Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan ? review

One can take an awful lot of sex and violence if it's artfully done

Would you rather be a werewolf or a vampire? Merely changing into a big dog and eating people once a month seems to pale in comparison with being able to fly. And while vampires live for ever, werewolves last only 400 years. On the other hand, vampires can't have sex; and, being immortal, they tend to suffer more ennui.

So goes the lore, at least, in Glen Duncan's gorily ludic romp. The vampires actually have only walk-on (or fly-on) parts; the hero is a werewolf, Jake Marlowe, whom we first meet in modern-day London as he learns that he is the only one left. Now the monster-hunters (the World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena) are after him.

Marlowe is a witty and jaded commentator on our mores and his own condition ? "Two nights ago I'd eaten a forty-three-year-old hedge fund specialist. I've been in a phase of taking the ones no one wants" ? and an inveterate raconteur. (No coincidence that he shares a family name with Joseph Conrad's useful storyteller in Heart of Darkness and other tales.) We learn his story (and his backstory, a colourful 19th-century costume tragedy) by means of journal entries composed in the downtime between slabs of action and fornication. This device preserves suspense, as we have no assurance that the story of the wolfhunt, as Marlowe is pursued (and pursues something else) through Wales, London, New York, Paris, Greece, California and elsewhere, is being told from the safe hindsight of a happy ending.

In this respect, The Last Werewolf is like an updated version of Dracula, only for werewolves, and as rewritten by Bret Easton Ellis. As though in reproof of the plague of twee paranormal romances aimed at "young adults", Duncan effectively says: here we go, this is a story about monsters, so let's see how much sex and violence you can take.

The answer is an awful lot, when it's done this artfully. Scenes of ripping and eating contain beautifully tangential, slowed-down observations: "the white leather couch [was] smeared red where his hand went hurriedly back and forth, as if waving or trying to erase something". Fight scenes have been carefully choreographed and blocked; and sex (both human and "wulf") is portrayed with an aptly animalistic candour.

Quieter passages, meanwhile, display their own glints of beauty ("the snow's recording-studio hush"; after rain "the air had a rinsed optimism") and inventive physiological metaphor ("The Curse played preview blasts of free jazz in my blood"). Even the most minor characters furnish occasions for joyous casting: there is a comedy Frenchman who comes good, rather thrillingly. Marlowe, of course, is particularly attuned to smells, in which context to say this book is rank is a compliment. (A female vampire called Mia is "a strikingly beautiful woman who smelled like a vat of pigshit and rotten meat".) The prose's yoking of the concrete quotidian to the supernatural is perfectly summed up as Marlowe watches some vampires driving off in a minivan: "the people-carrier, carrying its immortal people".

The novel is complex with literary allusion, not only to Conrad but to Shakespeare, Eliot and Nabokov. As though over-defensive about its pulp material, however, it also displays a curious amount of genre anxiety. Marlowe often talks about what would happen next in a film ("In Buffy there'd be . . .", "If this was Hollywood . . ."), or in a novel. (Another character announces amusingly: "I can feel it, a sort of narrative coercion in the ether.") Usually Marlowe's point is that reality is not like that; and so Duncan arguably might have resisted giving in to one particular clich�d genre trope, that of the defeated villain who is not quite dead after all.

Despite what can be read as these internal dips of confidence, the story is exciting, often very funny (a chapter begins: "Reader, I ate him"), and surprisingly affecting. But what does it all mean? The werewolf is pessimistically an allegory of the monster within all humans, and also, particularly in this novel, optimistically of the conjoining in ordinary people of love (human) with sex (beast). Throughout the novel there are flashes of casual satire, building up to a sense that we moderns are too psychologically and aesthetically anaesthetised even to deserve an occult reality. Marlowe, lying in a forest and listening to the sounds of insects and water, says: "The world [. . .] is oozing, teeming, crawling with miracles. And we live in the opaque plastic bubble of television and booze." In its own blood-crazed and sex-dazed way, The Last Werewolf makes the case for literature.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/01/last-werewolf-glen-duncan-review

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Finding the Perfect Fit, Without the Fitting Room

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When I was a young professional in the habit of buying clothes for recreation, the King of Prussia mall, in a tony suburb of Philadelphia, was one of my favorite places to shop. The selection of stores covered the entire spectrum of favorite destinations, from casual Abercrombie & Fitch to luxe Saks Fifth Avenue. The concourses were wide and peaceful; the fitting rooms, large; and the attendants, solicitous. And fitting rooms were important: Though my body changed very little in those years, my size could change three or four times in a single $300 afternoon.

Unfortunately, trying to find the right fit has only gotten worse in the 10 years since I shopped to my heart's content and my credit card's limit. A half inch at a time, clothing manufacturers have been choosing their own adventures when it comes to sizing, departing from the ASTM standards to create such sizes as the "double zero."

MyBestFit ScannerWouldn't it be nice to have a cheat-sheet telling you which size you fit into at different stores and for different designers? Enter MyBestFit, a company that's applying the genius of airport security scanners to the pressing problem of vanity sizing.

Continue reading Finding the Perfect Fit, Without the Fitting Room

Finding the Perfect Fit, Without the Fitting Room originally appeared on WalletPop on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TGB Episode 42: A Sense of Finality 2010 (Guest: Peter Sciretta)

On this week's very special episode of The Golden Briefcase, Tim, Jeremy and Alex are joined by special guest Peter Sciretta, owner and editor of SlashFilm, in order to go over their tops of this last year in film! The guys forego the usual top 10 countdowns and instead go through some categories that best outline some of the best (and worst) movies of 2010: Biggest Surprise/Disappointment, Best Actor/Actress, Best/Worst Film of the Year. We also mix in listener voicemails talking about their favorite films of the year including opinions from numerous good friends of the show. This is one of our very best episodes - download it now!

The Golden Briefcase is also broadcast LIVE on Tuesday nights starting at 7:30PM (PST). You can listen in via our Ustream page or by visiting our own live page right here on FS. The podcast is just as fun to listen to ...

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Live music booking now

Hip-hop legends Public Enemy are a major coup for the Electric Picnic (2-4 Sep, Stradbally Estate, County Laois) ...

Billy Bragg, Gruff Rhys and Villagers headline a frankly almost rocking lineup for the Moseley Folk Festival (2-4 Sep, Moseley Park, Birmingham) ...

Elvis-lookalike country star kd Lang tours her new album, Sing It Loud (30 May-6 Jun, tour begins Symphony Hall, Birmingham) ...

Tech-funkers London Elektricity join other beats friendly tykes at Glade Electronic Music Festival (10-12 Jun, The Mansion House, Old Warden Park, Biggleswade) ...

Carl Bar�t, James Yuill and melodic folk punkers Dry The River are the last additions for the Hop Farm Music Festival (1-2 Jul, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge) ...

Prepare to be blasted by the raucous rock'n'roll of The Jim Jones Revue (11 Jun-24 Jul, tour begins at Rockness, Clune Farm, Dores, plus 27 Oct at Shepherd's Bush Empire, W12) ...

Finally The Big Feastival is the new festival thrill, with Soul II Soul and more playing in aid of the Princes Trust and the Jamie Oliver Foundation (1-3 Jul, Clapham Common, SW4).


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/30/live-music-booking-now

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Royal wedding: A peculiarly British day | Editorial

It was a fun day ? but the role of the crown in our democracy is as problematic as it was before

Only a churl would deny that the crowds in London and the wider world have just witnessed a sumptuous, spectacular ? and very peculiarly British ? day. An undeniably affecting wedding between two people who seem nicely primed for their shared future ? though who can really say, after last time? An imperishable setting for the ceremonials. Rolling music, sonorous phrases and moments of piercing solemnity. Some great clothes. A post-wedding parade for the ages down leafy avenues. Large and delighted crowds. Huge international interest. Waves of genuine goodwill and enjoyment. And the rain and the rioters both held off.

The cheers and tears of the long-heralded day were not insignificant. But too much should not be read into them. The day was a one-off. It lacked wider significance. The wedding was not a looking-glass event, reflecting the infantilisation of a subject nation. It was a well-managed show on which the curtain rose and then fell. The circus came and went. It did not change anything. Britain is not now a happier or a safer, a more purposive or a less unequal place than it was before Prince William placed the ring on his bride's finger. Yes, we wish them happiness ever after. Yes, it was a fun day. But the questions, both sweeping and specific, which surround the monarchy and the royal family are no closer to being resolved. The place of the crown in our laws, our established faith, our economy and, above all, our democracy is as problematic and as discordant today as before. No Catholic may wear the crown. No daughter, however old, of William and Catherine can inherit before any son, however young. It is all as silly ? and as wrong ? now as it was before. At the very least, it all needs to change and the changes need to be nailed down before a more wilful and destructive monarch than the present Queen sits on the throne.

There was, all the same, an unmistakable descant to yesterday's cheerfully celebratory spectacular. This was not 1981. It was a recession wedding, not an extravaganza. The difference, though slight in some ways, was there in a palpable touch of austerity in the proceedings. In the choice of the smaller abbey rather than the grandeur of St Paul's. In a beautifully judged wedding dress that, nevertheless, did not seek to outdo and overtrump the frocks and trains of the past. In crowds that, while indisputably large and clearly happy, were neither endlessly stretching nor vicariously hysterical in the way that they may once have been ? a disjunction much remarked on by foreign, especially American, journalists who wanted collective drooling to match their own. True, away from the pomp, the country more or less shut down for a couple of hours yesterday. But then life resumed more or less untouched, as it does after a cup final. Shops resumed business. Streets soon reopened. The tumult and the shouting died after a late lunch. The captains and the kings departed in mid-afternoon. And soon there was only Wallace and Gromit to watch on TV.

Britain in 2011 is simply not the same country that it was when this kind of royal event first took on its modern shape a century ago. No empire, of course. Far less military might. No longer the workshop of the world or the monarch of the seas. Freer from hierarchy and convention than before, though. Above all, Britain no longer sees itself reflected or validated in events like yesterday's, enjoyable and splendidly done though it was. Even the enchantment comes on sale or return these days. This is a country where the economy grew by just 0.5% in the first quarter and declined by that amount in the quarter before. That does not mean this should have been or was a hair-shirt royal wedding. But it does mean there is a pretty sensitive market in what the royal firm have to offer. Judge it right ? and they mostly did so this time ? and we buy. Get it wrong, and we may one day look elsewhere.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/30/royal-wedding-role-monarchy

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Kate Middleton's wedding bouquet: Florist's reaction to the royal wedding flowers

The first glimpse of the wedding bouquet of Kate Middleton, the bride of Prince William, was startling to me. My immediate thought was, that can not be the bouquet, when I saw it clutched in the hand of the bride's father. It appeared to be very simple, almost small in the man's hands. I?

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/kate-middleton-s-wedding-bouquet-florist-s-reaction-to-the-royal-wedding-flowers-2479322/

Dominique Swain Donna Feldman Drea de Matteo Drew Barrymore

TGB Episode 53: Watching Zack Snyder (Guest: Tom Merritt of TWiT)

On this week's episode of The Golden Briefcase, Tim and Jeremy are joined by guest Tom Merritt from the TWiT (This Week in Tech) network to go over the latest Picks of the Week, the newest in DVD/Blu-Ray releases, new trailers for Tom Hanks' Larry Crowne and the teaser for Lionsgate's Conan the Barbarian 3D remake, hear a recap of last week's SXSW Film Festival and much more! The main topic of the night was the career of director Zack Snyder, in honor of Sucker Punch hitting theaters this Friday. The guys talk over Snyder's filmography and talk about their anticipations for Sucker Punch, as well as his take on Superman.

The Golden Briefcase is also broadcast LIVE on Tuesday nights starting at 7:30PM (PST). You can listen in via our Ustream page or by visiting our own live page right here on FS. The podcast is just as fun to ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/goldenbriefcase/~3/dBLR-UW00Fs/

Eliza Dushku Emilie de Ravin Emma Heming Emma Stone

That Illmatic magic: revisiting Nas's masterpiece

With a second tribute album on its way, Nas's Illmatic is becoming a totem for hip-hop purists. Richard Watson gets into the NY state of mind

Hip-hop fans know the drill by now. Every time Nas preps another project, rumours circle that this, finally, will be the album on which the self-crowned "King Poetic" abandons the R&B cameos, Toto samples and controversy-courting titles and recaptures the gritty authenticity of Illmatic, the New Yorker's timeless 1994 debut.

But while Nas has never recaptured that Illmatic magic, it hasn't prevented others from trying too. Cali rapper Fashawn started the trend when he released a left-coast remake/tribute to the album called Ode To Illmatic. And now Detroit's Elzhi is, with the help of a live band, riding the same beats on his Elmatic mixtape. Layering trademark witty wordplay and fast-moving flow over classic tracks, the former Slum Village lyricist resurrects the spirit of his source material and rises above mere hip-hop karaoke. To quote Nasir Jones himself, though, It Ain't Hard To Tell why today's rappers are paying tribute to his debut album. Illmatic has become a totem, a work that both looked back into hip-hop history and pointed towards its future.

With samples from both the seminal 1983 hip-hop flick Wild Style and Nas's own recorded debut (on Main Source's 1991 posse cut Live At The Barbecue), opening track The Genesis set the tone for listeners; this was a record both reassuringly traditional and fascinatingly futuristic. Released in 1994 when the sinewy, party-vibe G-Funk of Dre, Snoop and their cronies was at its peak, Illmatic exposed the listener to Nas's desolate Queensbridge stomping ground. Though Marley Marl's legendary Juice Crew had repped The Bridge in a braggadocious back-and-forth with KRS-One in the 80s, Nas now painted a more intimate picture of life in and around America's most expansive public housing development. Just as NWA had once been to Compton, so Nas was to Queensbridge.

Then a 20-year-old tour guide, Nas was no dispassionate megaphone wielder. Brought into sharp focus by Illmatic's less-is-more approach (nine full tracks plus intro; a solitary guest verse from AZ), his persona was that of the Heineken-swigging, weed-smoking, high-school dropout whose poetry pierces through the gloom of his surroundings.

Illmatic's oft-imitated album cover shot ? a portrait of the artist as a serious-looking shorty ? suggested an old head on young shoulders, and it was a formula that worked. By delivering his asphalt narratives with poetic poignancy and a novelist's eye for detail, Nas appealed equally to the street-schooled corner kid and the Rakim-raised hip-hop connoisseur.

"I'm not your legal type of fella," Nas rhymed, but his skills were undeniably legit. Just ask the elite roster of knob-twiddlers ? Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Large Professor and L.E.S. ? who lined up to provide Illmatic's exemplary sonic backdrops. In fact, combine those tough, frequently soulful compositions with the street-steeped musings and masterful mic technique of Nasty Nas and you have a flawless template for the type of "real" hip-hop that's all too rare in the ringtone and Auto-Tune era.

No wonder Illmatic still has hip-hoppers taking that trip down Memory Lane ?

Elzhi's Elmatic is released on 10 May


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/30/nas-illmatic-elzhi-elmatic-mixtape

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Prince William and Kate Middleton honor Diana?s memory

(Prince William, screen shot; Princess Diana, Peter Skingley/AP/pool)

During every step of their path down the aisle, Kate and William have made a point to keep Lady Diana?s memory alive. Today?s wedding was no exception.

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/prince-william-and-kate-middleton-honor-diana-s-memory-2479370/

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Friday, April 29, 2011

Low-Calorie Spring Menus

Get you out of the winter rut with fresh low-calorie menus for spring featuring seasonal produce and fresh ingredients. The best part? They are all under 500 calories. Cobb Salad Pizza Menu This recipe gives you the best of both worlds?pizza and salad combined! To save?

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/low-calorie-spring-menus-2472598/

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Picklemakers Finding Their Way Out of a Pickle

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Pickle manufacturers are in something of a pickle these days as they search for ways to drive more "aisle turn-in." In other words, with pickles located in the condiment aisle in most grocery stores, they're about as far away from the "impulse buy" sections as one salty jar of vinegary vegetables can be.

What's more, during traffic pattern mapping, grocery consultants discovered that the condiment aisle is visited by just 20% of shoppers, though a full 60% of shoppers will pass through the produce section or the dairy aisle.

So what's a pickle maker to do? Change their marketing, for one. On Monday, the Vlasic "brand character," a stork with glasses perched on his long beak, began appearing in the meat section next to the ground beef. After all, what's more quintessentially American than a hamburger with pickle slices? The stork's also started showing up in the bread section next to the buns (in keeping with the hamburger theme). Ads on shopping carts also promote the perfection of hamburgers with Vlasic pickles.

Continue reading Picklemakers Finding Their Way Out of a Pickle

Picklemakers Finding Their Way Out of a Pickle originally appeared on WalletPop on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.walletpop.com/2011/04/29/picklemakers-finding-their-way-out-of-a-pickle/

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Beyond stereotypes

They run workshops combating al-Qaida propaganda and face personal danger promoting moderate Islam. Haroon Siddique meets the Muslim women confronting prejudice in their fight against extremism

Tehmina Kazi wears modest western dress and believes in plurality and diversity within her faith, Islam. For her pains, she has been labelled a whore, admonished for not wearing the hijab and accused, inaccurately, of wearing short skirts by people she has never met, writing online.

When she defended Usama Hasan, the London imam who faced death threats and was suspended from Leyton mosque last month after he said evolution was compatible with Islam, she had to go to police after receiving threats of her own.

Despite this, Kazi, the director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, remains defiant in her role as one of the small but growing number of British Muslim women challenging and combating Islamic extremism. Campaigning against any extremism is not for the faint-hearted, but for Muslim women it requires a special kind of resolve. "It takes a lot more courage to do this if you're a woman because the type of criticism you get is very different," she says, highlighting the personal nature of the abuse. "They always talk about what you wear."

Kazi believes women should be free to wear whatever they choose ? it is stereotypes about Muslim women that she aims to confront. BMSD, which, despite not being a women's organisation, has always had female leadership after being founded by columnist Yasmin Alibhai Brown ? supports a young Muslim leadership programme, counter-demonstrates against extremist groups, such as Anjem Choudary's Islam4UK, and attempts to get moderate voices heard in debates about Islam. The group emphasises the underutilised weapon of humour in taking the fight to the extremists. In one video on the BMSD website, an archetypal "angry young Muslim" begins ominously, "I have a message for those who insult Islam," before adding: "Let's agree to disagree."

It campaigns against both Islamic extremism and Islamophobia ? Kazi cites the example of "the preacher going to the mosque and saying women who wear perfume are adulterers", as well as stereotypes of Muslims that suggests all women are marginalised.

These views are echoed by Sara Khan who set up Inspire two years ago because she felt there was no organisation helping Muslim women to achieve their potential. "It's quite patronising. To say Muslim women are oppressed or don't contribute is just so patronising ? no community wants to be stereotyped."

Khan makes no attempt to hide her frustration as she rails against the wider perception of Muslim women, which, for her, manifests itself in the media preoccupation with the hijab. Khan wore the hijab for 15 years before she tired of the "obsession" surrounding it. Despite Khan's frustration at stereotyping, she is not blind to the fact that not all Muslim women have had the same freedom and opportunities as she has, recognising that there are "Muslim women not allowed to go out of the house".

Khan, who sat on the Home Office working group tackling extremism and radicalisation, and Inspire are behind an event at City Hall for 200 activists, academics and policy-makers called Speaking in God's Name: Re-examining Gender in Islam next month, in which religious experts will aim to debunk restrictions conservative Muslims seek to place on women. Khan says it is the first event of its kind. "Let's have a real debate about the role of women," she says. "That debate is not happening. You get the same 'No sister, you're not allowed to travel on your own'."

She blames the lack of Islamic literature for female followers and provisions for women at mosques for what she describes as an increasing terrorist threat from women. Citing the student who stabbed the MP Stephen Timms, she says: "It's not surprising Roshonara Chaudhry learned her faith from the internet." Khan argues that the government's much-criticised preventing violent terrorism scheme, now being revamped, suffered from a lack of female involvement.

She makes a compelling case for women to be central in the battle against extremism. "Women shape values in children," she says. Inspire runs workshops to educate mothers in countering al-Qaida propaganda, arming them with religious texts they can use to rebut the arguments of extremists that their children may hear.

Like Kazi and Khan, Houriya Ahmed, who until last month worked for the Centre for Social Cohesion ? a thinktank that issues briefing papers on radicalisation and extremism ? has had insults about not wearing the hijab, or as she puts it "not being Muslim enough". But she is less inclined to attribute them to gender, believing anyone who challenges extremists is likely to face abuse.

As she works not for a Muslim organisation but for the CSC, her experiences are different from the other Muslim women interviewed. "I don't want to be seen as a Muslim woman doing this," says Ahmed, who sees her religion as a private matter that is irrelevant to her job.

Other campaigners disagree. Rabia Mirza, who is involved with Cheerleaders Against Everything speaks about how involvement in fighting extremism has strengthened her faith. A disparate group with an anarchic sense of humour, reflected in its title, it has managed to get under the skin of both Islamic extremists and leftwingers. As well as mounting counter-demonstrations against extremists groups, its members go on extremist forums to argue their case.

Cheerleaders has informal links with Kazia's BMSD as well as, controversially, the English Defence League. Ex-EDL members, who remain committed to challenging extremism but quit the far-right group because of a belief it was indiscriminate in its attacks on Islam, have joined with the Cheerleaders to form an organisation called the Nice Ones. Mirza says the idea is to link with those ? "very few" ? within the EDL whose goal is to combat Islamic extremism, rather than just oppose Islam.

However one views such an association, it is unarguable that this type of alliance would be unthinkable to the Muslim groups usually rolled out as constituting the frontline in the fight against extremism. Despite breaking the mould, Mirza accepts that women need the co-operation of people who the extremists can identify with more readily. "If we formed a group of women who are highly liberated, it will annoy them, so we need a middle ground," she says.

"We Muslims need to take a bit of an active role," says Mirza. "We need to educate our women, liberate women and that will lead the way. Every country where they have educated their women, the country has thrived."

There is a big gulf in the level of experience of Mirza, who is at university, and someone such as Khan in trying to shake up the way Muslim leaders respond to the issues affecting British Muslims, but they are equally convinced of the need for change. Khan says she is sick of traditional male-led Muslim organisations failing to come up with solutions, and responding to each controversy with the mantra "Islam is a religion of peace". She is working for change and hopes others will join her. "Muslim women are so frustrated with the leadership," she says. "We need the discourse of women ? they will bring a whole new dimension to it."

But ultimately it is not just the conservative male Muslim leadership that Muslim women want to change their ways. They want society as a whole to see what Muslim women can do if people will only set the stereotypes aside. "There's a perception that Muslim woman are sitting at home, not doing anything," says Khan, "but that's not the case at all."


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/29/muslim-women-fighting-islamic-extremism

Christina Applegate Christina DaRe Christina Milian Christina Ricci

Dwayne Johnson Producing and Starring in Biopic on Charley Pride?

Earlier this week, we learned that Fast Five star Paul Walker would produce and star in an indie thriller called Vehicle 19. Now another cast member from the franchise sequel is also producing and starring in another lower profile project of his own. The Telegraph-Journal (via The Playlist) has learned that Dwayne Johnson has been lined up to produce and star in a biopic about African-American country music singer Charley Pride whose career blossomed in the 1970's. Apparently the project was previously being developed with Terrence Howard starring and Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer, but not anymore.

Pride himself revealed this bit of news in an interview with the Telegraph-Journal saying, the project had been developed previously, "But then the ball got fumbled. New management took over the studio that was ready to begin site work on it. And a decision was made to put all ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/kKGMNGi3uBo/

Heidi Klum Heidi Montag Hilarie Burton Hilary Duff

Kristen Wiig, Anna Faris and Gillian Jacobs All Up for 'The Dictator'

Last November we learned that director Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen, the duo who teamed up to bring us Borat and Br�no would collaborate again, but this time with a non-mockumentary feature film called The Dictator. Then we heard Saddam Hussein's best-selling novel Zabibah and the King inspired the story which sees a dictator risk his life to ensure democracy will never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. Now we have word from THR that Kristen Wiig (Paul), Anna Faris, and Gillian Jacobs ("Community") have emerged as the latest frontrunners for the lead female role opposite of Cohen.

Though the film isn't a mockumentary like their previous work, Cohen, Charles and the producers still want someone with strong improvisational skills. As a matter of fact, they even say that the part could end up going to someone outside of these three contenders. It's unclear how the ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/eFAsbFY6YQs/

Georgina Grenville Gina Carano Gina Gershon Gina Philips

Real Londoners: Most Aren't Flying Flags, Watching the Wedding, or Looking Forward to Paying For It

Royal-watchers from outside will think London is permanently
festooned with Union Jacks and royal-loving subjects, curtsying and
bowing like there's no tomorrow. Yet just down the road from
Westminster are regular people struggling daily to keep a roof over
their heads, who don't have time to think about the royals and
their celebration.

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/real-londoners-most-aren-t-flying-flags-watching-the-wedding-or-looking-forward-to-paying-for-it-2478639/

Ciara Cindy Crawford Cindy Taylor Cinthia Moura

One for the history books: 7 baby name ideas for Will and Kate

For more royal baby name ideas for Will and Kate, visit Babble. MORE ON BABBLE:

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/one-for-the-history-books-7-baby-name-ideas-for-will-and-kate-2479114/

Charli Baltimore Charlies Angels Charlize Theron Chelsea Handler

'Can I leave my wife for another woman without hurting my family?'

Post your advice below. The best responses will be published in G2 next Friday

I was brought up a Catholic, and when my girlfriend got pregnant within four weeks of dating, I was a dad at 17, and married at 18. I had multiple one-night stands and we split up several times. We had another child several years later, but a year after that I met someone else and fell in love for the first time. The joy of being with her was outweighed by not being with my children; I eventually could stand no more, split from the woman I loved and tried to kill myself.

After a separation and court proceedings, my wife and I reconciled. I love my kids, but despite medication, I have developed alcohol and drug issues to numb the pain. Recently I met someone. For the second time in my life I am in love. How can I give up a chance of real happiness? My children are 26 and 14, I am 44. I want to leave with minimal hurt to my family ? is this possible?

? If you would like to respond to this week's problem, please post your comment below.

When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Private Lives asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments which appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will not appear.

? If you would like fellow readers to respond to a dilemma of yours, send us an outline of the situation of around 150 words. For advice from Pamela Stephenson Connolly on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns.

? All correspondence should reach us by Wednesday morning. Email: private.lives@guardian.co.uk (please don't send attachments)


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/28/dont-want-to-hurt-family

Amy Cobb Amy Smart Ana Beatriz Barros Ana Hickmann

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Readers recommend: songs about weddings

For no particular reason, we've chosen weddings as our topic this week. So what are the best tunes about tying the knot?

As you put out the bunting and toast Britain's future head of state and his missus/spend the day studiously avoiding the vulgar, anachronistic celebration of privilege (delete as applicable), what music springs to mind?

Of course, weddings (not marriage ? we've done that) should be happy occasions. Two people pledge to love and care for each other in a public ceremony, followed by a hell of a party. But that post-nuptials shindig, at which refreshments are readily available, is often the scene of a disaster. There must be a few songs about such events.

So I'm not after songs that are played at weddings ? I'm well acquainted with the merits of Dancing Queen. But I would like to hear great songs about the occasion: the ceremony, or the wedding day, or the effects of the act of getting hitched. Post your suggestions below and we'll celebrate the best next Thursday.

* Special thanks to Suzi for suggesting this topic, and to all those who've suggested future subjects. Keep them coming.

The toolbox:

* Listen to others' suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
* Previously on Readers Recommend.
* Guide to "donds", "zedded", and other strange words used by some of the RR regulars (courtesy of the Marconium).
* The Marconium (blog containing a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are "zedded").

* The 'Spill (blog for the RR community).

Please do:

* Post your nominations before midday on Tuesday if you wish them to be considered.
* Write a few lines advocating the merits of your choices.

But please don't:

* Post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
* Dump lists of nominations. If you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/apr/29/readers-recommend-songs-about-weddings

Amanda Bynes Amanda Detmer Amanda Marcum Amanda Peet

Brides Reveal: Things I Wish I Never Did on My Big Day

As Kate Middleton prepares to walk down the aisle to say "I do" to Prince William, former brides reminisce about the things they wish they hadn't done on their big day.

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/brides-reveal-things-i-wish-i-never-did-on-my-big-day-2479082/

Aaliyah Abbie Cornish Adriana Lima Adrianne Curry

Lionsgate Working with MGM to Finally Release 'Cabin in the Woods'

When MGM was caught up in crippling financial struggles, the fate of several films was left uncertain. One such tragic delay was that of The Cabin in the Woods, a horror film directed by Drew Goddard (the writer behind Cloverfield) who also wrote the film with Joss Whedon. The film was once slated for release on October 23rd of 2009, but then was pushed back for a conversion to 3D. Of course, that delay was made even longer due to MGM's aforementioned financial issues. Now the film will finally get its due diligence in theaters as Deadline says Lionsgate is in the midst of striking a deal with MGM to finally distribute the film.

Perhaps a blessing in disguise, this delay will allow one of the film's stars, Chris Hemsworth, to have his starpower help bring a bigger audience to the film now. With Thor coming out next week, it's likely ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/wh2BMtW88Pk/

Aki Ross Alecia Elliott Alessandra Ambrosio Alexis Bledel

Summertime is A Good Time for Cousin Fun Time

Cousins.  Some live close, some live far, but there isn't anything quite like a cousin that's close in age.   I grew up with cousins that lived 12 hours away and only got to see them in the summers for a short period, but the memories are forever. 

Now?

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/summertime-is-a-good-time-for-cousin-fun-time-2479013/

Anna Faris Anna Friel Anna Kournikova Anna Paquin

TGB Episode 48: Computer Generated (Guest: TRS' Jeff Cannata)

On this week's episode of The Golden Briefcase, Tim & Jeremy are joined by guest Jeff Cannata of the world famous Totally Rad Show to go over their Picks of the Week, the newest in DVD/Blu-Ray releases, the Super Bowl teasers for Captain America, J.J. Abrams' Super 8 and Transformers 3, debate Jeremy's dislike of Paranormal Activity 2 and much more! The episode's main topic is CGI characters in films (in honor of Gnomeo & Juliet coming out this weekend). The guys go over both good and bad examples and talk about the necessity of such characters and the issues of using them as a crutch in the final film product. Listen in!

The Golden Briefcase is also broadcast LIVE on Tuesday nights starting at 7:30PM (PST). You can listen in via our Ustream page or by visiting our own live page right here on FS. The podcast is just as ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/goldenbriefcase/~3/3JdfuJE6Vcs/

Elisha Cuthbert Eliza Dushku Emilie de Ravin Emma Heming

How to build the perfect raised bed garden

A raised bed is one of the best ways to grow vegetables. Use this easy DIY plan to build one on your own.?? Materials?
  • One 6-foot-long 4-by-4 ($15)
  • Six 8-foot-long 2-by-6s ($75)
  • One 10-foot-long 1-inch PVC pipe ($3)
  • Two 10-foot-long �-inch?

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/how-to-build-the-perfect-raised-bed-garden-2478352/

Elisha Cuthbert Eliza Dushku Emilie de Ravin Emma Heming

Not just any old iron | Jo Marchant | Secrets of good science writing

Writing about science with clarity and precision doesn't preclude creativity, passion ? and even poetry ? says Jo Marchant

Click here to enter the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and The Observer

Rusty old iron. It's not exactly stirring stuff. Yet one of my favourite pieces of science writing is about exactly this.

It's from a lecture on iron in nature, delivered by the social reformer and art critic John Ruskin in 1858 (published in The Two Paths in 1859, and excerpted in the Faber Book of Science as "In praise of rust"). Ruskin thought artists should understand science, especially the science of the natural world, and was himself a keen amateur geologist.

In the essay, Ruskin warns us not to dismiss rusted iron as spoiled. When iron rusts it takes oxygen from the air, he explains, just as we do when we breathe. Pure iron might be useful for making tools, but metals in this oxidised, "living" form ? such as sand or clay ? make up the very ground that nourishes us. Without them, he points out, the planet could support no life:

" ... how would you like the world, if all your meadows, instead of grass, grew nothing but iron wire ? if all your arable ground, instead of being made of sand and clay, were suddenly turned into flat surfaces of steel ? if the whole earth, instead of its green and glowing sphere, rich with forest and flower, showed nothing but the image of the vast furnace of a ghastly engine ? a globe of black, lifeless, excoriated metal?"

Not only that, says Ruskin, but oxidised iron gives earth its vibrant colour:

"Think of your winding walks over the common, as warm to the eye as they are dry to the foot, and imagine them all laid down suddenly with gray cinders. Then pass beyond the common into the country, and pause at the first ploughed field that you see sweeping up the hill sides in the sun, with its deep brown furrows, and a wealth of ridges all a-glow, heaved aside by the ploughshare, like deep folds of a mantle of russet velvet ? fancy it all changed suddenly into grisly furrows in a field of mud. That is what it would be without iron."

He concludes with the possibility that iron is responsible for the crimson hue of blood itself:

"Is it not strange to find this stern and strong metal mingled so delicately in our human life that we cannot even blush without its help?"

For me, this is a forceful demonstration of how to write about science with creativity, passion, and even poetry. Ruskin conveys the scientific understanding of his day with clarity and precision. But he also gives it beauty and meaning. What could have been a mundane discussion of metal oxidation becomes a moving exploration of our relationship with a nourishing planet.

The piece has a strong moral message too, about the dangers of untrammelled technological advance and the importance of the natural world both to our physical existence and our spirit. Ruskin listens to scientists and respects their knowledge, but doesn't follow their agenda.

Not that all science writing should have such a strong moral or political slant. But it is important to acknowledge that science is inevitably a human concern, with implications for how we look at the world and the way we live our lives.

Scientists often assume that a journalist's job is simply to translate what they want to say into words that other people can understand. But good science writing is far more than that. Move beyond what the scientists are telling you. Add something of your own soul into it. And decide for yourself what story you want to tell.

Jo Marchant is a freelance science journalist based in London and author of Decoding the Heavens. She blogs at http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/28/wellcome-science-writing-prize

Brooke Burke Brooke Burns Busy Philipps Cameron Diaz

Sports coach Andy Fenton on The Changing Room

Janek Schaefer missed out the all-important banter in his meditation on the locker-room experience

I felt a bit let down by this. Sound artist Janek Schaefer has made an installation inside Bath University, inspired by his exploration of sports changing rooms: what they look like, what they sound like, what they signify. I was really interested to see what he'd come up with ? most changing-rooms I've used are pretty disgusting ? so I took three of the people I coach: a rugby player, a runner, and my seven-year-old son.

The first problem we had was that we couldn't actually find the exhibition ? Schaefer has installed his changing room (just two walls, some pegs and a locker) in an empty space between the foyer and the cafe. We got there and thought, "Is this it?" Two doors in one of the exhibition's walls lead to the toilets: my girlfriend went to the loo without realising it was meant to be part of the show. Most people were wandering past oblivious, but we stayed and pressed the buttons Schaefer has installed, each of which emits a different sound.

Press one, and you hear a woman talking about training on her bike; press another, and you hear a motivational slogan: "Winners finish when they finish; losers finish when they're tired." I imagine that is the kind of slogan coaches use with elite stars, though I wouldn't try it on the young people I coach ? they'd find it too off-putting.

I like the idea of using sound in art, and the changing room is a really interesting place for an artist to explore ? but I think Schaefer could have done much more. I'd have liked to see the show installed in a real changing room: there'd have been more of an atmosphere.

He could have compared the way a changing room feels when a team has just won a match, with how it feels when they've just lost. Or he could have recorded all the sounds you'd hear over one whole day. Changing rooms are all about the people, the smells, and the banter ? all of which are missing here.

? Andy Fenton works for The Sportzcoach: thesportzcoach.com. The Changing Room is at the ICIA Art Space 1, Bath University, until 17 June. Details: bath.ac.uk


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/27/andy-fenton-changing-room-schaefer

Jennifer Aniston Jennifer Gareis Jennifer Garner Jennifer Gimenez

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

User Post: How Have Gas Prices Affected You?

As I drove into a gas station to fill up my car, I notices that the prices had gone up by a dime since last week. They are now close to $4.00/gallon and in some parts of the country they have gone beyond $4.00 per gallon.  How have gas prices affected you?

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/user-post-how-have-gas-prices-affected-you-2478512/

Danica Patrick Daniella Alonso Danneel Harris Deanna Russo

My love life in your hands

With Marni off the scene for months, I'm keeping my romantic options open. But how do I meet someone new?


Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/poll/2011/apr/23/relationships

Christina Ricci Chyler Leigh Ciara Cindy Crawford

TGB Episode 43: A Year in Preview 2011 (Guest: Marco Cerritos)

On this first 2011 episode of The Golden Briefcase, Tim and Jeremy are joined by friend of the site and writer Marco Cerritos from good ole FirstShowing (read his stuff here) to go through their latest Picks of the Week, the newest in DVD & Blu-Ray releases, a few new trailers for Kevin Smith's Red State and Natalie Portman's new emotional drama The Other Woman and much more! The main topic of the night was a 2011 Preview in Movies! The guys go over some of what they are most excited for and talk in general about the upcoming film year. From Rango to Captain America to Battle: LA to The Beaver - they cover everything!

The Golden Briefcase is also broadcast LIVE on Tuesday nights starting at 7:30PM (PST). You can listen in via our Ustream page or by visiting our own live page right here on FS. The ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/goldenbriefcase/~3/DM6LX2zOfe0/

Jennifer Love Hewitt Jennifer Morrison Jennifer ODell Jennifer Scholle

Plot Details & New Cast Members Revealed for 'Piranha 3DD' Sequel

Back in October we learned that Feast director John Gulager would be at the helm of Piranha 3DD, the sequel to last year's over-the-top- blood and nudity filled tongue-in-cheek Piranha 3D, the remake of the original 1978 film from director Joe Dante. Well, earlier this week production officially began on the sequel in North Carolina, and with the start of principal photography we have a list of new cast members joining the sequel including Danielle Panabaker (The Crazies), Matt Bush (Adventureland), Chris Zylka (The Amazing Spider-Man), David Koechner (Anchorman), and Megan Tandy (Unstoppable). More below!

Oh, and in addition, one of Hollywood's craziest will be involved with THR reporting Gary Busey has landed a role in the film as well. Relatively unknown names Paul James Jordan, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Hector Jimenez, Adrian Martinez, Clu Gulager have also joined the cast, and more will apparently be announced soon. Let's hope that means ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/Dmr76fxzDKs/

Aisha Tyler Aki Ross Alecia Elliott Alessandra Ambrosio

TGB Episode 42: A Sense of Finality 2010 (Guest: Peter Sciretta)

On this week's very special episode of The Golden Briefcase, Tim, Jeremy and Alex are joined by special guest Peter Sciretta, owner and editor of SlashFilm, in order to go over their tops of this last year in film! The guys forego the usual top 10 countdowns and instead go through some categories that best outline some of the best (and worst) movies of 2010: Biggest Surprise/Disappointment, Best Actor/Actress, Best/Worst Film of the Year. We also mix in listener voicemails talking about their favorite films of the year including opinions from numerous good friends of the show. This is one of our very best episodes - download it now!

The Golden Briefcase is also broadcast LIVE on Tuesday nights starting at 7:30PM (PST). You can listen in via our Ustream page or by visiting our own live page right here on FS. The podcast is just as fun to listen to ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/goldenbriefcase/~3/2cXg0qTIvwA/

Ali Campoverdi Ali Larter Alice Dodd Alicia Keys

Arnold Schwarzenegger Back as 'Terminator' for Director Justin Lin

Since his first return to show business in The Governator doesn't look all that impressive, Arnold Schwarzenegger will use an old standby to make a big splash back into acting. Deadline is reporting that the action superstar is attached to a rights packaged being shopped around Hollywood today that will have him back as The Terminator. Though no screenwriter is currently attached and it's not clear if this is simply a sequel or some sort of remake or reboot for the franchise, the project already has Fast Five helmer Justin Lin attached to direct for a package that would cost studios $25 million (maybe more) to pick up.

Apparently Universal, Sony and Lionsgate are already looking at the package, so there should be an official deal coming sometime soon. Deadline points out that there's a bit of a ticking clock behind the Terminator franchise though. With copyright law, if you assign ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/881ilCQeMAA/

Hilary Duff Hilary Swank Isla Fisher Ivana Bozilovic

John Martyn's final recordings to be released

Heaven and Earth, the late folk singer's 'last musical testament', will feature a guest spot from Phil Collins

Two years after his death, John Martyn's final recordings are to see the light of day. Phil Collins is among the guests on the collection Heaven and Earth, singing on a cover of his song Can't Turn Back the Years.

Folk legend Martyn died in January 2009. While his death ruled out plans to work with jazz musician Pharoah Sanders, Martyn had been recording with producer Jim Tullio, a long-time friend. Tullio is now working with co-producer Gary Pollitt to put Martyn's "last musical testament in order", assembling the posthumous album from an assortment of the singer-songwriter's vocal and guitar takes. "John was a genius," Tullio said. "He made music more naturally than anyone I've ever met, as effortlessly as the way you and I speak."

Martyn's connection to Collins came out of their experiences with divorce. Thirty years ago, both were reeling from the ends of their first marriages; Martyn even "crashed" at Collins's home, and the former Genesis drummer produced Martyn's 1981 album Glorious Fool. "John wanted to do one of Phil's songs to repay him," Tullio said. Before his death, Martyn had begun work on Can't Turn Back the Years, taken from Collins's 1993 solo album, Both Sides. "After John passed, I spoke with Phil and he really wanted to sing on the track," Tullio said. "[Phil] said he had always wanted John to record one of his songs. You can hear the emotion in their voices."

The rest of Heaven and Earth was made using some of Martyn's "favourite back-up singers", with Tullio and Pollitt assembling the sprawling instrumentals. "We didn't do any editing," Tullio explained. "A lot of the tracks are long ? even rambling ? but we left them that way, as John last heard them. We knew this was it, so we made a conscious decision to keep everything, every morsel."

Heaven and Earth will be released by Hole in the Rain Records on 3 May.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/27/john-martyn-final-recordings

Carrie Underwood Cat Power Catherine Bell Chandra West

Paul Walker to Executive Produce & Star in Indie Thriller 'Vehicle 19'

This week will see him in some high speed vehicles for Fast Five, but Paul Walker is currently looking at a vehicle of a different type. According to Heat Vision the actor is going to star in and executive producer an indie thriller called Vehicle 19. South African filmmaker Mukuna Michael Dewil will direct the feature, and he also wrote the script (apparently it appeared on some sort of list tracking the best screenplays, though the Black List isn't mentioned) which centers on an unsuspecting�traveler (Walker) in a foreign country who picks up the wrong rental car and�becomes tangled in a web of corruption with the local police.

Honestly, I'd like to say that this plot sounds a bit Hitchcockian, but including Walker's name in the same sentence as a term used to describe a story reminiscent of the iconic filmmaker just seems disrespectful. Sure, Walker fits in perfectly with the ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firstshowing/movienews/~3/kiqLPUsXcKE/

Audrina Patridge Autumn Reeser Avril Lavigne Bali Rodriguez

Earth Day Freebies For Reducers and Reusers

Filed under: ,

Every day may be Earth Day for me, but that doesn't mean I can't stand a little hoopla and celebration for doing the things I do year-round. Bring my own tote bag to the grocery store? Check. Bring my reusable coffee mug instead of one-time use (and non-compostable) paper cups to the coffee bar? Check. Reuse old plastic bags? Check. And doing this will get me all kinds of free bonuses on Friday, April 22. Here are a few:

Free coffee at Starbucks and Peet's. At Starbucks, all you have to do is walk in the store with your own mug for a free cup of brewed coffee or tea, hot or iced. At Peet's, you'll have to buy one of their mugs (travel or ceramic, regular priced only) in order to get a free drink, but it can be any sort of drink, size medium.

Free tree at Lowe's (Saturday, April 23rd). The first 1 million customers who ask will get a free tree at a Lowe's near them. The website doesn't say which sort of trees, although the promotional photo for the giveaway shows a little boy holding a baby fir tree.

Continue reading Earth Day Freebies For Reducers and Reusers

Earth Day Freebies For Reducers and Reusers originally appeared on WalletPop on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.walletpop.com/2011/04/22/earth-day-freebies-for-reducers-and-reusers/

Adriana Lima Adrianne Curry Adrianne Palicki Aisha Tyler

Shrink to fit

Actor Gabriel Byrne's subtle portrayal of a psychotherapist in TV series In Treatment has won him awards and made him a heartthrob again at 59

An interesting irony of Gabriel Byrne's career is that despite having acted for 30 years and been one half of a celebrity couple for a decade when he was married to actor Ellen Barkin, he has managed, to his relief, to maintain an impressive privacy ? yet the parts he chooses are, despite himself, highly personal, and even self-revelatory. What public perception there is of him seems to extend little beyond "Irish", "handsome" and ? to use his least favourite yet the most popular description of him ? "brooding". ("I don't even know what that means!" he complains, with ? unfortunately for him ? an expression close to brooding.)

Well, after meeting him, I can exclusively reveal that yes, he is Irish, and, yes, very handsome too, if, inevitably, a little more salted and grizzled than he was 20 years ago as the chilling but heartmeltingly beautiful Tom in Miller's Crossing.

But while he is thoughtful, painstakingly at times, and frequently self-deprecating, he is far from "brooding". He turns what was supposed to be a one-hour interview about a TV show in a cafe near his apartment in New York's SoHo into a four-hour impassioned conversation, funny at some points, searing at others. I emerge from it faintly dizzy.

Yet despite his obvious love of conversation, he does share an instinct common to so many of his characters, from the faintly threatening Keaton in The Usual Suspects, to the brilliant but emotionally battered psychotherapist Paul Weston in the TV series In Treatment: a wariness of self-exposure. He bats away personal questions with rambling anecdotes that often contain everything but the answer ? yet little details escape. When asked, apropos of the antique love ring he is wearing, whether he is seeing anyone, he launches into a 15-minute tale about the first time he gave an interview and how the photographer made him pretend to cook an omelette. It's a funny story with a serious subtext: "I know better now than to give out more than I want." And fair enough. But in the end, his loquaciousness reveals more than he would perhaps wish: he mentions several times a particular "friend" with a female pronoun, who is presumably the actor Anna George, with whom he allegedly lives.

This desire for privacy also partly explains why, although the second series of In Treatment is only just about to air in the UK, the show that has won him a Golden Globe and an Emmy has ended in America after the third series, much to his satisfaction. He absolutely does not want to be the next Hugh Laurie, trapped in the gilded cage of American TV success: "That is definitely not for me," he says. "We stopped [In Treatment] at just the right time."

Once, Byrne, remembers, a Hollywood agent said to him, after he had been cast for a part he can't even remember now: "This is it ? you're going to be huge, say goodbye to your anonymity." This cliched spiel is just what all actors, writers and directors are said to dream of hearing, but Byrne spits it out like a threat.

Yet just as his love of conversation occasionally works against his desire for privacy, so the acting projects that he has chosen, and particularly the ones he loves the most, often relate to a subject that is very personal to him: the abuse of power.

In the undeservedly little known 2006 film Jindabyne, Byrne and his friends find the body of a teenage girl and decide to abandon it so as not to spoil their fishing trip. Byrne's rendition of the monstrous father, Cornelius Melody, in the 2005 Broadway production of Touch of the Poet, by Eugene O'Neill, ? a playwright particularly close to Byrne's heart ? was another memorable examination of this subject, and one that prompted the New York Times to describe Byrne as "the rare contemporary actor who . . . can turn that air of splendour into a sustained gale-force dramatic wind".

But the abuse of power was most overtly explored in the first series of the excellent In Treatment. Adapted from the highly successful original Israeli version, BeTipul, it stars Byrne as Paul Weston, the therapist who can heal others but not himself. Despite surface similarities with House, it has none of the latter's cheesy glibness and feels more like a particularly intelligent low-budget play than a TV show, each scene involving nothing more than Byrne sitting in a chair with a patient opposite (or his own therapist, played by the always wonderful Dianne Wiest). The writing is particularly fine but it is Byrne's ability to act with nothing more than the slightest flicker of his eyes that has really carried the show. And, to his embarrassment, and his teenage daughter's horror, made him a heartthrob again at the age of 59.

The show also plays to the double desire that most of us have to know the secrets of other people's inner lives and also to have someone who will reassure us about our inner life. The production is so small and quiet that the scenes between Paul and his patients feel like confessionals. "Well, therapy is not so different from confession," says Byrne, who has never had therapy himself. "It's that search for reassurance."

One of the main plotlines of the first series was when Paul had inappropriate feelings for a young and vulnerable female patient. Byrne took the story so seriously that he had "huge discussions" on set about whether at one point his character could even sit next to the patient on the couch. In the end, he won and he didn't: "Of course I couldn't sit on the couch ? it would have been breaking that ethical barrier," he says, with as much fervour as if he really were a therapist. It's a subject that continues into the second series when a former patient claims he encouraged her to have an abortion.

This issue of responsibility and moral transgression is one Byrne returns to repeatedly over the four hours: "If a person in authority morally transgresses they should be called to the book. Bankers, priests, politicians ? people who betrayed trust. They should be punished, and I don't mean that in a vindictive way, I think it's important as part of the process of moving on to say there is a system of justice," he says, his voice quiet but his eyes bright.

It is an issue that Byrne himself experienced personally in the most awful way imaginable: between the ages of eight and 11, he was sexually and physically abused by the Christian Brothers in Ireland and then again in England.

Byrne first talked about this three years ago in a radio interview, describing a school system in which abuse was a "known and admitted fact of life". The abuse, he said, happened at a "very vulnerable time for him" and left him "deeply hurt".

Today, that hurt is still palpable but the anger more so:

"When a person in authority says something is right, you want to believe it," he says haltingly at first, moving from the first person to the safer distance of the second person. "Particularly when you're a child: when a person in authority embraces you, you feel reassured. When that relationship is used to abuse the child, the child doesn't question it because it is what it is. A child doesn't understand. The seeing of the big picture, that comes later."

(Although, he adds wryly, that need to please authority figure never really goes away: just the other day he went to the doctor and "I found myself trying to give him the right answers.")

"The healing process, for want of another word, takes years," he says, and as an adult, Byrne suffered from alcoholism and depression. He quotes ? word-perfect ? an article that appeared recently in the Guardian about a man who was among the thousands of child migrants shipped to Australia from Britain between the second world war and 1967, was also abused by the Christian Brothers and felt, for the rest of his life, "an emptiness". "It took a while for me to finish reading that piece," says Byrne quietly.

The abuse is not a subject that Byrne wishes to dwell on: "Not", he says carefully, "because I don't want to talk about it, but because I don't want to be known for it." But even as soon as he says that, he proceeds to spend the next hour and a half talking about his anger towards the Catholic church and the abuse that was, he says, his voice thick with fury, "an epidemic that was covered up and the victims were made to feel responsible for the crimes perpetrated".

Byrne now describes himself as "extremely anti-Catholic" and "very much an atheist". He talks about "the craziness" of many of the beliefs but it is the sadism and irresponsibility of those in charge that makes his voice drop down a notch:

"The Catholic church is repressive of women and minorities and repressive of its followers. It victimised people through propaganda and kept them in line through primitive fear. The first step that has to be taken is the abolition of celibacy. The church that is supposed to be about love denies its followers the most sacred expression of love. It says, you can't do that because you'll go to hell for it. You can do it if you're married but even then you can only do it on certain days of the month."

Byrne was born in Crumlin, Dublin in 1950, the eldest of six children. He grew up in a world where mothers with prams would walk in the street to make room for a priest coming down the road. His parents were "religious people with a limited understanding of the world and had a childlike belief in the authority of the church", he says, with no anger, only sympathy. As a child, Byrne wanted to be a priest, not because he was particularly religious but because: "In a way I didn't then understand, the church tapped into my love of theatre." Despite the abuse he suffered at school, he decided at 11 he wanted to go to England and train as a priest, and he was, shockingly, abused there again.

At 15, Byrne happened to walk behind two miniskirted girls going up the stairs on a bus and realised there were some requirements of the priesthood he'd never be able to follow, and so he returned to Ireland. After finishing school and jobbing through his 20s, he began acting and moved to London, where he palled around with fellow struggling actor Liam Neeson, and joined the Royal Court theatre. It was not the best time for a young Irishman to move to London: "Rupert Murdoch was trying to destabilise the British press, Margaret Thatcher was destroying the unions: it was impossible to be Irish and not notice that and it must have been difficult for people in England to not respond in a way that they were being manipulated into by the press," he says, with typically careful phrasing.

The one upside, though, was that at the Royal Court he realised that maybe he could make a career as an actor.

In 1988, he moved to New York to marry Ellen Barkin, whom he met on a movie set, and they have two children, Jack, 21, a musician, and Romy, 19. Jack is currently touring with Bob Dylan, which makes Byrne tap his heart with pride. He worries about his daughter, though: "We live in a paternalistic society still ? we all know that," he says, his face crumpling a little. "So just by being a woman, her choices are limited." He and Barkin divorced in 1999.

Aside from a brief stint in LA, Byrne has remained in New York and some of his vowels are now truncated with American inflections. Yet with the loyalty of an expat, he buys the Irish Times and the Guardian every day, plus "as much as I don't want to buy it, The Sunday Times". He also maintains a link to the past: the Bible, which he reads "for the fables". What's his favourite message in it? He raises his eyebrows: "Beware false prophets."

? This article was amended on 26 April 2011. The original referred to Crumlan, Dublin. This has been corrected.

? The second series of In Treatment begins at 10.15pm on Friday 29 April on Sky Atlantic


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/26/gabriel-byrne-in-treatment

Aki Ross Alecia Elliott Alessandra Ambrosio Alexis Bledel