Month: November 2024

LONDON — British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday with “Orbital,” a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station that ponders the beauty and fragility of the Earth.

Harvey was awarded the 50,000-pound ($64,000) prize for what she has called a “space pastoral” about six orbiting astronauts, which she began writing during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The confined characters loop through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets over the course of a day, trapped in one another’s company and transfixed by the globe’s ever-changing vistas.

“To look at the Earth from space is like a child looking into a mirror and realizing for the first time that the person in the mirror is herself,” said Harvey, who researched her novel by reading books by astronauts and watching the space station’s live camera. “What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves.”

She said the novel “is not exactly about climate change, but implied in the view of the Earth is the fact of human-made climate change.”

She dedicated the prize to everyone who speaks “for and not against the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life.”

“All the people who speak for and call for and work for peace — this is for you,” she said.

Writer and artist Edmund de Waal, who chaired the five-member judging panel, called “Orbital” a “miraculous novel” that “makes our world strange and new for us.”

Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, noted that “in a year of geopolitical crisis, likely to be the warmest year in recorded history,” the winning book was “hopeful, timely and timeless.”

Harvey, who has written four previous novels and a memoir about insomnia, is the first British writer since 2020 to win the Booker. The prize is open to English-language writers of any nationality and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel.

De Waal praised the “crystalline” writing and “capaciousness” of Harvey’s succinct novel — at 136 pages in its U.K. paperback edition, one of the shortest-ever Booker winners.

“This is a book that repays slow reading,” he said.

He said the judges spent a full day picking their winner and came to a unanimous conclusion. Harvey beat five other finalists from Canada, the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, chosen from among 156 novels submitted by publishers.

American writer Percival Everett had been the bookies’ favorite to win with “James,” which reimagines Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of its main Black character, the enslaved man Jim.

The other finalists were American writer Rachel Kushner’s spy story “Creation Lake”; Canadian Anne Michaels’ poetic novel “Held”; Charlotte Wood’s Australian saga “Stone Yard Devotional”; and “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden, the first Dutch author to be shortlisted for the Booker.

Harvey is the first female Booker winner since 2019, though one of five women on this year’s shortlist, the largest number in the prize’s 55-year history. De Waal said issues such as the gender or nationality of the authors were “background noise” that did not influence the judges.

“There was absolutely no question of box ticking or of agendas or of anything else. It was simply about the novel,” he said before the awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a grand former Victorian fish market in central London.

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to novels originally written in English published in the U.K. or Ireland. Last year’s winner was Irish writer Paul Lynch for post-democratic dystopia “Prophet Song.”

Lynch handed Harvey her Booker trophy at the ceremony, warning her that her life was about to change dramatically because of the Booker publicity boost.

Harvey said she was “overwhelmed” but remained down-to-earth about spending her prize money.

She said she’d disburse “some of it on tax. I want to buy a new bike. And then the rest — I want to go to Japan.”
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new york — Lou Donaldson, a celebrated jazz saxophonist with a warm, fluid style who performed with everyone from Thelonius Monk to George Benson and was sampled by Nas, De La Soul and other hip-hop artists, has died. He was 98. 

Donaldson died Saturday, according to a statement on his website. Additional details were not immediately available. 

A native of Badin, North Carolina, and a World War II veteran, Donaldson was part of the bop scene that emerged after the war, and early in his career recorded with Monk, Milt Jackson and others. Donaldson also helped launch the career of Clifford Brown, the gifted trumpeter who was just 25 when he was killed in a 1956 road accident. Donaldson also was on hand for some of pianist Horace Silver’s earliest sessions. 

Over more than half a century, he would blend soul, blues and pop and achieve some mainstream recognition with his 1967 cover of one of the biggest hits of the time, “Ode to Billy Joe,” featuring a young Benson on guitar. His notable albums included “Alligator Bogaloo,” “Lou Donaldson at His Best” and “Wailing With Lou.” Donaldson would open his shows with a cool, jazzy jam from 1958, “Blues Walk.” 

“That’s my theme song. Gotta good groove, a good groove to it,” he said in a 2013 interview with the National Endowment for the Arts, which named him a Jazz Master. Nine years later, his hometown renamed one of its roads Lou Donaldson Boulevard.
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NEW YORK — John Albert’s daughter didn’t go to school on Friday. And he couldn’t be happier about it.

For the first time, the high school senior and all of New York City’s public school students have the day off to mark the holiday of Diwali, celebrated in India and among the global Indian diaspora as the victory of light over darkness and marked by communities of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.

To get the holiday added to the school calendar, where it joins other days off for Rosh Hashanah, Lunar New Year, Eid al-Fitr as well as federal holidays like Veterans Day, Christmas and Memorial Day, took years of pushing from those in New York’s South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities like Albert. But it was worth it.

“It was this feeling of wanting to weave our culture into New York,” he said.

From religious and cultural holidays to region-specific commemorations to days meant to honor the towering figures and moments of U.S. history, the holiday calendars across the 50 states and the country at large are increasingly diverse ones, a reflection of and a window into the many communities that make up the American whole.

Recognizing holidays creates community

Including a smaller culture’s or community’s special days as something to recognize in the larger general culture is an act of unity, said Lauren Strauss, professor of modern Jewish history at American University.

“By doing that in an American context and by including a Muslim feast for the end of Ramadan and by including Diwali and including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, my goodness. You’re just saying it out loud, aren’t you? You’re saying that these cultures, these people, they aren’t visitors, that they are a permanent part of this community, that it is multicultural and multiethnic,” she said.

“Whether or not you think it’s good or bad, certainly it paints a different picture of what it means to be American and what the American calendar is.”

A look at what days are marked as holidays in places around the country can be a crash course into what matters in those places. Louisiana, home to New Orleans, takes a day for Mardi Gras. In Hawaii, the state marks a day for King Kamehameha, who united the Hawaiian islands, as well as a day for becoming a U.S. state. California and some other states mark Cesar Chavez Day, named for the civil rights and labor movement activist. In Texas and in the southwest, there are celebrations scheduled for Friday marking Day of the Dead, the Mexican cultural remembrance of loved ones who have passed.

The federal government, in addition to the 11 days that are days off for federal workers, has a host of days that it marks as national observances, like Harriet Tubman Day in March and Patriot Day on September 11.

It keeps greeting card companies on their toes.

“Celebrating holidays and occasions, big or small, with the people we care about is a vital thread that runs through our shared human experience,” Kelly Ricker, chief product officer at American Greetings, said in a statement. The company is “studying and talking to consumers, continuously” to keep up with the kinds of cards people are looking for.

When Chris Sargiotto started his greeting card company Apartment 2 Cards about 15 years ago, the holiday offerings were limited to Christmas and Hanukkah. In recent years, he’s added Kwanzaa and Ramadan, and is looking to bring Diwali cards onto the roster for next year.

The additional holidays were added because of requests from his customers, the stores around that country that stock Apartment 2 cards, a reflection of increasing demand.

“It was stores asking for it because of their customers are asking for it,” he said. “Whenever we introduce one of these specific cards, it seems to take off. So I think there definitely is the need for these.”

There can be challenges as well

But a holiday is not always uncontested. Take mid-October, when the federal government recognizes Columbus Day. It was added to the federal calendar in the 20th century after efforts from Italian Americans, who pushed for it as a way to stake their community’s place in America.

In the decades after though, Indigenous communities pushed back, citing the impact of colonization on their people and the continuing challenges. That has led to the spread of Indigenous People’s Day marked on the same day, which while not a federally recognized is recognized in states around the country.

And sometimes there’s some learning that needs to happen as well. In Montville, New Jersey, the police department this month put a post on Facebook explaining to the community that with Diwali approaching, they would be more likely to see swastikas, a variation of which are ancient sacred symbols in some religions and not deployed in the way Hitler and the Nazis did.

With both Jewish and Hindu communities in the town, it was done in an attempt to forestall misunderstanding, said Chief Andrew Caggiano, and has been met with an overwhelmingly positive response.

“It’s a great opportunity,” he said, “to raise awareness about other cultures that are that are in our community and that are part of our community at this point.”
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MEXICO CITY — Every year this time Mexico erupts in celebrations during the Day of the Dead. Families gather at cemeteries across the country on November 1 to reconnect with their dead just as their ancestors have done for centuries. 

For many more in small communities, it’s also about preserving the core of their traditions as celebrations in places in bigger hubs have increasingly been marked by mass tourism. 

“We’re conserving our tradition, part of our heritage that my mother instilled in me,” said 58-year-old Antonio Melendez. “We can’t let it be lost.” 

Observance dates back centuries

Melendez was among throngs of people gathered in the cemetery, tucked away in the maze of canals and brick buildings in Xochimilco, a borough in south of Mexico City that has long carried on traditions that have faded away in other parts of the country. 

He gathered with his two daughters around the grave of his mother, marked by orange flower petals spread out in the shape of a cross and bouquets of pink flowers, his mother’s favorite color. 

Melendez said she died last year, and the loss was still fresh, so he was trying to remember her by continuing with the same rituals he watched her carry out growing up, this time with his daughters. He started preparing for the celebration four days before, making tamales from scratch and building a small altar for her in their home. 

Day of the Dead dates back centuries to ancient Indigenous civilizations, which would organize parties when someone died to guide them on to the next life, and lay out food in altars to nourish them on their journeys. 

When Spanish colonizers arrived and began forcing Catholicism upon Indigenous communities, they would mix Indigenous traditions with Catholic holidays. Celebrations of the dead then synced up with All Saints Day on November 1, ending on November 2. 

While celebrations begin ramping up at the end of October, Mexican tradition says that on that night their deceased are closest to the living world, and people hope to keep them company. Each family celebrates in different ways. 

In San Gregorio Pantheon, elderly women carry massive bundles of orange flowers, the iconic flower of death. Some families sob into each other’s arms. Others sit alone next to loved one’s graves in silence. Many more drink mezcal and tell stories of their family members. 

‘It’s like being with them’

Gathered with her daughter and granddaughter, 60-year-old Beatriz Chavez kneels at the graves of her son, nephew and father, quietly lighting candles. 

“It’s like being with them one more year, feeling like even if they don’t see them, we feel like we’re closer to them,” Chavez said, noting that she planned to sleep in the graveyard, just like she did every year since her father died when she was 10. 

Over the years, the tradition has been the focus of the Disney film Coco. A Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City was also featured in a James Bond film, despite such a parade not existing in real life. Annual celebrations later adopted the idea of the parade from the movie. 

Now, people from all over the world have flocked to the Latin American nation, eager to experience the rich tradition for themselves. 

But once quaint celebrations in hubs for the Day of the Dead like Mexico City, Oaxaca and Michoacan have started to brim with tourists, who snap photos of mourners. In recent years, many Mexicans have also started to mix the celebration with Halloween. Other new traditions — such as the James Bond parade — have popped up. 

Some, like Melendez, prickle at the shifts. 

“Here, Halloween isn’t ours, it’s Day of the Dead,” he said. “It’s sad because it’s getting distorted. We’re losing the essence of who we are. This is a part of us, our roots.” 

For Melendez, it adds an extra level of importance to the celebration in their small cemetery, which he and others say has stayed true to the centuries-old traditions. 

It coincides with a larger conversation playing out across Mexico amid an influx of American “expats” and tourists. As more move to or travel to Mexico City, rents have gotten so high that many Mexicans have been pushed out of areas they’ve lived in for much of their lives, leaving frustration simmering in much of the city. 

Those who wander the graves and sell flowers and food in the streets see the changes less as a loss of tradition, and more as an evolution — a way for younger generations to continue passing on their heritage in their own ways, and share it with new audiences. 
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tokyo — Hello Kitty turned 50 on Friday. Befitting a pop icon at midlife, the bubble-headed, bow-wearing character’s fictional birthday has brought museum exhibits, a theme park spectacle and a national tour. And that’s just in Japan, her literal birthplace but not the one listed in her official biography. 

Confused? Welcome to the party. If there’s one thing about Hello Kitty, it’s that she’s proven adaptable and as much a study in contrasts during her long career. She — and Kitty is a she, according to the company that owns her — may have been conceived as a vessel for the feelings of others, but some women see an empowering symbol in her mouthless face. 

“Shrewd” is how Mika Nishimura, a design professor at Tokyo’s Meisei University, describes the way Hello Kitty conquered the worlds of commerce, fashion and entertainment. As a tabula rasa open to interpretation, the non-threatening creation was the perfect vehicle for making money, she said. 

“American feminists have said she doesn’t say anything and acquiesces to everyone. But in Japan, we also see how she may appear happy if you’re happy, and sad if you’re feeling sad,” Nishimura told The Associated Press. “It’s a product strategy that’s sheer genius. By being so adaptable, Kitty gets all those collaborative deals.” 

The character’s semicentennial is evidence of that. Sanrio, the Japanese entertainment company that holds the rights to Hello Kitty’s name and image, kicked off the festivities a year ago with an animation account on TikTok, Roblox games and an avatar for the social networking app Zepeto. 

There have been anniversary editions of merchandise ranging from pet collars, cosmetics and McDonald’s Happy Meals to Crocs and a Baccarat crystal figurine. A gold coin pendant with the image of Hello Kitty holding the number 50 is selling for about 120,000 yen ($800), while a Casio watch costs 18,700 yen ($120). 

But first, more on the origin story. 

Unlike Mickey Mouse and Snoopy, Hello Kitty didn’t start as a cartoon. A young Sanrio illustrator named Yuko Shimizu drew her in 1974 as a decoration for stationery, tote bags, cups and other small accessories. The design made its debut on a coin purse the next year and became an instant hit in Japan. 

As Hello Kitty’s commercial success expanded beyond Asia, so did her personal profile. By the late 1970s, Sanrio revealed the character’s name as Kitty White, her height as five apples tall and her birthplace as suburban London, where the company said she lived with her parents and twin sister Mimmy. 

“The main theme of Hello Kitty is friendship. When I first created it, I made a family of which Kitty was a part. But then Hello Kitty started to appear in other settings as the character grew,” Shimizu told the BBC in June. “Sanrio put a lot of effort into building the brand into what it is today.” 

At some point, Sanrio designated Kitty’s birthday as November 1, the same as Shimizu’s. Her background was embellished with hobbies that included playing piano, reading and baking. Her TV appearances required co-stars, including a pet cat named Charmmy Kitty that made its debut 20 years ago. 

But Hello Kitty’s 40th birthday brought an update that astonished fans. Sanrio clarified to a Los Angeles museum curator that Kitty, despite her feline features, was a little girl. A company spokesperson repeated the distinction this year, renewing debate online about the requirements for being considered human. 

“She is supposed to be Kitty White and English. But this is part of the enigma: Who is Hello Kitty? We can’t figure it out. We don’t even know if she is a cat,” art historian Joyce S. Cheng, a University of Oregon associate professor, said. “There is an unresolved indeterminacy about her that is so amazing.” 

Part of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of “kawaii,” which is Japanese for “cute” but also connotes a lovable or adorable essence. Sanrio recruited Shimizu and other illustrators to create “kawaii” characters at a time when cute, girlish styles were popular in Japan. But the word is used often in Japanese society, and not only to describe babies and puppies. 

An elderly man, something as innocuous as an umbrella, a subcompact car or a kitchen utensil, or even a horror movie monster can get labeled “kawaii.” By Western standards, the idea may seem embarrassingly frivolous. But it’s taken seriously in Japan, where the concept is linked with the most honorable instincts. 

The complexity of “kawaii” may help explain Hello Kitty’s enduring appeal across generations and cultures, why Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne released a song titled “Hello Kitty” a decade ago, and why Britain’s King Charles wished Hello Kitty a happy 50th birthday when he hosted Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako at Buckingham Palace in June. 

Although Hello Kitty may seem to embody the self-sacrificing woman stereotype, it’s revealing that three women have served as the character’s chief designers at Sanrio. Yuko Yamaguchi, who has held the role since 1980, is credited with keeping the character both modern and timeless, giving Kitty black outfits or false eyelashes as trends dictated but never removing the bow from her left ear. 

“Hello Kitty, this cultural object, has something to tell us about the history of women in East Asia, and how East Asian women modernized themselves and became professional citizens in a modern society,” the University of Oregon’s Cheng said. 

Sanrio has come up with hundreds of creatures, all adorable and cuddly, but none with the lasting power of Hello Kitty. Forget the understated wabi-sabi aesthetic historically associated with Japan. A chameleon-like cat-girl who reflects unabashed kitsch is the cultural ambassador of a consumer-crazed, happy-go-lucky nation. 

“It’s the anti-wabi sabi, wanting to be as flashy and as bling-bling as possible, like Lady Gaga. In your face, but that’s actually part of the genius, too. It’s powerful,” Cheng said. 

Leslie Bow, a professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that while many Asian and Asian American women see Hello Kitty as a symbol of defiance, the protective, caretaking instinct aroused by “kawaii” isn’t without power. 

“We take care of our siblings, our babies, our pets, because we are in control. We control their actions. And so that is also the dark side of cute,” Bow said. 

Sanrio has taken advantage of the character’s adaptability by allowing relatively unrestricted use of her image in return for a licensing fee. 

Just about anything goes for the wee whiskered one, from a growing global empire of Sanrio-sanctioned Hello Kitty cafes to an “augmented reality” cellphone app that shows Kitty dancing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, London’s Big Ben and other tourist landmarks. 

On the unsanctioned side, Hello Kitty even has shown up on guns and vibrators. 

During a presentation earlier this year in Seoul, Hello Kitty designer Yamaguchi said one of her unfulfilled goals was finding a way “to develop a Hello Kitty for men to fall in love with as well.” But she’s still working on it. 

“I am certain the day will come when men are no longer embarrassed to carry around Hello Kitty,” entertainment news site Content Asia quoted Yamaguchi as saying. 
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