Toward the end of a particularly turbulent May, China made global headlines for its military drills around Taiwan, done in response to the island’s newly elected leader. This past weekend, China’s defense chief affirmed the “threats of force” at Asia’s biggest defence summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. This did little to mitigate growing concerns about the economic and security implications of rising tensions between China, the US, and Taiwan.

But back in the country’s capital city, at the historic 798 Art District, it was business as usual with the launch of the eighth edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing. Running from May 28 to June 2, 2024, with a VIP preview in the days before the event’s opening, Gallery Weekend Beijing this year included 27 participating galleries and nonprofit institutions in the main sector, and 8 galleries from locales beyond the city in the visiting sector, plus “The inner side of the wind,” a show curated by Yuan Jiawei.

This year, Gallery Weekend Beijing, as well as the city’s two major art fairs, Beijing Dangdai and Jingart, all held their openings at the same time, drawing a larger crowd to the city in the hopes of reigniting flagging excitement surrounding Beijing’s art scene, according to industry insiders.

The main theme for this year’s Gallery Weekend Beijing, or GWBJ as it’s known for short, was “Drift to Re-Turn.” It encapsulated the international artistic connections that participating galleries, institutions, and curated projects aimed to create through the annual showcase.  

Speaking to ARTnews, GWBJ program director Yang Jialin said, “On a deeper level, GWBJ, as a platform for contemporary art exchange, hopes to help the outstanding artists and their work ‘drift’ out to the world, allowing the voices from Beijing to reach the international stage; and to let excellent international art content ‘return’ to the local art scene, presenting it to the Chinese audience.”

I’m fascinated by interruptions. Things are running along one way, one sort of conversation is ongoing, reality is like this not that and then suddenly—everything changes. There’s a further question of when interruptions are admissible, even welcome, and when they are forbidden. My story in the latest Spring issue of The Paris Review is about a dinner party that gets interrupted. The interruption is bad news for the host (an imaginary Icelandic philosopher called Alda Jónsdóttir) and bad news for the person who does the interrupting (another imaginary philosopher called Ole Lauge). But it’s even worse news for a beautiful poached salmon, minding its own business at the center of the table.

One of the most famous interruptions in literary history is the strange case of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Person from Porlock. The story goes that in the summer of 1797 Coleridge was at home in the village of Nether Stowey, Somerset. The cries of birds echoed across the gentle Quantock hills—warblers and whinchats, stonechats, pipits and nightjars. Coleridge was asleep and dreaming vividly (opium may have been taken). Upon emerging from his stupor, he realized that he had dreamed a vast, wondrous poem—“Kubla Khan.” He dashed off to find a pen, ink, and paper, and began scribbling everything down: the famous opening “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree” followed by another fifty-odd lines of sparkling verse. But then: a knock on the door, an interruption! A “Person from Porlock” had arrived on business, and distracted Coleridge for a long, tedious interval. When our poet finally returned to his desk, the vision had faded. Coleridge published “Kubla Khan” as a “fragment” and blamed the Person from Porlock for depriving posterity of the complete work.

Since then, the Person from Porlock has become a symbol of unwanted interruptions, poetic genius demolished by tawdry reality, the dangers of answering the front door, and so on. Nonetheless, a few people have questioned Coleridge’s story. In a short poem, “The Person from Porlock,” Robert Graves suggests that if anything we could do with an army of such persons hammering on doors and interrupting solipsistic writers, as a form of quality control. The poet Stevie Smith also presents her views on Porlockgate in “Thoughts about the Person from Porlock.” For a start, asks Smith, why did Coleridge rush to answer the door? Why didn’t he just hide like any self-respecting misanthropic author? Smith concludes that Coleridge was already stuck, “weeping and wailing” over his poem, “hungry to be interrupted.” The advent of the Porlock Person was, in fact, a huge relief.

Douglas Adams’s 1987 novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency imagines a parallel world in which Coleridge finished “Kubla Khan,” without any interruptions. In Adams’s witty counterfactual, the finished version of “Kubla Khan” is imbued with some weird power to destroy humanity. A time-traveling detective, Dirk Gently, is dispatched to eighteenth-century Somerset to play the Person from Porlock (who, in this reality, doesn’t exist) and ensure that Coleridge never finishes his poem. One trouble with interruptions, Adams suggests, is that, on a cosmic level, we have no way of knowing if they’re good or bad. By the logic of the butterfly effect, for example, had Roland Barthes been interrupted at any point on the twenty-fifth of February, 1980, he probably wouldn’t have been hit by a laundry van on his way home. The tedious interruption we resent at the time may spare us a far greater sorrow, including—in Adams’s novel—the actual apocalypse.

Despite being the country’s fourth most-populated city, Houston is in many ways a very well-kept secret when it comes to its art scene. What outsiders often misunderstand as a lack of culture here is rather a lack of a centralized culture. With a kind of schizophrenic miasma, its seemingly endless snarl of concrete and shopping centers and no-zoning laws lend the metropolis a simultaneous feeling of culture-less sprawl while also brimming with a sincere, can-do spirit for limitless possibilities. The humility, sincerity, and enthusiasm of its people, one of the most diverse populaces in the US, is what makes it special.

It is this ethos that the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston carries in its veins. Established in 1948, the CAMH recently celebrated its 75th anniversary with the exhibition “Six Scenes From Our Future” (October 2023–March 2024). Senior curator Rebecca Matalon and curator Patricia Restrepo invited six artists to respond to CAMH’s first-ever exhibition “This is Contemporary Art,” which aimed how people could live with contemporary, boldly placing artworks alongside furniture, design, and architectural elements. Those artists—Jill Magid, Leslie Martinez, Mel Chin, Leslie Hewitt, Lisa Lapinski, and JooYoung Choi—all have a relationship to Houston or CAM Houston, and the work on view continued the inaugural presentation’s legacy of dissolving artistic categories. 

Founded as the Contemporary Arts Association by six local artists and architects as a sort of artist cooperative, the organization aimed to bring the contemporary arts to Houston and imbricate the city with a richer, more sophisticated art community. Because CAA didn’t have a space back then, “This is Contemporary Art”was actually staged at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Installation view of “This Is Contemporary Art,” 1948, organized by Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (then Contemporary Arts Association) at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

“Shortly after it was founded there were 200 plus members,” Matalon said of CAMH’s early days. “You paid [dues] and you exhibited your work through your membership and, of course, as the institution evolved, and the understanding that Houston really needed a space for contemporary art, its mission also shifted.”

The museum soon moved a semi-permanent location near downtown Houston and later to its current home, the iconic, stainless-steel parallelogram designed by Latvian architect Gunnar Birkerts, in the Museum District. And soon, it will likely grow once more as the museum eyes a potential expansion. Through it all, CAMH has long been served as a visionary agent in defining Houston’s cultural landscape.

The moment has arrived, Gareth Southgate has picked his 26-man squad for Euro 2024! Today, Pete, Vish and Jim are here with some advice for all England fans: When reading the squad list ignore the defence and go straight to the attack, baby. It’s coming home!!!

Elsewhere, Pete fears for the safety of the Olympic Rings as Emi Martínez tries to force his way into Argentina’s squad for Paris 2024. Plus, Jim makes the case for public shaming players that are caught diving in the Premier League next season and the lads try to organise a food fight in a Wetherspoons.

We're back on stage and tickets are out NOW! Join us at London Palladium on Friday September 20th 2024 for 'Football Ramble: Time Tunnel', a journey through football history like no other. Expect loads of laughs, all your Ramble favourites, and absolutely everything on Pete's USB stick. Get your tickets at footballramblelive.com!

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Director Richard Linklater reflects on his epic masterpiece Boyhood

Steve Bannon is going to jail.

US District Judge Carl Nichols—a Trump appointee in Washington, DC—ordered Bannon to start serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress by July 1. The ruling comes after the onetime Trump aide’s attempt to appeal his 2022 conviction was rejected by a federal circuit court. Nichols had previously allowed Bannon to remain free pending appeal.

Bannon refused in 2021 to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on Congress. Bannon, who attempted blow off the panel by asserting “executive privilege,” despite having last served in the White House in 2017, probably would have avoided imprisonment by showing up on the date the panel set his interview and specifying which questions he would refuse to answer.

Prior to the 2020 election, Bannon had touted his knowledge of Trump’s plan to contest the election results, even if he lost. As I reported in 2022, Bannon said in an October 31, 2020, meeting—accurately, it turned out—that Trump would simply declare victory on election night, using the likely appearance of an early lead to assert that his subsequent defeat was due to electoral fraud.

Remember when Trump, as the Republican frontrunner in the 2016 election, claimed that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and he wouldn’t lose voters?

Well, that bold assertion, which has proven somewhat true among his devout base, may run into some technical issues in New York, where the police department is trying to make it impossible for Trump to even carry a firearm following his guilty conviction in his hush-money case, according to a Wednesday report from CNN.

Citing an anonymous senior police official, CNN reports that the NYPD is trying to revoke Trump’s license to carry a concealed weapon, a move stemming from a federal law barring people with felony convictions from possessing firearms. (New York and Florida also have laws outlawing people with felonies from possessing a gun.)

Trump reportedly has three pistols, two of which were reportedly handed over to the NYPD in March 2023 when he was indicted on criminal charges in the hush-money case. Though his third gun was reportedly legally transferred to Florida at the time, possession of it in the Sunshine State would still be illegal now that Trump is a convicted felon. All of which is to say that if Trump does still have that a gun somewhere within the gilded walls of Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach resort, or any of his other homes… he could be in violation of multiple laws and committing a federal crime, CNN reports.

Is the dream dead? And, if so, who killed it?

On June 15, 2012, President Barack Obama stood in the Rose Garden of the White House to announce a massive change in immigration policy. For years, Congress had been unable to pass legislation to protect from deportation the so-called Dreamers, undocumented youth brought to the United States as children. In 2001, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) first introduced a bill that would have granted them a path to citizenship. But, a decade later, the Dream Act had failed—again.

Obama declared that day he had taken matters into his own hands. His administration put forward an executive action to create a now-famous program: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). “These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag,” Obama, facing pressure over his administration’s harsh immigration enforcement practices, said. (He had begun to be called a moniker that would stick: “deporter in chief.”) “They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.” As such, they shouldn’t be expelled from the country or have to live under the “shadow of deportation.”

DACA went on to become a landmark achievement of the Obama presidency—lauded for its seamless logistical implementation led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, then head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and the economic benefits of authorizing eligible beneficiaries to work. Crucially, it gave a lifeline to more than 800,000 young immigrants raised and educated in the United States. DACA was “a temporary stopgap measure,” Obama had said. But its success, for a time, allowed the program’s original sin to be played down. The expectation, Mayorkas told the New York Times recently, “was that DACA would be a bridge to legislation.”

Politicians could assume that change, albeit delayed, would likely someday materialize. Over the past quarter of a century, the issue of Dreamers has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress. It has been included in virtually every immigration negotiation. And the stories of promising undocumented young people have been common on front pages and magazine covers—inspiring a rare kind of solidarity that transcended political divisions. (There was even a Broadway musical.)

For all his efforts to evade transparency and, instead, offer a steady stream of lies, Donald Trump has always been brutally honest about one thing: his penchant for revenge.

This lust has, over the years, taken on a particular kink. When possible, Trump has often enjoyed walking up to a microphone and implying—if not outright saying—that his enemies should be investigated, prosecuted, or arrested by the government he wants to head. These enemies include a seemingly endless list of people, from James Comey to Joe Scarborough.

It’s no surprise that vengeful threats of political prosecution have escalated since Trump’s conviction; he and his allies now appear hellbent on opening investigations into all their perceived enemies. Republicans have made clear political persecution could take place as a key role of government should Trump return to the White House.

With a second term possible, here is an incomplete and running list of everyone we could find that Trump has said should be prosecuted.

The United States, as a rule, is not very good about pricing in negative costs, in part because the people responsible for those costs get very upset when you try. The federal gas tax—which is supposed to pay for infrastructure repairs necessitated by gas consumption—has not been raised in 31 years, so everyone else has to cover the balance. Gun violence costs in excess of $229 billion a year and the only people who aren’t on the hook for that are the people who make guns. The enormous societal costs of asthma and respiratory ailments are largely shouldered not by the people and corporations who poison the air, but invariably by kids who breathe it in. Inhalers, hospital bills, rent—a lot of things are more expensive here, because of all the other things that are cheap.

This made the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan for congestion pricing in Manhattan, which was scheduled to begin later this month—after 17 years of planning, legislating, study, and litigation—something of a miracle. For once, the priorities were in order. New York proposed that the people who contribute to a problem should subsidize the solution. Drivers would pay a $15 toll for entering a “congestion zone” south of 60th Street during peak hours (it’s only $3.75 off-peak). The fees would net the MTA about $1 billion annually, which it would use to finance a $15 billion capital plan. That money would pay for long-needed improvements and upgrades to subways, bus lines, and commuter rail.

If all went according to plan, a significant number of drivers would choose mass transit instead—pushing still more funds into the agency’s coffers, improving air quality, and reducing carbon emissions. It would also ease Manhattan’s notorious gridlock, enhancing commutes for people who really did need to drive. Hence the name.

In a speech last month, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul evoked images of cars “spewing exhaust” and noted that New York commuters spend an average of 102 hours a year stuck in traffic. “It took a long a time because people feared backlash from drivers set in their ways,” Hochul said, acknowledging the stop-and-go pace of implementation. “But, much like with housing, if we’re serious about making cities more livable, we must get over that.”