On Auto Wrecks and Adultery: Karen Essex chats with Penny Vincenzi and Christina Baker Kline about their new novels.

by | Nov 28, 2009 | books, power, sex, women

Karen Essex
Christina Baker Kline
Penny Vincenzi

KE: The film producer Lynda Obst once told me that she came up with the idea for the George Clooney/Michelle Pfeiffer romantic comedy One Fine Day, when she—overworked, exhausted—was lying on a massage table thinking that to meet a man she would have to literally crash into one with her car. Andrew Davidson, who I chatted with recently on the blog, opened his bestseller, The Gargolye, with a car accident that transforms his character, body and soul. And I have always been a fan of the late painter Carlos Almaraz’s oils depicting cars in flames. What is it about art and car wrecks? ... Read more.

Who owns art? Who owns freedom?

by | Jun 19, 2009 | history, power

From my blog at the Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-essex/who-owns-art-who-owns-dem_b_218161.html

After years of announcements and embarrassing delays, the New Acropolis Museum — a $190 million spectacular building designed by Bernard Tschumi — will finally have its official opening on June 20. Yet the dramatic glass gallery on the top floor overlooking the Acropolis and facing the Parthenon will remain empty.

Built specifically as a catalyst for the return of the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures, those controversial treasures that were — depending upon your point of view — either rescued or stolen by Lord Elgin during the Napoleonic Wars, the gallery is a physical embodiment of the passionate argument that the Greek government and its many allies in the archeological, artistic, and legal circles have waged for two hundred years. ... Read more.