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    Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Took the Hard Path. The Music Kept Coming.

    After a tumultuous childhood in an ultraconservative family, River Shook finally heard country music at 23. It prompted a long journey of self-discovery.River Shook warned their father: If the family left western New York for North Carolina, something awful would happen.Living at home at 19, Shook was the introverted middle child who had relocated to so many new towns, they’d given up on making friends. Their parents, Robert and Rita, had led rough and wild early lives, Robert playing lead guitar in lascivious bands and Rita escaping an abusive first marriage and descending into hard drugs. The couple met through church, married and vowed to shelter their kids — home-schooled and raised on classical and Christian music, with boys, booze and bad behaviors verboten. Whenever God told Robert to move, everyone obeyed.This, though, was different. At 9, Shook realized they were bisexual and began questioning the family faith. They hid both from their parents, living a Janus-like life of two faces for a decade. But Shook had found confidants at the Wegmans where they worked, friends who supplied secret mix CDs featuring the Gorillaz and Elliott Smith. They were interning at a local dance studio, teaching yoga to kids and unsteadily emerging from a miasma of childhood depression. And then, in 2005, the family headed South.“I went from 0 to 100, from having been kissed once to having sex to having a threesome the next night,” the singer and guitarist said during a series of video interviews in early February, grinning wryly from the porch of their rural North Carolina home. (Yes, they stayed.) “And then I married a guy I met on Myspace three weeks later and got pregnant two months later. Upending everything my parents held dear was an act of self-preservation, because their belief system taught me I could not be myself.”During the last 20 years, Shook, now 38, has slowly discovered who they are — a nonbinary, atheist, vegan single parent using incisive and honest country songs to unpack past baggage. The process has been arduous, even life-threatening. When their band, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, played 150 shows a year, they would drink until they blacked out almost every night. But in July 2019, following a Canadian bacchanalia, Shook accepted their own ultimatum: Sober up or die trying.That epiphany led to therapy, daily walks in the woods, a new name, and, ultimately, the Disarmers’ new album, “Revelations,” due March 29. A stirring country-rock record that two-steps between Waxahatchee’s incisive beauties and Tom Petty’s winking classics, “Revelations” is the work of a songwriter relishing newfound clarity and confidence.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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    ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Liam Cunningham Is Now in ‘3 Body Problem’

    Born and raised in Dublin, Liam Cunningham speaks in Joycean streams of consciousness that often have no discernible beginning, middle or end. He talks with his hands and taps his feet, salting his anecdotes with friendly F-bombs, catching his breath only long enough to take a puff of his distinctively scented e-cigarettes. They aren’t very popular on the set.“They smell like if you took the cardboard that comes with a dry cleaned shirt and held it over a burner,” said D.B. Weiss, who, with his production partner David Benioff, has given Cunningham choice roles in “Game of Thrones” and now “3 Body Problem.” A heady new science-fiction series, based on a trilogy of novels by the Chinese author Liu Cixin, “3 Body Problem” premieres Thursday on Netflix.In it, Cunningham plays Thomas Wade, the no-nonsense spy master who leads a team of physicists chosen to save the world from a very slow-moving but ominous alien invasion. Unlike Davos Seaworth, the emotionally vulnerable knight Cunningham played in “Thrones,” Wade is gruff, bellicose and secretive, an enigmatic authority figure whose back story left even Cunningham with questions.With Benedict Wong, right, on “3 Body Problem,” Cunningham plays a no-nonsense spy master who leads a team of physicists.Ed Miller/Netflix“So little about him is known, and everybody you talk to that’s seen this thing is like, ‘What’s his story?’” Cunningham said on an Austin hotel patio during the South by Southwest Film Festival, where the series had its world premiere. “He’s got the U.N. Secretary General on the end of the phone, and people do what he tells them to, and you go, ‘Who’s giving him this authority?’ And the funny thing is, I never felt the need to talk to the boys” — Weiss and Benioff, that is — “they never offered, and I never asked, which probably is not a good thing to say, I should probably say to everybody, ‘Oh, I know everything about him, but I’m not telling you.’”Breath. Puff.Cunningham, 62 with salt-and-pepper hair and bright blue eyes, came to acting relatively late in life. He worked as an electrician until he was 29, spending a chunk of his 20s in Zimbabwe bringing electricity to rural communities. “You know the song ‘Wichita Lineman’?” he asks, referring to the ’60s country hit by Glen Campbell. “That was me, except I was the Zimbabwe lineman. For an Irish, pale-skinned elf from Dublin, it was mind-blowing.” For a time he worked in a national park, “the size of Belgium and with 16,000 elephants.”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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    Stepping Out From Hillary Clinton’s Onscreen Shadow

    For the past two decades, female presidential candidates on TV have been made in her image. Finally, that’s beginning to change.“The Girls on the Bus” is a fizzy recasting of the campaign-trail memoir “Chasing Hillary” by Amy Chozick, who covered the 2016 election for The New York Times. But it is not a show about Hillary Clinton. Immediately, it takes pains to banish her persona from the screen. The Democratic front-runner of the pilot episode is a governor named Caroline Bennett (Joanna Gleason), and though she is a baby boomer (check) in a pantsuit (check), she also writes romance novels under a pseudonym.It’s a very un-Hillary detail, and it foretells a very un-Hillary downfall. Shortly after Chozick’s reporter stand-in, Sadie McCarthy (Melissa Benoist), eagerly hops onto Bennett’s bus, she finds her candidate sidelined by a sex scandal (and not her husband’s).These are silly choices, and savvy ones. Only when Clinton’s baggage has been dumped is “The Girls on the Bus” free to repave the trail into an escapist romp. For the better part of two decades, Clinton has gripped the cultural imagination around the idea of a first female president. Hundreds of millions of Americans, of several generations, both supporters and critics, imagined it would be her. Screenwriters foresaw it, too. “The Girls on the Bus,” now streaming on Max, is one of the first shows about presidential politics that is forced to contend with her absence. But it can’t quite quit her.As Clinton ran and lost and ran and lost in the real world, television universes selected a succession of fictionalized Hillarys to occupy their replica Oval Offices. Clinton’s politics, her path, her bearing, her wardrobe, her haircut — these character details could be mirrored or mocked or refuted onscreen, but they could not be ignored. When Cherry Jones played the first female president on “24,” beginning in 2008, she told a reporter, unprompted: “She’s not Hillary. She has nothing to do with Hillary.” But when Lynda Carter played an (alien!) president on “Supergirl” in 2016, she said, “I used Hillary to prepare.”Caroline Bennett (Joanna Gleason) and Felicity Walker (Hettienne Park) on the campaign trail in “The Girls on the Bus.”HBOWe 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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    The American Tenor Jonathan Tetelman, a Puccini Specialist, Arrives at the Met

    Jonathan Tetelman will sing in “La Rondine” and “Madama Butterfly” in New York. He trained as a baritone and worked as a D.J. before finding his “authentic voice” as a tenor.In the middle of last summer’s production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the Salzburg Festival, the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman brought down the house. As Macduff, Tetelman gave a searing rendition of “Ah, la paterna mano,” the heartbreaking aria after his character learns that the bloodthirsty monarch has slaughtered his wife and children.Tetelman’s performance in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s monumentally gloomy production was one of the festival’s highlights. Later this month, the 35-year-old tenor will make his Metropolitan Opera debut in Puccini’s “La Rondine.” He’ll also be heard at the Met as Pinkerton in a revival of the composer’s better-known “Madama Butterfly” that reunites him with his “Macbeth” co-star, the soprano Asmik Grigorian, in April and May. (There are planned Met Live in HD broadcasts of both productions.)In an email, the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, wrote that Tetelman had a “beautiful and big voice that is perfectly suited to the generous size of the Met’s auditorium, which is much larger than most European opera houses, and to these soaring Puccini roles.”Tetelman has swiftly risen to become one of his generation’s most in-demand lyric tenors and is particularly sought after for his Puccini. After singing Rodolfo in “La Bohème” for the first time in 2017 in Fujian, China, he reprised the role a year later at Tanglewood (replacing the Polish star tenor Piotr Beczala) and then on opening night of Barrie Kosky’s production at the Komische Oper Berlin in January 2019.Tetelman played Macduff in a performance of “Macbeth” at the 2023 Salzburg Festival.Bernd Uhlig/SFBut Tetelman’s path to the Met’s stage was anything but typical. Born in Chile, Tetelman was adopted by an American couple when he was 6 months old and grew up in Princeton, N.J. As an undergraduate at the Manhattan School of Music, he trained as a baritone but felt frustrated.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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    Shakira on the Pain Behind Her New Album, ‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran’

    With “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,” her first album in seven years, the Colombian superstar said she “transformed pain into productivity.”For Shakira, 2022 was a year of heartbreak. Decades of hit singles and groundbreaking Latin-pop crossovers couldn’t insulate the Colombian pop star from personal upheavals. In the glare of celebrity coupledom, she broke up with the soccer player Gerard Piqué, her partner for 11 years and the father of her two sons, Milan and Sasha. Her father was hospitalized twice for a fall that caused head trauma; he went on to require further brain surgery in 2023.Shakira was also facing charges of tax evasion in a long-running case disputing whether she had lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014; she declared residency there in 2015. Last November, she settled for a fine of 7.5 million euros (about $8.2 million), citing “the best interest of my kids.” Just days earlier, Shakira had collected the Latin Grammy for song of the year for “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” a collaboration with the Argentine producer Bizarrap with wordplay clearly aimed at Piqué and his girlfriend.The song was one of a string of singles Shakira released that referred directly to the breakup: the sarcastic “Te Felicito” (“I Congratulate You”); the regretful “Monotonía” (“Monotony”); the Bizarrap session, “Acróstico,” a ballad promising her children that she’d stay strong; and “TQG” (“Te Quedó Grande,” roughly translated as “I’m Too Good for You”), a taunting reggaeton duet with the Colombian star Karol G, who had been through her own public breakup. “TQG” has racked up more than a billion streams.Those songs reappear on Shakira’s first album since 2017, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” (“Women No Longer Cry”), due Friday. All but one of its tracks deal with romantic ups and (mostly) downs, honed into crisp, tuneful pop structures. The LP continues Shakira’s career-long penchant for pulling together music and collaborators from across the Americas, dipping into rock, electro-pop, trap, Dominican bachata, Nigerian-style Afrobeats and regional Mexican cumbia and polka. Her guests include Cardi B, Ozuna and Rauw Alejandro. Not one of them upstages Shakira, who’s playful or raw as each moment demands.Shakira spoke about the album from her white-walled kitchen at her home in Miami, where an air fryer sat on the counter behind her; a pet bunny in a pen was at her side. Unlike Barcelona, Miami is a hub of Latin pop where, she said, “I have the feeling I’ll be making a lot more music now.” Wearing a black tank top, with her hair in long blond waves, Shakira spoke happily and volubly about an album that, for her, was “alchemical.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Shakira faced charges of tax evasion in a long-running case disputing whether she had lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014. Last November, she settled for a fine of 7.5 million euros (about $8.2 million).Josep Lago/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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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    Paul Simon Faced Unexpected Struggles. Cameras Were Rolling.

    The singer and songwriter invited Alex Gibney to capture the making of his album “Seven Psalms.” The filmmaker was surprised to find a musician losing his hearing.Paul Simon had only one request of the filmmaker undertaking “In Restless Dreams,” a documentary about his life: “He wanted the music to sound good,” the director and producer Alex Gibney said.Over the years, Gibney, 70, has told the stories of many lives, including Elizabeth Holmes’s (“The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley”), Lance Armstrong’s (“The Armstrong Lie”) and Dilawar’s, an Afghan farmer who was tortured to death by U.S. soldiers in 2002 (“Taxi to the Dark Side,” for which he won an Academy Award for best documentary feature). He’s taken on musical legends like James Brown, Janis Joplin and Frank Sinatra.The Simon film, however, came with the most tempting of offers: a chance to come out to the singer’s ranch in Wimberley, Texas, and film him as he worked on his latest album, “Seven Psalms,” which was released last year.“That sort of thing doesn’t happen often at all,” Gibney said. “I got myself down to Texas as quickly as possible.”“In Restless Dreams,” which premiered on Sunday on MGM+ (for TV viewers, the film is split in two, with the second half airing March 24), begins with Simon’s earliest days growing up in Queens, N.Y., as he and his onetime musical partner Art Garfunkel learned to harmonize by listening to the Everly Brothers. We see Simon (and sometimes Garfunkel) create beloved albums including “Sounds of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Graceland”; perform in Central Park in 1981, a concert that attracted half a million fans and led to a brief reunion of the duo; and tackle everything from movie soundtracks (“The Graduate”) to acting roles (“One-Trick Pony”).There are several scenes of Simon working on some of American pop music’s most memorable tunes in a manner that has long impressed contemporaries like Wynton Marsalis, who met Simon in 2002. “He has a mystical understanding,” Marsalis said in a video interview. “He can see the timeless through the specific.”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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    Gossip Dance Back Into Action After a 12-Year Pause

    The trio fronted by Beth Ditto wasn’t sure it would return after scattering in different directions. But music united them for a new LP, “Real Power.”It’s possible that there are better people to dig you out of an ice storm than the frontwoman of a dance-punk act, but few would do it as resourcefully or cheerfully as Beth Ditto. Since her band Gossip started 25 years ago, its scrappy, D.I.Y. roots have always run strong.Early this year, when Portland, Ore., Ditto’s adopted home of two decades, was overtaken by a deep freeze, my windshield was a sheet of ice, and there was no scraper in sight (do better, Portland rental car agencies). Over my protestations, Ditto fished out her old ID, hopped out of the slowly warming sedan in her black beret and Chuck Taylors, and shaved the ice off herself. She has never been fazed, she said, by the unexpected.Though Gossip has been a major label act since 2009, when it made the leap from the storied indie Kill Rock Stars to Columbia Records and the megaproducer Rick Rubin, the trio has carved out a very unconventional path.“We’re renegades,” said Ditto, who founded the group with her childhood friend Nathan Howdeshell on guitar and bass, chatting with her bandmates in the drummer Hannah Blilie’s minimalist, midcentury living room, cozy against the wintry mix outside. They had gathered to talk about “Real Power,” their first album together in 12 years. Due Friday, its arrival was not preordained, or even serendipitous — it was more instinctual, a product of punk energy, somehow sustained across time, space and adulthood.“We don’t plan,” said Howdeshell, who grew up with Ditto in small-town Arkansas. “Me and Beth just sit down and made up stuff.” They don’t talk about it, either. That might ruin it, make it feel contrived, Ditto said.“That’s the magic of our band, I think,” Blilie added. “It just kind of falls into place.”That is, until it didn’t.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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    Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Wonders About the Past 2 Million Years

    The “Game of Thrones” actor, now hosting a documentary series on climate change, is captivated by genetics research, algorithms and tiny art.Nikolaj Coster-Waldau wants people to step away from the abyss when it comes to climate action.“It’s a very difficult balance,” said the Danish actor, who portrayed Jaime Lannister in “Game of Thrones.” “You want to get people aware, you want to inspire change. But I think we’ve gone overboard by making it into this doomsday.”“It’s exhausting for everyone,” he added. “And it’s not quite true, actually.”In “An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet,” a documentary series from Bloomberg Originals, Coster-Waldau meets with scientists, activists and ordinary folks who have developed ingenious solutions to global issues — things like sargassum that captures carbon on St. Vincent, worms that eat plastic in Spain and a zero-waste village in Japan.It’s an insane endeavor, Coster-Waldau said, but he predicts bluer skies ahead.“The biggest resource, and we keep forgetting that, is that we need each other,” he said. “What humans can do when we pull together, it’s incredible.”In a video call from his home north of Copenhagen, Coster-Waldau — who will play William of Normandy in the upcoming “King and Conqueror” series — discussed why George the Poet’s podcast, miniature art and “3 Body Problem” have captured his attention.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Eske Willerslev and His Genetics ResearchWhat he’s doing is understanding who we are by looking back in time. Now they can actually extract DNA from soil samples, so they picked down in northeast Greenland and were able to go back 2 million years. And that means now you can see how this world of ours has changed dramatically many, many times.2‘We, the Drowned’ by Carsten JensenIt’s an amazing novel that I just revisited about Marstal, a small town in Denmark — a seafaring town, a fisherman’s town — and the riders of freight ships from this town. It’s a historical novel, but it’s incredibly well told.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