Museums/Exhibitions
[break] 1 The Cult of Saints
From the Middle Ages to today, religious devotion to saints has had a profound impact on the culture of Europe and its intellectual descendants. The Getty looks back and around at this cult “through images created in its service.”
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Getty Center, Los Angeles
April 25–July 16
Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album
Snapshots became the visual cornerstone of countless personal narratives after the Kodak Brownie went on sale in 1900. This exhibition focuses on ordinary lives during extraordinary events: the story of San Franciscans who recorded their experience during and after the great earthquake of 1906.
San Francisco Public Library, Jewett Gallery
April 8–August 20
415-557-4277
[break] 2 Fierce Friends: Artists & Animals, 1750 to 1900
Influenced by the social changes wrought by the industrial revolution and the ideas of Darwin, attitudes about the natural world changed profoundly during the 18th and 19th centuries. This exhibition, co-organized by the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, looks at how artists portrayed “humanity’s relationship with nature as exemplified through our treatment of animals.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
March 25–August 27
412-622-3131
www.cmoa.org/exhibitions/exhibit.asp
CONFERENCES
Neuro-Psychoanalytic Society
“Love and Lust in Attachment” is the theme. The goal is finding ways for neuroscience to inform psychoanalytic thinking on these matters. Speakers include anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love (Henry Holt, 2004), and Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green University who has studied social attachment since the 1970s.
Pasadena, Calif.
July 21–23
44-20-7443-9344
[break] 3 American Psychoanalytic Association
Bonnie E. Litowitz, a psychiatrist at Rush University Medical Center, will give a lecture on “The Second Person.”
June 16–18
Washington, D.C.
212-752-0450
MOVIES
The Break-Up
Love versus affordable housing: an emotional donnybrook ensues when Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) and Gary (Vince Vaughn) quit their relationship but are both unwilling to quit the premises of their condo. This comedy descends to darker realms of nastiness as each side tries to drive out the other. Despite the un-Friends-liness, there are rumors of a happy resolution.
Universal Pictures
In wide release
Wordplay
Fans of our Head Games, as well as the 50 million Americans who enjoy racking their brains doing crossword puzzles every week, will appreciate this documentary on the New York Times/NPR puzzle guru Will Shortz. There are also interviews with puzzle fans such as Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.
Distributed by IFC Films
In wide release
[break] 4 A Scanner Darkly
An animated version of Philip K. Dick’s novel about police fighting the war on the fictional drug “Substance D.” Those addicted to it develop Jekyll-and-Hyde-like split personalities: the narcotics cop Fred (Keanu Reeves) is at odds with his Hyde self, Bob the drug dealer.
Warner Independent Pictures
Opens July 7
http://wip.warnerbros.com/index.html?site=ascannerdarkly
World Trade Center
Apparently Hollywood thinks enough time has passed since the death and destruction of September 11, 2001, to start making movies with a feel-good twist. This one is based on the real-life stories of two lucky people who survived the attack, John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and William Jimeno (Michael Peña). In the hands of director Oliver Stone, the film may reawaken old fears, or it may provide a catharsis for the country. Or maybe nobody will see it. It’s not exactly a date movie.
Paramount Pictures
Opens August 11
WEB SITES
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/
Serendip, hosted by Bryn Mawr College, is “a gathering place for people who suspect that life’s instructions are always ambiguous and incomplete.” The site is as extensive as the definition is broad, bringing you readings, musings, interactive exhibits and “germinal zones” within such fields as “Brain and Behavior” and “Science and Culture.” Current guest exhibits include “Mind and Body: René Descartes to William James.”
[break] 5 http://web.mit.edu/museum/exhibitions/robots.html
If you can’t get to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum in Cambridge, Mass., you can visit “Robots and Beyond: Exploring Artificial Intelligence @ MIT.” Get acquainted with Cog and Kismet, two pioneers from the frontier of machine intelligence.
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