo Kul- themselves, their families and the This phase culminated in the two A knitwear cross between knitwear. They come turstiftung, highlights a time in organizations they served. None masterpieces painted two years be- boxers and briefs, this in the wildest colors the 17th century when the Dutch did it better than Frans Hals fore his death showing the Re- is another best-selling and patterns. city of Haarlem was undergoing (1582-1666), whose work vividly gents and the Regentesses of the category that comes in fundamental political, religious catches the nuance and expression Old Men’s Alms House (1664). every textile imaginable, and social changes. While the of his subjects. This comprehensive show also and with various levels Thongs south of Holland was still em- Especially impressive are the includes still lifes, as well as of support. A big hit in These come in two varieties—an “Fifty Fathoms Automatique” broiled in the Eighty Years’ War, large group portraits showing com- genre, landscape and architectural the U.S. athletically inspired two-strap version (ref. 5015-3630-52) the northern provinces enjoyed panies of the civic guards or the paintings, and monumental ma- and another designed more like women’s prosperity and autonomy. Artists, militia, symbolic of the optimism rine scenes. Hendrick Vroom’s “Ar- thongs, with one strap in the back. who had previously served the of the men who established the rival of Frederick V of the Palati- t t church, turned to new subjects af- new Dutch republic. Among the nate and Elizabeth Stuart in Vliss- Trunks ter the Reformation and found works on display is Hals’s “Assem- ingen” (1623) is a detailed view of A newer knitwear entrant, new patrons in the growing mid- bly of the Officers of the Arquebu- the harbor and the ships bearing trunks are shorter than dle class. siers Guild” (1633). The artist the arriving dignitaries. boxer-briefs but longer than The portrait came into its own. takes care to emphasize the weap- —Mariana Schroeder briefs. They are particularly This show of more than 130 works ons and rich clothing indicating Until June 7 Frans Hals Museum popular in Europe and Asia. WWW.BLANCPAIN.COM contains some stunning examples. the power and wealth. In his later www.hypo-kunsthalle.de ‘Still-Life with Fruits, Nuts and Cheese’ (1613), by Floris van Dijck.

W14 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W3 v Taste 8-9 | Cover story Design 10-11 | Design Masterpiece / By Jill Jonnes Contents Skin deep t 7 Reinventing thoughts That ‘Odious Column’ of Metal 3 | Fashion Collecting: Today the Eiffel Tower, the composer Charles Gounod and ar- The Americans did not hide the miracle of recorded sound at come to see the Eiffel Tower,” Edi- On Style: Briefs encounter the magazine Craftwork world’s most celebrated monu- chitect Charles Garnier all signed their chagrin when they learned the Edison exhibit. son told a mob of journalists Publications that play with the ment and the iconic symbol of this epistolary call to arms, stat- that at 1,000 feet the Eiffel Those emerging from the ele- when he sailed into Le Havre. Af- 4-5 | Belgium’s comic-book crisis Paris, celebrates its 120th anniver- ing that “the Eiffel Tower, which Tower would dethrone their own vator at the tower’s pinnacle ter his first visit to the fair, Edi- Film print medium sary. Strikingly, the fame and al- even commercial America would 555-foot-tall Washington Monu- might have glimpsed Gustave son said: “The Tower is a great lure of this improbable wrought- not have, is without a doubt the ment, finally completed in 1884. Eiffel himself, attired in dark idea. The glory of Eiffel is in the Morgenstern on ‘The Soloist’ 14 | iron masterpiece have only dishonor of Paris.” Sniffed the New York Times’ Prince Albert suit and silk top magnitude of the conception and Top Picks grown with the passing decades. Gustave Eiffel, a self-made mil- Paris correspondent: “The French hat, squiring around yet an- the nerve in the execution.” Nor The tower, built by railway- lionaire whose firm constructed admit [the tower’s] origi- could Edison refrain Soderbergh gets real McKellen and bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel, much-admired bridges all over nality and value, but from boasting that the has become a ubiquitous global the world, happily twitted his they deplore its ugliness U.S. would “build one of Stewart in ‘Godot’ image connoting modernity and critics: “They begin by declaring . . . au fond, they are not 2,000 feet. We’ll go Making ‘Angels & Demons’ glamour, while visitors who expe- that my tower is not French. It is proud to show this gigan- Eiffel 100% better, with- The many faces of Buddha rience it firsthand big enough and tic iron structure to out discount.” 6-7 are still amazed by clumsy enough for strangers. . . . [T]hey When Eiffel heard of | Books the tower’s potent The Eiffel the English or vote it an abomination this later, he said, “We’ll 15 | mixture of spare ele- Tower Americans, but it is and eyesore.” The Times- see about that.” And not Raiders of the lost archives Taste gance, immensity not our style, they man insisted that the until 1929 (six years af- and complexity. And wasn’t always say. We are more Washington Monument ter Eiffel’s death) did an- t Eiffel’s ‘odious column’ of metal when the Eiffel a beloved icon. occupied by little is “after all, more artis- other structure surpass Tower opens to its artistic bibelots. . . tic than the Eiffel the Eiffel Tower in adoring public each . Why should we Tower.” In truth, as the height. It was the 16 | Time Off day, the structure comes to life not show the world what we can Eiffel Tower rose grace- Chrysler Building at as crowds gaily clamber up and do in the way of great engineer- fully into the Parisian 1,046 feet. Two years down its stairs, eating, drinking ing projects?” sky, its unique modern later, the Empire State Our arts and culture calendar and flirting on the three plat- In fact, Eiffel was actually beauty catapulted it to Building wrested away forms high in the sky. Open to erecting what ambitious English world acclaim. An entire that title by reaching the elements, enveloped in and American engineers had only industry rushed to churn 1,250 feet. Moreover, Eiffel’s distinctive design, visitors dreamed of for decades: a thou- out Eiffel Tower repli- while Gustave Eiffel’s Cover photo: Òscar Fuentes can see and touch parts of the sand-foot tower. “What was the cas, as Phillip Cate notes original contract called 18,038 pieces of iron (welded to- main obstacle I had to overcome in his book “Eiffel for him to disassemble WSJ.com gether with 2.5 million rivets) as in designing the tower?” asked Tower: A Tour de his tower after 20 years, they ascend heavenward. (and then answered) Eiffel: “Its Force”—tiny gold he ensured the survival The tower is so beloved that resistance to wind” — a foe he charms, solid chocolate of his magnum opus by The suburban dream Re-enter the dragon Travels through time few today remember the storm of had long ago bested in such pio- confections, giant gar- making it an indispens- Craig Winneker Editor vitriol, mockery and lawsuits pro- neering bridge designs as his Pia den ornaments, or the able part of the French At home in Los Angeles A new TV series looks The strange journey Barbara Tina Fuhr Deputy editor voked by its selection as the star- Maria railway bridge in Oporto, myriad images executed military’s radio network. with a ‘Desperate at how Bruce Lee of a collection of Fahire Kurt Art director tling centerpiece of the 1889 Portugal. “And I submit that the in “pen, pencil, and Megaskyscrapers Kathleen Van Den Broeck Assistant art director Paris Exposition Universelle. (One curves of [the tower’s] four piers brush, in photo and li- have long since over- Housewives’ husband. changed the world. ornate Chinese clocks. Matthew Kaminski Taste page editor of the losing entries was a gigan- as produced by our calculations, thography, in oil and pas- shadowed the Eiffel Tow- WSJ.com/Lifestyle WSJ.com/Lifestyle WSJ.com/Asia Questions or comments? Write to [email protected]. tic working guillotine!) Even as rising from an enormous base tel, on paper, canvas, on er’s status as the Please include your full name and address. Eiffel was breaking ground by the and narrowing toward the top, wood and ivory, on world’s tallest structure.

Seine River in February 1887, 47 will give a great impression of china, steel, and zinc.” Getty Images And yet, the Eiffel of France’s greatest names de- strength and beauty.” Eiffel the From the day the Gustave Eiffel’s creation turns 120 years old on May 15. Tower still speaks cried in a letter to Le Temps the ardent republican wondered why Eiffel Tower first opened uniquely to the human “odious column of bolted metal.” his nay-saying compatriots could on May 15, 1889, at 11:50 a.m., other politician, famous actor, fascination with science and tech- THE JOURNAL CROSSWORD / Edited by Mike Shenk 62 Turn in the park Down 47 Asylum seekers 78 Tad What person of good taste, this not see the glory. France, a lone fairgoers flocked to ascend its gold-brocaded royal from nology and to the human desire 63 Some skid row residents 1 He was captured in 48 CrossAction toothbrush 80 Decide when the flock of intellectuals asked, could republic surrounded by monar- giddy heights. From high up, they France’s new colonial empire, or for pleasure and joie de vivre. In December 2003 maker wedding will be 22 Prefix meaning 33 King in 46 High homes 64 Lightweight letter endure the thought of this “diz- chies, was building “the tallest ed- savored the spectacle of Paris Buffalo Bill Cody, whose Wild 1889, Jules Simon, the republican Across 2 Eight-time Best Actor 49 Injured again, 82 Arts and crafts gadgets 1 Absorb “strange” “The Tempest” 48 Bit of regalia 66 Puzzle pioneer Sam zily ridiculous tower dominating ifice ever raised by man,” a com- looking tiny and the crowds West show in Neuilly was a sold- politician and philosopher, de- Oscar loser as a rotator cuff 84 California daily, for short 23 Like the Parthenon 35 Knight mare 51 Outdoorsman 67 Actress Hunter’s sounds Paris like a black and gigantic fac- pletely original industrial- down below coursing through the out sensation. clared, “We are all citizens of the 6 Chop shop? 50 Mantra from an infant? 24 Sixth of 24 37 Summer starter Gibbons of disgust? Woof! 3 Sitting room 85 Paper tiger, say tory chimney, crushing [all] be- strength monument made possi- rococo Exposition, enjoying such By the time Gustave Eiffel wel- Eiffel Tower,” a sentiment as true 10 Like “The Book Woof! of Taliesin” 25 One who 39 Rates 52 Granola grain 70 Audition goal 4 Canton in central 86 Like brushback pitches neath its barbarous mass”? The ble by new knowledge and tech- novelties as Egyptian belly danc- comed Thomas Edison to his cele- today as it was then. Switzerland 53 Peer group 15 Lover boy? insults Yahtzee 40 Part of QED 53 Jazz club event 71 265-acre New York 87 Sundial number revered painters Ernest Meisso- nologies, a colossal modern won- ing, Japanese tea houses, Jav- brated monument that Septem- equipment? Woof! 5 Road that’s a sixth of 55 Folly 19 Missile 41 One of the 54 Juice-extracting attraction 88 Distinctive flair nier and William-Adolphe Bou- der of the world designed to anese dancers, wine from the ber, the tower was perhaps as fa- Ms. Jonnes is the author of an inch wide? Woof! 57 Somebody else Command 27 Point, on the NYSE Gilmore girls utensils 73 Home Depot selection 89 Alda’s “Same Time, guereau, writers Guy de Maupas- draw vast throngs to France’s Ex- world’s largest oaken cask (pulled mous as America’s most famous “Eiffel’s Tower,” available in Eu- 6 Get some shut-eye 58 Like producer 28 New or golden 42 Follow your gut 56 Pub potable 74 Jai alai basket Next Year” co-star sant and Alexandre Dumas fils, position Universelle. to Paris by 10 pair of oxen), and inventor. “Like everyone else I’ve rope in June. follower 7 Describe too glowingly 59 Florida senator Martinez ___ 20 Easy-Off target instinct? 59 2005 75 First name on 90 system 21 Warm 30 Fine-tune 43 Sightseeing trip for Spielberg the Food Network 8 Jacuzzi feature 60 Angry 43rd president? (luxury car option) Woof! welcome? 32 Paternity tester burglars? Woof! movie 76 Bit 9 Really hot 92 Scuzzballs 61 Summertime top 95 Marcus’s partner 77 John of “20/20” 10 Got one’s feet wet? Who Let the Dog Out? / by Peter Gordon 63 First name in comedy? 96 Pictures 79 Carrier to Stockholm 11 “On the Waterfront” How an Evolutionary Garden Grows director Kazan 64 Two of racing’s Unsers 97 Circumvented 12345 6789 1011121314 15161718 80 Ms. Pac-Man ghost 12 Bars 65 Dry and crumbly 99 Castle barriers 81 She’s a hip-hop fan 19 20 21 22 13 “Thar ___ blows!” 67 Commando weapons 100 Hurler’s pride 83 Twisted By James Taranto tion that became Darwin’s life childhood trip to California’s Se- book by Swiss botanist A.P. de garden. As we stand amid the ma- 23 24 25 26 14 Only just 68 Fútbol score 101 City Hall bigwig 84 Miserable work. It was Henslow who recom- quoia National Park, and Mr. Candolle. Mr. Parker explains ples, Mr. Parker says those trees 15 An American in Paris, 69 Brit’s buddy 105 Sandusky’s county Cambridge, England mended Darwin to the captain of Parker explains why: “These are how this works when we stop in are “quite difficult for us to grow, 27 28 29 30 31 32 87 Uprising by children maybe of the 1970s? Woof! 72 Picture of health? 107 Interlock This year marks the bicenten- the HMS Beagle. babies. These are only 150 years the Systematic Bed, which holds because they tend to require an 16 Some email messages 74 Staying within the lines 110 Brewery vessel 33 34 35 36 37 38 91 Dada father nial of Charles Darwin, who revolu- Henslow left another legacy: old. They’re about 120 feet in 1,600 species from 100 families of acid soil. This is a terrible soil, 17 Stickball relative pretty well? Woof! 112 Antique auto the Cambridge University Botanic height”—one-third as tall as a herbaceous plants, divided into because it’s really chalky, very cal- 39 40 41 42 92 Honorably mention tionized our understanding of 18 Icy treats 76 “You bet!” 114 Fortas of the 93 Island feast life’s origins. Listen to John Garden, which he established in full-grown redwood. “The oldest groups according to de Candolle. careous, and it’s not good for 43 44 45 46 47 26 Powerful pols 77 ___ vous plaît Supreme Court 1831 to grow trees one we know is Mr. Parker shows us how one plant life of any sort.” 94 Nice home Parker, though, and you almost 29 Turn wonder if we’re celebrating the and other plants for 3,500 years old, so group is arranged: “[Henslow] If modern agriculture can com- 48 49 50 51 52 53 98 Coffee liqueur 31 Hoses down wrong man: “Darwin was an indo- research and teach- at 150, this is still took the first page of that group— pensate, Henslow’s heirs aren’t 101 Battle site of 1914 and 1918 Last Week’s Solution ‘These trees 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 34 Small swig lent, beetle-collecting, drinking, ing. Mr. Parker is in its nappie stage.” and it’s the buttercup family, Ra- interested: “We do not dig if we 102 Maid who doesn’t commute 36 Place for climbers THAWS ALT I AGORA DUO gourmandizing nobody.” He was now the garden’s di- are The Main Walk, nunculaceae—put it in, in the far can avoid it, we do not fertilize, 62 63 64 65 103 Disregard 38 1967 Calder Trophy winner MAR I E F ORM TOMA S C E R T studying divinity at Cambridge rector. On a rainy the only straight corner of his particular quadrant we do not water, we do not 104 Campus bigwigs the survivors.’ 66 67 68 69 70 41 Safari sound S I GNS ACAB LOBSTERB I B University when John Stevens Hen- spring afternoon, he line in the garden, here, turned the pages, and you spray. The plants either survive TOGA RACE UPREAR 106 Feds 44 “Rushmore” director slow, a professor of mineralogy led a group of jour- showcases the conif- work your way all the way round. or die,” Mr. Parker says. “The rea- 71 72 73 74 C I NEMA TEACADDY EZ I NE 108 Like Sen. Sanders Anderson nalists, visiting for a Templeton erous (cone-bearing) trees, includ- The last page of the entire book son that these trees look so good PANDERTO TAPES EYEON and botany, awakened his interest 109 Request to Tussaud to 75 76 77 78 45 Ballet slipper ONE E I RE RHUMBA FLY in natural history. “Henslow spot- Fund conference, on an hour-long ing pines, cedars and spruces. On is an American family called the . . . is that these are the survi- change? Woof! 46 iPod model available ted something extraordinary in ramble of our own. either side are curved paths with Phytolaccaceae, the pokeweeds, vors. They will survive under our 79 80 81 82 83 SAX MUS I CALS SLA 111 Unswerving in nine hues SPURTS ADS SENATOR Darwin,” Mr. Parker says. “He cre- The centerpiece of the flowering trees: chestnuts, ma- which is on the opposite side of conditions....Yougrowthem 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 113 Dungeons & Dragons fan ELSIE AMEER ROYALWE ated somebody who was able to 40-acre garden is its 1,500 trees ples, poplars. Each genus of tree the hedge from the buttercups. tough, they’ll stay tough.” 115 Give off RODGERSANDHAMMERSTE I N think. . . . Without Henslow, there of 1,000 different species. Just is planted in clusters of different So you’ve gone all the way round In case anyone hasn’t gotten 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 WSJ.com 116 Deck’s kin EPAULET ONEND TOALL would have been no Darwin.” inside the main gate is a giant species or subspecies, showing the book and you’ve come back the point, he adds, “This is an PEER ING TWO HENRYS 98 99 100 101 102 117 Urges Crossword online Henslow himself had begun redwood, “probably the biggest both continuity and variety—for where you started.” evolutionary garden. What would ARN CAROUSEL XER 118 Surname of Bo For an interactive his research in botany in the organism that’s ever existed on example, cedars from Lebanon, He adds: “There’s nowhere else you expect us to do?” 103 104 105 106 107 108 SEA EYELET STIR MAN the Portuguese water version of The Wall AL I FT MASUR AI RROUTE 1820s, before Darwin arrived at the face of the Earth,” says Mr. Morocco and the Himalayas. where a book has been translated dog’s family 109 110 111 112 113 114 Street Journal Crossword, POLAR WENTDEEP SEPTET Cambridge. As Mr. Parker ex- Parker. Two more stand some “They’re arranged in a particular onto the ground in this way. . . . Mr. Taranto, a member of The 119 Deadly septet WSJ.com subscribers GRAHAM HA I R NEAL plains, “The major consideration 600 feet away, at the other end order, and they’re arranged in fam- Everything Henslow did, he did Wall Street Journal’s editorial 115 116 117 118 120 Stock unit can go to DRUMMERBOY IMNO ARNAZ of the day, according to Henslow, of the garden’s Main Walk. The ilies,” Mr. Parker tells us as we for art as well as for science.” board, writes the Best of the 119 120 121 122 121 Quick bite WSJ.com/WeekendJournal VANS STERE ROTS MATTE was, What is the nature of spe- redwoods here look a lot smaller stroll along one of the paths. Cambridge is not necessarily Web Today column for Opinion- 122 Thompson of “SNL” DDS SYRUP ENOS ESSEN cies?” This, of course, is the ques- than the ones I remember from a That order was set out in a the ideal location for a botanic Journal.com.

W2 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL WEEKEND JOURNAL | FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 W15 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009

Left, ‘The House at the End of the World’ (2005) by David LaChapelle, on show in Paris; above, handbag by Maria Hees, in Amsterdam; below, ‘My Brother, My Enemy’ (2001), by Erbossyn Meldibekov, in Lille.

Prague art “Prague Biennale” is an international exhibition of art and photography exploring the latest developments in international art. Karlin Hall This is Until July 26 % 420-222-5123-76 www.praguebiennale.org Schwyz design “The Swiss Army Knife—A Tool That’s Become an Icon” presents a selection of historic pocket knives, a magazine some dating back to the Roman period, as well as some examples of Swiss daggers, exploring the history of the famous Swiss Army knife. Forum of Swiss History May 16-Oct 18 % 41-41-8196-011 www.landesmuseen.ch Stockholm photography “Nature Photographer Lennart Nilsson” shows images from 50 years of nature and wildlife photography by acclaimed Swedish photojournalist and filmmaker

David LaChapelle Lennart Nilsson (born 1922). s National Museum of Natural Amsterdam www.kunstmuseumbern.ch signer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). the New West is the New East…” History fashion Laituri is an art festival dedicated to Until Aug. 30 “Timeless Handbags: 30 years of Brussels May 22-Aug. 29 Eastern Europe and Istanbul with % 46-8519-5400-0 Maria Hees” shows purses and hand- art % 358-9-3103-7390 2,500 events. www.nrm.se bags by the Dutch artist (born 1948). “A Memory of Paper” illustrates a cen- laituri.hel.fi Lille 3000 St. Petersburg Museum of Bags and Purses tury of Jewish life through collected Until July 12 ballet and opera Until June 1 postcards depicting people and places Lausanne % 33-3-2852-3000 “White Nights Arts Festival 2009” is an international ballet and opera % 31-20-5246-452 from Belgian Jewish life. photography www.lille3000.com festival, offering performances by www.tassenmuseum.nl Musée Juif de Belgique “Carlo Valsecchi: Lumen” exhibits large London Maria Guleghina, Anna Netrebko, Until Oct. 15 format photography Italian photogra- photography violinist Leonidas Kavakos and art % 32-2-5121-963 pher Carlo Valsecchi (born 1965). “Bob Dylan 1966 European Tour: others. “Jan Lievens (1607-1674)—A Child www.new.mjb-jmb.org Musée de l'Elysée Photographs by Barry Feinstein” Mariinsky Theatre Prodigy’s Career” exhibits works by Until June 14 documents Bob Dylan’s 1966 European tour. May 21-July 19 the Dutch painter. Dresden % 41-21-3169-911 National Portrait Gallery % 7-812-3264-141 Museum het Rembrandthuis music www.elysee.ch Until Aug. 30 www.mariinskiy.com May 17-Aug. 9 “Dresden Music Festival 2009” offers Liège % 44-20-7306-0055 Stuttgart % 31-20-5200-400 concerts and performances by the art www.rembrandthuis.nl www.npg.org.uk art Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vi- “Of Tomorrow by Delvaux” “Viennese Actionism” explores the enna Philharmonic, Juilliard Dance and showcases paintings featuring Madrid art and artists behind “Viennese Berlin others under the theme “New World.” stations, trains and tramways by Actionism,” part of a series of art art May 20-June 7 Belgian Surrealist artist Paul avant garde movements after the “John Flaxman and the Renaissance” % 49-351-4866-666 Delvaux (1897-1994). “Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)” end of the World War II. presents the “Adoration of the Magi,” www.musikfestspiele.com Le Grand Curtius Museum brings together about 100 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Contents in a can a marble relief by the British artist Until June 28 paintings by Spanish artist Joaquín Until July 5 John Flaxman (1755-1826). Helsinki % 32-4-2219-325 Sorolla. % 49-711-4704-00 Bode Museum architecture www.grandcurtiusliege.be Museo Nacional del Prado www.staatsgalerie.de and other ways to play Until July 12 ”Alvar Aalto’s Helsinki Legacy” pre- Lille May 26-Sept. 6 Utrecht % % 49-30-2090-5577 sents 20 buildings in Helsinki de- art 34-91-3302-800 art with the print medium www.smb.museum signed by the Finnish architect and de- “Lille 3000: Europe XXL East is www.museodelprado.es “Masterly Manuscripts—The Middle Munich Ages in Gold and Ink” shows over history photography 100 manuscripts from the 14th “President Barack Obama—On the “Zoe Leonard: Photographs” shows and 15th century. tracks of the Kennedys?” showcases works by the American Museum Catharijneconvent photographs by the official White photographer (born 1961). May 16-Aug. 23 House photographer, Pete Souza. Pinakothek der Moderne % 31-30-2313-835 Kennedy Museum Until July 5 www.catharijneconvent.nl Until Aug. 2 % 49-89-2380-5360 Zurich % 49-30-2065-3570 www.pinakothek.de humor www.thekennedys.de Paris “Witzerland: A Guide to Swiss photography Humour” is a multimedia look at Bern “David LaChapelle” is a humorous interpretations of art retrospective of 200 works by the Switzerland. “Tracey Emin—20 Years” is a retro- American photographer, video, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum spective exhibition of sculptures, paint- commercial and film director (born Until Sept. 13 ings and video work by contemporary 1963). % 41-44-218-6511 British artist Tracey Emin (born 1963). Musée de la Monnaie www.witzerland.ch Kunstmuseum Bern Until May 31 Until June 21 % 33-1-4046-5666 Source: ArtBase Global Arts News % 41-31-3280-944 Maxime Dufour Photographies www.monnaiedeparis.com Service, WSJE research. s Raiders of the lost archives A landmark ‘Waiting for Godot’ W16 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 15 - 17, 2009 | WEEKEND JOURNAL