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Wanted: Six Smiling Robbery Suspects

Six young women are being sought by the police for a robbery in Far Rockaway, Queens.

On Jan. 16 around 4:20 p.m., they approached two women near a shopping center at 32-11 Beach Channel Drive, assaulted them and stole one woman’s phone and the other’s iPod. Neither victim was badly injured.

Video released by the police on Friday shows six young women rushing â€" gleefully, by the expressions on several of their faces â€" into the Beach 36th Street subway station as someone holds the security gate open for them.

Anyone with information about the crime is asked to contact Crime Stoppers.



Wanted: Six Smiling Robbery Suspects

Six young women are being sought by the police for a robbery in Far Rockaway, Queens.

On Jan. 16 around 4:20 p.m., they approached two women near a shopping center at 32-11 Beach Channel Drive, assaulted them and stole one woman’s phone and the other’s iPod. Neither victim was badly injured.

Video released by the police on Friday shows six young women rushing â€" gleefully, by the expressions on several of their faces â€" into the Beach 36th Street subway station as someone holds the security gate open for them.

Anyone with information about the crime is asked to contact Crime Stoppers.



\'Pump Boys\' Won\'t Open On Broadway This Season

Producers for the revival of “Pump Boys and Dinettes” announced late Friday that the show’s Broadway opening, scheduled for April 8, had been postponed indefinitely.

In a statement on behalf of her producing colleagues, Abby Lee said: “With the crowded landscape on Broadway this spring, we all agreed that the wise choice was to proceed with a new opening date. We are in the process of determining the updated production schedule and look forward to sharing this wonderful musical with Broadway audiences in the near future.”

John Doyle was scheduled to direct the revival, with the “American Idol” finalist Bo Bice the biggest name in a cast that included Alexander Gemignani, who had worked with Mr. Doyle earlier on his celebrated revival of “Sweeney Todd.”

After an nitial Off Broadway launch in 1981, the country music-flavored “Pump Boys” moved to Broadway, where it played for 573 performances.

The postponement leaves the Circle in the Square Theater empty for the busy spring season. Two more major musical revivals, of “Pippin” and “Cinderella,” are due to open on Broadway by the Tony Award deadline, joining “Annie” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which are still playing.



The Secret Art of George W. Bush

W. paints! Who would have thought it Thanks to a hacker known as Guccifer who wormed into the computer of the 43rd president’s sister, the world has learned that George W. Bush is an amateur - I would say serious amateur - painter. He may be some people’s least favorite president since Hoover, but as an artist he is, well, a heck of a lot better than any number of world leaders whose names spring to mind, foremost Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler.

Images of only three paintings made it to the Internet â€" where they promptly went viral â€" before the Secret Service started to investigate. Two are oblique self-portraits, both ertical rectangles that show Mr. Bush bathing. Needless to say, they raise all sorts of interesting questions about what’s on the former president’s mind these days, and what, if any, art he has been looking at.

One shows Mr. Bush in the shower seen from the back (upper torso only), his well-known squint caught in a white rimmed shaving mirror. The other is a Bush-eye view of the former president as he soaks in a bathtub with the water running: in the receding form of the tub only his slightly-bowed legs from the knees down, and his feet are visible, mostly covered by water.

The forms are handled with care, but awkwardly, which is the source of their appeal. Things are recognizable but just: you can detect posh details like the shower’s chrome hinge and glass door. Everything is honestly accounted for, not sharply realistic, certainly not finicky.

Equally interesting is a detail in the photograph itself. The paintings sit on fairly well-used easels. Has the president been pain! ting since 2009 (or earlier) or did he get them second-hand

The two paintings could be said to depict the introverted self-absorption for which Mr. Bush is known. Perhaps, he is trying to cleanse himself in a more metaphorical way, seeking a kind of redemption from his less fortuitous decisions as president.

At the same time, whatever is going on psychologically, the paintings suggest a man, a painter at ease with his body. He gets some credit for directing his gaze at himself, rather than at the more conventional female nude that is many amateur painters’ first choice. Along with landscapes: the third painting depicts a stone church in Maine, a work in progress that Mr. Bush is shown working on amid weight-lifting equipment in what may be the family work-out room in Kennebunkport, Maine.

For many these works might qualify as outsider art; they give every indication of having been made by a self-taught artist. But so do many paintings shown in the insier art world of today. These works make you wonder if Bush is familiar with Jasper Johns’s “Seasons,” where each of the four paintings is shadowed by a male, seemingly unclothed silhouette, or Pierre Bonnard’s strangely chaste, luminous paintings of his wife reclining in a bathtub. And one can imagine them being not too out of place in a group show that might include the figurative work of Dana Schutz, Karen Kilimnik, Alice Neel, Christoph Ruckhaberle and Sarah McEneaney. Which is to say, they are remarkably progressive looking.



The Week in Pictures for Feb. 8

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include the death of former Mayor Edward I. Koch, repairs to the Rockaway Boardwalk, and an increase in the number of rats in New York City since Hurricane Sandy.

This weekend on “The New York Times Close Up,” an inside look at the most compelling articles in Sunday’s Times, Sam Roberts will speak with The Times’s David Chen, Eleanor Randolph, Clyde Haberman and Thmas Kaplan. Also, Jonathan Lippman, New York State’s chief judge. Tune in at 10 p.m. Saturday or 10 a.m. Sunday on NY1 News to watch.

A sampling from the City Room blog is featured daily in the main print news section of The Times. You may also browse highlights from the blog and reader comments, read current New York headlines, like New York Metro | The New York Times on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.



Video: Protests at Brooklyn College

Pro-Palestinian speakers drew anger and support over a talk at Brooklyn College by members of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The group calls for sanctions on Israel. A video captured the scene as protesters gathered at the event.



The Week in Culture Pictures, Feb. 8

“Clive,” with Ethan Hawke and Zoe Kazan, in a New Group production directed by Mr. Hawke, at the Acorn Theater at Theater Row.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times “Clive,” with Ethan Hawke and Zoe Kazan, in a New Group production directed by Mr. Hawke, at the Acorn Theater at Theater Row.

Photographs More photographs.

A slide show of photographs of cultural highlights from this week.



Updates on the Winter Storm

Salting the sidewalk in preparation for Friday night's storm.Spencer Platt/Getty Images Salting the sidewalk in preparation for Friday night’s storm.

Throughout the day on Friday, which for many was a rainy, sloshy mess, New Yorkers salted sidewalks, stocked up on supplies and lined up at gas stations to fill their tanks, as local authorities from New York City to Maine activated their plans to battle the snow as it began to pile up.

Go here for live coverage of the storm and on Twitter, follow @NYTLive and subscribe to the Weather Watch list by @NYTMetro.



Updates on the Winter Storm

Salting the sidewalk in preparation for Friday night's storm.Spencer Platt/Getty Images Salting the sidewalk in preparation for Friday night’s storm.

Throughout the day on Friday, which for many was a rainy, sloshy mess, New Yorkers salted sidewalks, stocked up on supplies and lined up at gas stations to fill their tanks, as local authorities from New York City to Maine activated their plans to battle the snow as it began to pile up.

Go here for live coverage of the storm and on Twitter, follow @NYTLive and subscribe to the Weather Watch list by @NYTMetro.



Graphic Books Best Sellers: Lynda Barry\'s \'Freddie Stories\'

Two books are new on the hardcover graphic books best-seller list this week. “The Freddie Stories,” by the cartoonist Lynda Barry, is at No. 3. It chronicles the ups and downs of Freddie, the teenage member of the dysfunctional Mullen family. It is published by Drawn & Quarterly. At No. 4 is the deluxe edition of “The Books of Magic,” by Neil Gaiman. It is published by DC Comics. It is illustrated by a quartet of powerhouse artists â€" John Bolton, Charles Vess, Paul Johnson and Scott Hampton. The story is about Timothy Hunter, a young boy on a tour through the magical realms of the DC Universe as mystical forces try to determine whether he will be the world’s most powerful mage.

Some of the big news in comics this week was the announcement of more cancelled titles from DC’s “New 52.” The company, which reintroduced its characters to a new audience back in fall 2011, has been committed to maintaining 52 series as part of its shared superhero universe. But fans are questioning the logic of that decision in the wake of creative shakeups, cancelled series and putting into the spotlight secondary characters who will unlikely be able to attract enough readers to support a monthly series.

The “New 52” began with the newest incarnation of the Justice League in August 2011, 51 other series rolled out that September, featuring everyone from Aquaman to Wonder Woman. In May 2012, six of those series were cancelled (Blackhawks, Hawk and Dove, Men of War, Mister Terrific, OMAC and Static Shock) to make room for Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, G.I. Combat, Ravag! ers and World’s Finest.

In September 2012, four new series (Phantom Stranger, Team 7, Sword of Sorcery and Talon) were ushered in to replace Captain Atom, Justice League International, Resurrection Man and Voodoo. For the pundits at home, the most surprising fact was that Voodoo lasted that long.

In December and January, five more series were cancelled (Blue Beetle, G.I. Combat, Grifter, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and Legion Lost) to make way for upcoming series (Constantine, Justice League of America, Justice League of America’s Vibe, Katana and Threshold). This week’s cancellations include a mix of series that began with the 2011 push (Firestorm, Hawkman and Deathstroke) and those that came in as replacements (Ravagers, Sword of Sorcery and Team 7). One title on fans’ deathwatch list is Batwing, which in November sold an estimated 15,967 copies, which was below two cancelled series sold that month (Frankenstein at 16,444 and Ravagers at 17,334).As always, the complete best-seller lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.



Graphic Books Best Sellers: Lynda Barry\'s \'Freddie Stories\'

Two books are new on the hardcover graphic books best-seller list this week. “The Freddie Stories,” by the cartoonist Lynda Barry, is at No. 3. It chronicles the ups and downs of Freddie, the teenage member of the dysfunctional Mullen family. It is published by Drawn & Quarterly. At No. 4 is the deluxe edition of “The Books of Magic,” by Neil Gaiman. It is published by DC Comics. It is illustrated by a quartet of powerhouse artists â€" John Bolton, Charles Vess, Paul Johnson and Scott Hampton. The story is about Timothy Hunter, a young boy on a tour through the magical realms of the DC Universe as mystical forces try to determine whether he will be the world’s most powerful mage.

Some of the big news in comics this week was the announcement of more cancelled titles from DC’s “New 52.” The company, which reintroduced its characters to a new audience back in fall 2011, has been committed to maintaining 52 series as part of its shared superhero universe. But fans are questioning the logic of that decision in the wake of creative shakeups, cancelled series and putting into the spotlight secondary characters who will unlikely be able to attract enough readers to support a monthly series.

The “New 52” began with the newest incarnation of the Justice League in August 2011, 51 other series rolled out that September, featuring everyone from Aquaman to Wonder Woman. In May 2012, six of those series were cancelled (Blackhawks, Hawk and Dove, Men of War, Mister Terrific, OMAC and Static Shock) to make room for Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, G.I. Combat, Ravag! ers and World’s Finest.

In September 2012, four new series (Phantom Stranger, Team 7, Sword of Sorcery and Talon) were ushered in to replace Captain Atom, Justice League International, Resurrection Man and Voodoo. For the pundits at home, the most surprising fact was that Voodoo lasted that long.

In December and January, five more series were cancelled (Blue Beetle, G.I. Combat, Grifter, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and Legion Lost) to make way for upcoming series (Constantine, Justice League of America, Justice League of America’s Vibe, Katana and Threshold). This week’s cancellations include a mix of series that began with the 2011 push (Firestorm, Hawkman and Deathstroke) and those that came in as replacements (Ravagers, Sword of Sorcery and Team 7). One title on fans’ deathwatch list is Batwing, which in November sold an estimated 15,967 copies, which was below two cancelled series sold that month (Frankenstein at 16,444 and Ravagers at 17,334).As always, the complete best-seller lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.



Book Review Podcast: Karen Russell\'s Uncanny Stories

Mark Mahaney for The New York Times

This week in The New York imes Book Review, Joy Williams reviews “Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” the new collection of short stories by Karen Russell. Ms. Williams writes:

Start with a mustard seed of irrelevant fact. Rutherford Hayes’s wife, Lucy, was the first American president’s wife to be referred to as the first lady. Scribble this on a scrap of paper and present it to Karen Russell. Tell her she has to write a story about this old dead guy and reincarnate him as a horse. Give her a couple of pencils. Put her in a locked safe à la Houdini. Tie one arm behind her back. Give her the sniffles. Let her go after a modest interval and see what she comes up with: the hilarious, impossibly realized, even moving, story “The Barn at the End of Our Term.”

Ms. Williams goes on to write that, “It’s hard not to reflect on the origins of this wildly talented young writer’! s ideas or puzzle over the serene assurance she brings to her unusual choices.”

On this week’s podcast, Ms. Russell talks about “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”; Leslie Kaufman has notes from the field; Adam Kirsch discusses two new biographies of Sylvia Plath; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.



Book Review Podcast: Karen Russell\'s Uncanny Stories

Mark Mahaney for The New York Times

This week in The New York imes Book Review, Joy Williams reviews “Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” the new collection of short stories by Karen Russell. Ms. Williams writes:

Start with a mustard seed of irrelevant fact. Rutherford Hayes’s wife, Lucy, was the first American president’s wife to be referred to as the first lady. Scribble this on a scrap of paper and present it to Karen Russell. Tell her she has to write a story about this old dead guy and reincarnate him as a horse. Give her a couple of pencils. Put her in a locked safe à la Houdini. Tie one arm behind her back. Give her the sniffles. Let her go after a modest interval and see what she comes up with: the hilarious, impossibly realized, even moving, story “The Barn at the End of Our Term.”

Ms. Williams goes on to write that, “It’s hard not to reflect on the origins of this wildly talented young writer’! s ideas or puzzle over the serene assurance she brings to her unusual choices.”

On this week’s podcast, Ms. Russell talks about “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”; Leslie Kaufman has notes from the field; Adam Kirsch discusses two new biographies of Sylvia Plath; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.



Grammys Will Honor Music Teachers

The Grammy Awards are adding a new honor for music teachers. Neil Portnow, the president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, announced the new award for music educators, which will be presented for the first time next year. He made the announcement Thursday evening at an event for the Grammy Foundation’s Music Preservation Project at the Saban Theater in Los Angeles.

“Music education is perhaps the most vital part of the Grammy Foundation’s mission,” he said. The Grammy Awards on Sunday will also have a short video segment honoring music teachers and urging people to nominate educators. Teachers from all levels â€" from kindergarten through college â€" will be eligible for the award, which will be presented at a special ceremony the day before the Grammy broadcast next year.



Some Ratings Twists for \'Americans\'

Everything is not what it seems when it comes to the plot and characters of “The Americans” on FX, a spy thriller that follows a pair of K.G.B. agents living undercover in the suburbs of Washington D.C. during the Reagan era, and that appears to be the case for the show’s ratings as well.

The drama’s series premiere on Jan. 30 posted strong numbers, with over 3.2 million total viewers tuning in, according to Nielsen data. That total was just enough to squeak by the Oct. 5, 2011 premiere of another FX series, “American Horror Story.” It was also the second highest-rated cable program for that night in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, behind only the Discovery Channel’s “Moonshiners.”

The second episode on Feb. 6 however, fell below 2 million total viewers, a 39 percent decline from the previous week, accompanied by a 32 percent drop in the 18-to-49 category. The quck drop was something of a surprise considering the favorable reception the show received among critics.

But there is one final twist. Based on early DVR returns, “The Americans” has performed particularly well, with a 44 percent gain in total viewers, reaching 4.6 million for the season premiere. And according to a press release from FX, it will become the most-watched series debut in the channel’s history when final numbers are available.



Big Ticket | An Architectural Mash-Up Sold for $19.5 million

The tower at 1 York Street incorporates a pair of 19th-century loft buildings.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times The tower at 1 York Street incorporates a pair of 19th-century loft buildings.

A full-floor condominium at One York, the glassy 21st-century tower that uses a pair of 19th-century TriBeCa loft buildings as its base and launching pad â€" the Mexican “starchitect” Enrique Norten’s bold interpretation of an architectural mash-up â€" sold for $19.5 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The transaction was a whisper sale: no brokers were involved, and the seller and buyer protected their identities under the ubiquitous shield of limited-liability companies.

p>The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath residence, No. 11, was achieved by combining Nos. 11A and 11B, a transformation undertaken by the seller, a European businessman who used the apartment as a pied-à-terre and used York Street 1 as his nom de plume in public records when he elected to sell his view-laden aerie to a family acquaintance, according to a broker familiar with sales in the building.

Besides having two terraces, one of them 859 square feet and the other 644, with multidirectional vistas, the apartment has a main living/entertainment space with a 22-foot ceiling. Lovers of high-end brand names will not be disappointed: Sub-Zero, Miele and Bosch are all represented, and many of the floors are Mafi Austrian wide-plank oak. All that’s missing is a roof deck, but buyers here do have access to a 28-foot outdoor heated swimming pool on the fourth floor with privacy walls made from sustainable bamboo.

One York, a k a 1 York Street, attracted a flurry of attention, and big spende! rs, when it opened in 2008, though its allure and outrageous stockpile of amenities have been eclipsed somewhat by the arrival of other pricey and precious condo towers designed by architects-of-the-moment.

Mr. Norten, whose modernist machinations are displayed at Hotel Americano in Chelsea and most recently at One Ocean in Miami, maintains that the sale of the penthouse last year for $23.7 million, a $3,900-per-square-foot transaction, was a bellwether that distinguished this neighborhood as a meaningful destination in perpetuity for downtown urbanites uninterested in the Brooklyn frontier.

But anybody craving a not-so-humble home in a building whose flashy ground-floor retail space is inhabited by Maserati of Manhattan, a purveyor of Ferraris and Maseratis, as well as an automated “Swiss-engineered” parking garage where a robot serves as the parking valet (no tip necessary!), need look no farther than One York. There is even, for the crunch-us crowd, the 2012 addition of the ultimate in botique workout facilities, a Barry’s Bootcamp.

Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.



The Sweet Spot: Feb. 8

From the Museum of Modern Art, A. O. Scott and David Carr “go rogue” and examine some of the museum’s more interesting works.



Library Chairman: Renovation Budget Still A Work in Progress

The budget plan for the New York Public Library’s renovation project is preliminary and imprecise at this point, Neil L. Rudenstine, the library’s chairman, acknowledged in a letter this month to trustees that was obtained by The New York Times.

The cost projections have been one focus of the debate over the project, with critics calling for more financial detail beyond the current estimate of $300 million. The library has suggested that the plan would produce $15 million in savings a year, allowing the library to extend hours, acquire more books and hire more librarians system-wide.

Mr. Rudenstine sent his letter in response to architecture critic Michael Kimmelman’s recent critique in The Times of the library’s plan to bring a circulating library into its Fifth Avenue flagship building.

“Kimmelman suggests that we hire an outside cot-estimator to offer an analysis of the budget-projections,” Mr. Rudenstine writes. “This is not difficult to do, but we all know that we are some considerable distance from having the kind of detailed plan that an estimator could rely on. Our own budget estimates are reasonable, but even they cannot be refined with any precision at this stage.”

The renovation would bring into the Fifth Avenue building the operations of the Mid-Manhattan circulating library across the street and the Science, Industry and Business Library, on Madison Avenue at 34th Street. With a design by the British architect Norman Foster, this new circulating library would be housed in what is currently the stacks at the back of the building facing Bryant Park.

Mr. Kimmelman and other critics have called for more specific cost projections and questioned the city’s decision to commit $! 150 million in public funds for the project. They have also suggested that it could make more sense - and cost less - to renovate Mid-Manhattan or cultivate neighborhood branches instead.

Marshall Rose, a trustee and the chairman emeritus, said the library has a 30-year history of renovation projects that have come in “substantially” on budget. “The library has been very prudent,” he said.



Onstage, Trying to Connect to a Faraway War

Students in a graduate acting program at New York University rehearsed a play meant to describe the experiences of soldiers serving in war and what happens when they return home. Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times NYTCREDIT: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Students in a graduate acting program at New York University rehearsed a play meant to describe the experiences of soldiers serving in war and what happens when they return home.

Three blocks from Washington Square Park and more than 6,000 miles from Afghanistan, a group of graduate acting students ran through lines and tried to imagine something that for many in their generation is unimaginable: What’s it like to go to war and return home to a society that doesn’t understand hat you’ve been through

Over the past two months, using outside guests and extensive independent research, 15 New York University students have begun to challenge their own perceptions of a war that seems far removed from their lives. They are old enough to remember 9/11, yet, like many of their peers, they are largely unburdened by the military engagements that followed. Now, through the lens of theater, they have the opportunity to explore issues that will remain critical long after the last troops return home.

“I feel like I have a greater sensitivity to what’s happened,” said Julien Seredowych, 23, a student who plays a soldier. He talked about the emotional toll of merely rehearsing the scenes, and how the workshop had given him the tools to see his distance from the war in an honest way. “I might not know what they’ve been through, but I know a little bit about how to talk about it.”

Nearly a decade ago, Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros! , a playwright based in New York, struck up an unlikely friendship with Sgt. Mkesha Clayton, a veteran of the war in Iraq. Greatly inspired by Sergeant Clayton, she began writing a play that has evolved through a series of workshops, most recently at the Vineyard Theater, then Juilliard, and now, in its most in-depth exploration of the consequences of war, at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. (The workshop will culminate in several performances over the weekend.)

“Part of what Mkesha did for me and what we’ve tried to do with this project with the students is illuminate that rift, challenge it and then educate,” Ms. Gersten-Vassilaros said. She emphasized that the goal was to look at the issues in a nonpolitical way.

The resulting play, “Meantime War/ Meantime Home,” tells the story of Richard, a 19-year-old who goes to fight and returns home only to face symptoms of PTSD, a pregnant girlfriend and a family who tries desperately to understand what he has been throug.. In addition to incorporating new writing, this version of the play moves in two simultaneous acts on separate stages, one depicting “war” and the other “home.” Then the audience switches rooms, and the actors perform again. Janet Zarish directs the War Room, and Stephen Fried, the Home Room. The new structure allows for a deeper look at the “injuries of war, not just to the soldier but to the families of soldiers,” Ms. Gersten-Vassilaros said.

The actors, who are halfway through a three-year graduate program, came to New York from all over the United States, Canada, even the Middle East. Dina Shihabi, who was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Dubai and Beirut, plays a foreign war widow. She explained that for her, theater has been an ideal way to look at the different facets of war.

“My family is Palestinian, so I’ve always had a very strong point of view and relationship to the conflict,” she said, referring to Israel and Palestine. But, “when your family is not di! rectly re! lated to something, I think it’s hard to get into it. Shows like this, it could be your family. That’s why theater and film is powerful.”

Along with readings and documentaries, an integral part of the workshop has been interactions with guests like Sergeant Clayton, who met with the actors early on. They also had visits from a West Point literature professor who was a pilot in the Army and a young woman whose family members served.

On a Monday in mid-January, the “War Room” students spent several hours with two former Green Berets. During an informal question-and-answer session, the students asked questions that included the technical (How do we pronounce “MOUT”) to the personal (How did you handle your fear) to the everyday (What video games were popular with soldiers Answer: Guitar Hero). Later, the Green Berets showed them how to properly hold their plastic mock M4s, emulate the flow of a raid and signal to a fellow soldier “all clear.” By day’s end, the students moved sealessly through the choreography of war.

“No matter how many people come up and shake your hand and say thank you for serving, hardly any of them ever comprehend even a drop of what we have been through,” said Sergeant Clayton, in a video recording that was later used to introduce these students to the project.

“Whether or not we began with a window or insight or a friend’s family, into this conflict,’’ said Libby Matthews, 26, a graduate student who plays a soldier, “we all certainly have one now.”



Popcast: The Lumineers, Top 40\'s Unlikeliest Act

From left, Jeremiah Fraites, Neyla Pekarek and Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers.David Corio for The New York Times From left, Jeremiah Fraites, Neyla Pekarek and Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers.

This week, Jon Pareles, chief pop music critic for The Times, talks to host Ben Ratliff about his sojourn in Denver with the folk-rock band the Lumineers, one of the most rapid and instructive success stories of 2012.

Here’s a band that not long ago had to move to Colorado to get gigs in their local New York City venues; that gets meticulous about busker aesthetics; that ritually wades into its crowds for its stomp-and-chant set pieces; that has sold nearly a million copies of its first album in less than a year; and that has helped change the rules of Top 40 radio with its hit single, “Ho Hey.”

Listen above, download the MP3 here, or sub! scribe in iTunes here.

RELATED:

Jon Pareles on the Lumineers

James C. McKinley Jr. on this weekend’s Grammy Awards

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)



Shakespeare\'s Globe to Stage \'Henry VI\' at Historic Battle Sites

Hot on the heels of the news that a New York theater company will be staging “Richard III” in a suddenly historically correct parking lot, Shakespeare’s Globe has announced that it will take a touring production of the Henry VI trilogy to four English battle sites that figure in the plays.

After the premiere at the York Theater Royal in June the plays, directed by Nick Bagnall, will move to the battlefields at Tewkesbury, St Albans, Barnet and finally Towton, where the houses of York and Lancaster clashed in what is often said to be the bloodiest battle

Dominic Dromgoole, the Globe’s artistic director, told The Guardian that he wanted to increase the box office appeal of the trilogy, which has long generated debates over how much of it was actually written by Shakespeare.

“When you think of battlefields, you think of re-enactment and that’s usually deemed slightly circumspect, but the British are obsessed with our own history and that’s a really interesting way that we engage with it,” Mr. Dromgoole said.

The Shakespeare’s Globe season will also feature several productions at its open-air theater on the south bank of the Thames in London, including “The Tempest,” with the Olivier award winner Roger Allam as Prospero; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” starring another ! Olivier winner, Michelle Terry, as Titania; and “Gabriel,” a new play by Sam Adamson about 17th-century musicians and their patrons, starring the trumpeter Alison Balsom.



This Week\'s Movies: Feb. 8

In this week’s video, Times critics share their thoughts on the new Steven Soderbergh film “Side Effects,” the comedy “Identity Thief” and a drama set in postwar Germany, “Lore.” See all of this week’s reviews here.



A King Among Poets, Now Looking for Work

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

The poems of Jesus “Papoleto” Melendez have a bopping rhythm, where words cascade down the page and - when he recites them - swirl around the room, through the window and out onto the streets of El Barrio. Among the founders of the Nuyorican Poetry movement, his poems are carefully crafted reflections on urban life, with equal doses of humor, anger, love and absurdity.

He learned just how absurd in recent months, when his poems were translated into Spanish for “Hey Yo! Yo Soy!” a collection stretching back 40 years.

“We are so used to our poverty, to the conditions we suffer though,” Papoleto said. “You’re accustomed to seeing homelessness in your neighborhood. We talk casually about ghetto things. But when you read it in Spanish, it blows your mind. How can a people live like this”

This is not a rhetorical question. He is three months behind on his $662 rent for his tiny one-bedroom apartment on East 111th Street - the same narrow warren where he spent the first 14 years of his life. Unemployment benefits he had thought would be extended through March - when several events related to his book would be held â€" instead ended in December.  He is looking for work, but opportunities for a poet are few.

On a bookcase crammed with dog-eared tomes, rests a letter rejecting him for food stamps.  He awaits a decision about welfare. At 62 years of age, a man who has been a poet, a prophet and king - Gaspar, in the neighbor! hood’s Three Kings Day Parade - now might end up being a pauper.

“The weeks of unemployment I thought I had left were enough to keep me afloat, even while teetering on the edge of catastrophe,” he said. “Now, I’m in the black hole.”

He had cobbled a living from workshops and recitals and by teaching local classes until 2011, when a program that employed him lost funding.  Colleges and classrooms have increasingly turned to younger “spoken word” artists who have laid claim to the Nuyorican tradition, but not his discipline. Nor his life experience.

“There is a lot of vanity, where they’ve co-opted our movement and watered down everything,” he said. “They don’t teach technique. They teach shouting.”

Sandra Maria Esteves, a poet who wrote the introduction for his book, said it was not uncommon for Papoleto to do 20 revisions or more for one poem. Then he would rehearse, alone, with a microphone to get the cadences own pat.  She can relate to his craft, as well as his predicament.

“Ultimately, we’re in a society that does not support paying poets,” she said. “Poets show up, often for no pay, and in the past few years the pay scale has gone way down. I haven’t gotten much lately.”

A poster by his desk declares “Embryonic Poet Laureate” - his riposte to learning about someone being named a teenage poet laureate.  It adorns the apartment he returned to in 1997 after seeing the building being renovated - he wrote the landlord an essay to snag the place. His early life there was formed as much by his father’s absence as his presence. Abraham Melendez - a tinted photo of him looking dapper in a suit adorns the living room - was a Merchant seaman, musician and junkie.

The building where his father cooled his heels - between voyages or benders - was a playground for him and his friends. They would play cowboys and Indians on the twisty stairways and narrow halls. But other things ! happened ! too.

“My memories of my father are potent, but few,” he admitted. “I remember once he was shooting up in the hallway upstairs. Even then, he would tell me stuff he knew. ‘Do you know there are two New Yorks’ he asked me. ‘There’s New York City and New York State.’”

He betrayed no irony in the retelling,  considering his circumstances. Instead, he shared pictures of the old days - from rooftop scenes to super-sharp club dates - cradling them in his hands like treasures.  With a smile, he held out a snapshot of him and Pedro Pietri, a fellow poet, facing the 1977 blackout with candles and bottle of rum.

Filing cabinets are crammed with neatly organized files: of poems past, present and future. He ducked into the sunny bedroom - the only place where sunlight graces the walls - and emerged with a worn leather saddlebag. Gently, he plucked out a thick volume of poems he bound in soft, floppy leather. Th onionskin pages gently rustled as he flipped through to his early work.

Within moments, he began to read. Whatever worry creased his face vanished. He swayed gently, as his words flowed through the room, the room with his memories, his writings, his life. The room he may lose.

But not today. Not now.



Delacroix\'s \'Liberty Leading the People\' Is Defaced in France

A visitor passing Delacroix's Agence France-Presse A visitor passing Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading The People” at a branch of the Louvre museum in Lens, France.

The famous Delacroix painting “Liberty Leading the People” has been defaced by a vandal, BBC News reported, but the authorities say they have detained a woman accused of writing on the artwork and that any damage to it may be removed.

The painting, created by Delacroix in 1830 to commemorate that year’s July Revolution, and depicting a woman triumphantly hoisting the tricolor French flag, has been on display at a new branch of he Louvre Museum in Lens, in northern France. Just before the museum’s closing time on Thursday, BBC News said, a 28-year-old woman wrote graffiti at the bottom of the painting and was stopped by a security guard. A local prosecutor told Agence France-Presse that the woman, whose name was not given, seemed “unstable” and would be given a psychiatric examination. The gallery was closed to the public on Friday.

A restoration expert will be sent from the Louvre in Paris to examine the painting, and the museum said in a statement reported by the BBC that the graffiti may be “easily cleaned.”



With a Techological Boost, How To Keep It Simple and Not Sound Stupid

A new text-editing widget has thrown down a gauntlet to advocates of simple writing, and gone viral on Twitter. What part of that don’t you understand

Quite a lot actually, if you’re the widget in question. Ever since a British scientist posted his Up-Goer Five text editor online, people have been seeing if they can explain subjects from string theory and evolution to Shakespeare and Tammy Wynette using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in English. Those include “aunt,” “computer,” “interrupt,” and “obviously,” but apparently not “text,” “editing,” “widget,” “gauntlet,” “advocates,” “viral” and â€" at least not yet â€" “Twitter.”

Theo anderson, a geneticist at the Sanger Institute near Cambridge and the widget’s creator, told the New Scientist that the project was inspired by a comic explaining the workings of a space rocket with only commonly used words. “I found it very funny and thought it would be interesting to try to describe my research like that,” he said. (He studies bioluminescence, a word that â€" along with “plant” and “glow” â€" is not on the list.)

Hundreds of other people have followed suit, with results (gathered on Facebook, blogs and a Tumblr) that can sound like awkward cocktail chatter between graduate students in science and visiting Martians, or maybe members of the college football team. Take Richard Carter’s précis of Darwini! an evolution:

“All the animals and green things we see in the world… have all been made by the same, fixed easy steps acting all around us. These easy steps, taken in the largest sense, being growing and having babies; being like your parents (but not exactly like them); and being able to avoid dying for as long as possible.”

Since the original widget went online, Mr. Sanderson has added a version that color codes words according to how common they are, and the geology blog Highly Allochthonous has wondered whether the art world isn’t even more in need of a radical vocabulary reduction diet.

But if 1,000 words seems like a starvation regimn, consider Basic English, a simplified language introducing by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden in 1930 as a means of promoting not just greater mutual comprehension but world peace.

In a 1944 article in Harper’s Magazine, the linguist Rudolf Flesch argued that the strictures â€" which inspired the Newspeak in George Orwell’s “1984” â€" made the language even harder to understand. “It’s not basic,” Flesch wrote, “and it’s not English.”

It does, however, survive. Simple English Wikipedia, a version of the online encyclopedia encouraging users to stick to various limited word lists, currently includes some 100,000 articles.



A Poem for a Good Neighbor, Ed Koch

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Dear Diary:

I was on the bus when I learned

of the loss of the boss of the city on

the day I arrived-

Making our way down Fifth Avenue-

Our Avenue-

from the snowy world of Vermont

The Guggenheim rose, appeared and disappeared

and a sign for the bridge Your bridge passed

I, not quite awake with the news, began feeling the sidewalk

Energy of the city

that you presided over like the Mayor

you were the Mayor

My good neighbor, like a gangly eagle

Two flights above

The elevator encounters

always brought out your wry smile

and gentlemanliness

A former president will speak

at your funeralon

the day I leave the city

that you presided over like the Mayor

you were the Mayor

My neighbor

in a rent-controlled apartment

Grow old, as old as I thought you’d be

Don’t stop now, go on-

call another neighbor “a wacko”

Bella Abzug in her hats

let Larry Kramer hate you forever

and pull his dog away from your petting hand

In our building where

the Minetta Brook flows through and bubbles up

In our lobby

On about upon

the Park that Kertesz walked

and photographed from his window

Our view that was changed by the Twin Towers

not there, there, and not there again

in this city that you presided over like the Mayor

you were the Mayor

Hizzoner

Sometimes the long black cars came

and drove away with you

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