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Arts & Culture

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Mom is Going to Stay Lutheran, So Does It Mean She’ll End Up In Hell?

The religious life was a lot more rigid back in Detroit in the 1940s

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They’re Holding On: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

Long ago, they found a talent or a cause, a way of life or a way of work, then stuck with it—and said to hell with what other people think

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Itchiku Kubota’s Fascination With an Ancient Textile Art

The Japanese master has devoted his life to reviving a long-lost technique of fabric design and to creating handcrafted kimonos of lasting beauty

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Without Garlic, Life Would Be Just Plain Tasteless

Sliced or chopped, sauteed or roasted, this bold little bulb has Americans clamoring for cloves to add sizzle to supper or to cure what ails us

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The Aria Never Ends in the Opera That’s Casa Verdi

Retired singers, musicians and conductors find a home in Milan, Italy, where a zest for music works like a fountain of youth

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The Strange and Inscrutable Case of Ezra Pound

The expatriate American poet returned home in ignominy, and the postwar world watched as a literary giant was charged with treason

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Rembrandt or not Rembrandt?

His style was widely imitated, even in his own time; now, a show at the Met guides us through the maze of attribution problems

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Around the Mall & Beyond

Alan Fern, director of the National Portrait Gallery, offers his insights on the art of reading a portrait

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Now Playing in Academe: the King of Rock’n’Roll

At the University of Mississippi, the first annual International Conference on Elvis Presley brought together fans and scholars

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Time Stands Still in the Harmonious World of Vermeer

It’s a must-see show at the National Gallery of Art; not since 1696 have so many of his paintings been brought together in one place

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Harmonicas Are…hooty, Wheezy, Twangy and Tooty

They’re from the Old Country, but there’s nothing better for American music, from blues to honky-tonk and the fans are blown away

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Sepulchral portraits reveal the way we were in ancient times

Two-thousand-year-old mummy paintings show neither gods nor heroes but the sophisticated men and women of the provinces of Roman Egypt

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Sure the Piano-Violin Can Do Two Things At Once—But Can It Do Them Well?

Sure the piano-violin can do two things at once—but can it do them well?

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I Lost a Baby, and When I Got Him Back He Was a Toddler

The child was returned thanks in large part to a national clearinghouse that employs the latest technology to locate missing kids

Scene from Broken Blossoms starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess

A Film Buff Cheers the Oldies, Calling for Silents, Please!

Garbo, Chaplin, Keaton yesteryear’s screen giants dazzle audiences anew at Pordenone, the world’s most pretigious silent-film festival

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Winslow Homer, the Quintessential American Artist

He would chronicle it all the Civil War, the schoolyard games, the raging coast of Maine yet the man remained a mystery to the end

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