Aurelia Butler

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    The Kennedy Center’s Chairman Won’t Depart After All

    As the nation’s capital prepares for a second Trump administration, the performing arts center announced that its chairman would not step down in January as planned.The White House was not the only Washington institution planning to welcome new leadership in January. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had announced that its longtime board chairman, David M. Rubenstein, would step down in January and had appointed a search committee to find a successor.But last month, shortly after the presidential election, the Kennedy Center announced that Mr. Rubenstein, a private equity titan who has led its board of 14 years, would stay on in the position until September 2026.The decision ensures continuity at a moment when the Kennedy Center, like much of Washington, is preparing for a second Trump administration. (On Sunday, President Biden is expected to attend the Kennedy Center Honors as it celebrates Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt and Arturo Sandoval; President-elect Donald J. Trump did not attend the ceremonies during his first term.) But it also raises questions about why the center failed to find a new chair.Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president, said that on Nov. 15 the board’s search committee decided to keep Mr. Rubenstein on in part because the center is in the quiet phase of an endowment campaign, making a leadership transition “really tough.”“We looked at the needs of the Kennedy Center in a variety of different ways moving forward,” she said in an interview. “It is important for us to have somebody who knows the center and who knows and can play the leadership role that we need.”Mr. Rubenstein, a co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, has given the center $111 million over the years. He was initially appointed by former President George W. Bush. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Dick Van Dyke, Approaching 99, Dances in Coldplay’s Latest Video

    In the clip, which was filmed in October, Van Dyke sings, dances barefoot and offers meditations on aging, family and love.Dick Van Dyke, the lithe and witty nonagenarian whose career spans more than seven decades, has added yet another role to his lengthy résumé: music video star.Dancing barefoot in the backyard of his Malibu, Calif., home, Van Dyke, 98, is the focus of Coldplay’s latest music video, “All My Love.”Van Dyke, who starred on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” from 1961 to 1966 and danced his way through “Mary Poppins” 60 years ago, pulls out some of his signature dance moves while the band’s frontman Chris Martin plays an upright piano.The video, directed by Spike Jonze and Mary Wigmore, was filmed in October. A directors’ cut that lasts more than seven minutes came out on Friday; a shorter version will be released Dec. 13 on Van Dyke’s 99th birthday.Van Dyke, who is introduced with a title card noting that he was born in 1925, gamely pokes fun at his age, including when a voice asks him to close his eyes and think of the people who meant something to him. He does, and then opens them. “I’m too old for this — I’ll pass out and go to sleep,” he says, adding, with a mischievous chuckle, “I’ll take a nap!”Martin said Thursday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that it was his and Jonze’s idea to cast Van Dyke in the video. Martin said that he and Van Dyke are neighbors, and that they had met several years ago.“This really may be the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” Martin said of the video. “It makes me so grateful. It’s a big deal for me.”In the video, photographs of Van Dyke’s family and from his long career — including a picture with Mary Tyler Moore, his co-star on the “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and “Mary Poppins” memorabilia — flash on the screen. Van Dyke, in a suit and tie but no shoes, dances and shows of some of his old comic moves.Many scenes show his wife, Arlene Silver, and his family gathered around him. And at times he grows thoughtful, meditating on aging, family and love. “I’m acutely aware that I’m, you know, could go any day now but I don’t know why it doesn’t concern me,” Van Dyke says. “I’m not afraid of it. I have that feeling, totally against anything intellectual, that I’m going to be all right.”Van Dyke adds that he had been lucky to be able to “play and act silly” for a living. More

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    Falling in Love With Nora Ephron

    Ilana Kaplan’s new coffee table book pays tribute to the godmother of the modern rom-com.“I’ll have what she’s having.”There are few writers whose voices have been so indelibly stamped on our psyches that they can be conjured up with just one line. Nora Ephron, the godmother of the modern rom-com, is one of them (even if she didn’t take credit for the line in question).Her spiky heroines, epistolary romances, cable knit sweaters and explorations of intimacy and heartbreak transformed American cinema, giving rise to a generation of screenwriters and directors who have striven to follow in her oxford-clad footsteps (not to mention the swarms of fans for whom films like “You’ve Got Mail” and “When Harry Met Sally” are annual viewing traditions, bookending that sepia-tinged, pencil-shaving-scented season known as “Nora Ephron Fall”).Meg Ryan in a climactic scene in “When Harry Met Sally,” one of Ephron’s many films that took women — their neuroses and their desires — seriously.Columbia Pictures, via Everett CollectionRyan and Rosie O’Donnell in “Sleepless in Seattle.” The movie is as much a celebration of their characters’ friendship as of romantic love.TriStar PicturesIlana Kaplan explores this legacy in NORA EPHRON AT THE MOVIES (Abrams, $50) — a tribute, despite its title, not just to Ephron’s screen work but also to her essays, plays and searingly autobiographical novel, “Heartburn.”Each of them gets a chapter here, as do the fastidious enthusiasms that illuminate them all: Ephron’s love of language, her eye for fashion and her devotion to food. This is a woman, Kaplan explains, who turned ordering a piece of pie into an art form and whose version of a postcoital cigarette, in “Heartburn,” was an in-bed bowl of homemade spaghetti carbonara.Ephron’s passions — for language, fashion, food — infused her work.Katherine Wolkoff/Trunk ArchiveShe also drew on her personal heartbreaks, particularly in her novel, “Heartburn,” and its subsequent film adaptation, which starred Meryl Streep as an Ephron-esque food writer.Paramount, via Everett CollectionStanley Tucci and Meryl Streep in “Julie and Julia,” Ephron’s final film.Jonathan WenkEphron’s clarity of voice gave her work a steely backbone, bolstered by a screwball wit. She did not invent the meet-cute, the swoony set piece or the friends-to-lovers trope, but she made them so thoroughly her own that you’d be forgiven for thinking she did. Above all else, she took women seriously — their desires and neuroses, their careers, their friendships, their great beating hearts.Whatever she wrote about, we wanted what she was having. More

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    Beyond the Blockbusters, 7 Key Songs From 1984

    The Pointer Sisters, Minutemen and more sounds from a landmark year in pop music.The Pointer SistersAaron Rapoport/Corbis, via Getty ImagesDear listeners,If you’re halfway decent at math, you know that it is currently the 40-year anniversary of 1984 — which is not only the name of a George Orwell novel and a Van Halen album, but a particularly pivotal moment in popular music. This week, we’re running a few articles that look back at the music of 1984, beginning with a sharp, well-reported piece by Ben Sisario about the way a number of ’70s rockers (ZZ Top, Don Henley and Yes among them) rebooted their sounds and images for the brave new world of the 1980s.Most retrospectives of the year focus on the big names and the blockbuster albums: Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” to name a few. For today’s playlist, though, I wanted to spotlight some more under-the-radar releases from that year. It was also a watershed time in underground rock, moody new wave and synth-heavy dance music, and accordingly this collection features tracks from the Replacements, Echo & the Bunnymen and the Pointer Sisters, among others. While the A-listers are the shorthand for the year’s familiar sound and aesthetic, let this playlist remind you that 1984 was also a year with many different soundtracks. Here’s one of many.I don’t wanna tame your animal style,LindsayListen along while you read.1. The Replacements: “Favorite Thing”Let’s kick things off with a propulsive track from one of my favorite 1984 releases, the Replacements’ “Let It Be.” While it’s difficult to pick just one song from such a great album, the raucous “Favorite Thing” contains what I consider one of its best moments: that bridge where the guitars drop out and the bassist Tommy Stinson briefly gets the spotlight — at least before Paul Westerberg ratchets the noise back up with a blisteringly howled, “Bar nothing!”▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube2. Minutemen: “The Glory of Man”Another of my favorite 1984 albums (and another from which it is very difficult to pick just one track, given that there are 45 of them on the original LP) is the San Pedro, Calif. punk band Minutemen’s sprawling double album “Double Nickels on the Dime.” I’ll go with this jaunty rocker — driven by the interplay between Mike Watt’s squiggly bass line and D. Boon’s blurts of guitar — because it contains one of my favorite Minutemen lyrics, “I live sweat, but I dream light-years.” Words to live by.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Czech Philharmonic Brings Musical Heritage to Carnegie Hall

    Over three nights, the Czech Philharmonic presented Dvorak’s concertos and more, including a rare performance of Janacek’s “Glagolitic Mass.”You could be forgiven for thinking that there has been some kind of festival going on at Carnegie Hall.Recently, its calendar has been stuffed with appearances by some of the world’s top orchestras. The Berlin Philharmonic was quickly followed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra and, for most of this week, the Czech Philharmonic. This is the programming you would get at major European festivals like Salzburg and Lucerne.And in their festival-style juxtapositions, these concerts make comparisons irresistible. If the Berlin Philharmonic pairs showy gesture with technical perfection, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra has the polish of fine jewelry, then the Czech Philharmonic is more like a timeless treasure, impressive but easy to take for granted.The Czechs, under Semyon Bychkov, their chief conductor and music director, don’t always demand your attention or affection. At Carnegie, though, this orchestra was unpretentious, even unassuming, yet dignified and impeccably balanced. Above all, the Philharmonic was an excellent steward of its country’s musical heritage.In that regard, its visit was something like a festival: a celebration of the Year of Czech Music, an occasional event that began a century ago with the centennial of Bedrich Smetana’s birth. At Carnegie Hall, where musicians typically perform on a bare stage, members of the Philharmonic sat under banners, and in front of toadstool-shaped flower arrangements in the colors of the Czech flag. The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, flew in to attend Thursday’s concert. Bychkov conducted on his handsome walnut podium from the Rudolfinum hall in Prague.The Philharmonic’s programming had the feel of cultural diplomacy, from an ensemble with a mission to tend a flame. Over three evenings, it offered Dvorak’s three concertos, as well as symphonic and choral works by Smetana, Janacek and Mahler. (Mahler, who was born in Bohemia, isn’t typically discussed as a Czech composer; his sound was more a product of his Viennese education and maturity than his birthplace. And while he may be a name that sells tickets, I wish that someone like Josef Suk, who is thoroughly in this Czech lineage and chronically absent in New York, were represented instead.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    9 New Songs From Rosé, Bad Bunny and More

    Hear tracks by Sky Ferreira, Bad Bunny, Sakura Tsuruta and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Rosé, ‘Toxic Till the End’Born in New Zealand, and skillful and disciplined enough to join the K-pop group Blackpink, Rosé is the epitome of an international pop strategist. “Toxic Till the End,” sung entirely in English, is from her solo debut album, “Rosie,” and it’s an indictment of an ex who was “jealous and possessive, so manipulatin’ / Honestly impressive, you had me participatin’.” It uses every device at her disposal, drawing directly from the Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff synth-pop playbook. Keyboard arpeggios lead to an arena-ready march, a breathy reconsideration, a shout that “You wasted my prettiest years!,” an acoustic moment and a big angry finish. Women’s rage at bad boyfriends is real — and commercial, too.Sky Ferreira, ‘Leash’A tsunami of grungy distortion opens “Leash,” a song Sky Ferreira wrote for the thriller “Babygirl.” It’s her first release since leaving Capitol Records, which released her lone album, “Night Time, My Time,” in 2013; she has said her long-in-the-making second album, “Masochism,” will arrive in 2025. “Leash” could easily segue out of Ferreira’s debut, as she fortifies her pop melodies with armadas of guitars, keyboards, drums and backup vocals. She sings about submission and surrender — “Wanna be caught, go down in flames” — but the heft and crunch of the music insist on her power.Bruses, ‘Coma Party’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Trap’ and More Horror Movies to Stream Now

    This month’s picks include a sneaky serial killer, a boy’s vengeance quest and a holiday house of horrors.‘Trap’Stream it on Max.M. Night Shyamalan’s latest psychological thriller is so preposterous it makes “The Front Room,” my pick for the dumbest horror movie of 2024, look like “The Shining.” But unlike “The Front Room,” “Trap” takes itself very unseriously — God, I hope it does — and watching it was the most fun I had at a horror movie this year.Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper, a cool dad who takes his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a concert by her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (a charisma-free Saleka, one of the director’s daughters). Cooper keeps noticing how tight security is in and around the arena, and for good reason: Law enforcement officers are there to capture a serial killer who they think is in the audience. To save himself and his daughter from danger, Cooper desperately seeks a way out.I’ll stop there because to give away more would spoil Shyamalan’s indulgent yet effective and surprisingly unpredictable twists and tensions. (I gasped more than once.) Hartnett does God’s work, finding the right balance of darkness and comedy with material that lands somewhere between “Days of Our Lives” at its silliest and a ’70s TV action movie-of-the-week, especially in the film’s delightfully ridiculous final stretch. It’s my favorite horror comedy of 2024.‘An Angry Boy’Stream it on Tubi.Owen (Scott Callenberger) becomes the talk of his Queens neighborhood when a video of him saving a woman during an attack goes viral. But the celebration is cut short when a home invader assaults Owen and his mother, killing her in front of him. It turns out the violence circling Owen isn’t entirely random, and it sets him and a little boy he keeps seeing on the streets on a bloody, identity-twisting quest to right a long-repressed wrong.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More