Features

LISBON — US filmmaker, writer, painter, photographer and musician, Gus Van Sant, is now turning his hand to theatre with a new musical in Lisbon about the early career of Pop Art creator, Andy Warhol.

Van Sant — best-known for films such as "My Own Private Idaho" and "Good Will Hunting" — said he had long wanted to make a film about Warhol, and even wrote a screenplay with US actor River Phoenix, who died at 23 in 1993, set for the lead role.

Now, in his first-ever work for the stage, the 69-year-old laureate of Canne's Palme d'Or has written the musical "Andy", which premiered on Thursday in the Portuguese capital as part of the Biennial of Contemporary Arts where Van Sant is one of this year's artists in residence.

"I was trying to put together the greatest hits of Andy's life to explain his rise into the art world in the 60s," the filmmaker said.

With dialogue and songs penned by Van Sant himself, the musical — which is being staged in English in Lisbon's prestigious Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, ahead of a European tour that takes it to cities such as Rome, Amsterdam, Paris and Athens — is a collection of anecdotes about Warhol's encounters with leading figures of American culture, like writer Truman Capote, art critic Clement Greenberg and actor Edie Sedgwick.

The picture that emerges of the artist is one of "a very strange character that is not really related to the Andy Warhol that maybe we know. He's sort of a stand-in for Andy," Van Sant said.

Among Van Sant's films are biopics about iconic figures such as Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain in "Last Days" and gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk in "Milk".

"Very few people knew who Andy Warhol really was," said Portuguese actor Diogo Fernandes, who plays the artist in the production.

"I think he was someone who was shy, fascinated by American culture and who wanted to be a star, but never imagined what impact he would have," Fernandes told AFP. 

For Van Sant's collaborator on the project, John Romao, Warhol was "someone half-hidden in the shadows, shy, but very forceful at the same time thanks to his ability to turn his ideas into reality. This made him both fascinating and frightening to those around him." 

Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, Warhol began his career as a commercial illustrator.

But he soon became a leading exponent of the Pop Art movement and worked in a wide range of different media, such as painting, photography and film.

His studio in New York, The Factory, was a meeting place for intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. 

Best-known for his silkscreen paintings of "Campbell's Soup Cans", Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Mao Zedong, he also managed and produced the experimental rock band, The Velvet Underground, and founded Interview magazine.

He died in New York at the age of 58 in 1987.

By Nina Larson and Eloi Rouyer
Agence France-Presse

LAUSANNE — As conductor Guillaume Berney marks the opening downbeat, the first chords ring out in a Lausanne concert hall of what could conceivably be an extract of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony — if the great German composer had ever managed to complete the piece.

The classical music world has often speculated what Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) would have gone on to write after his monumental Ninth Symphony.

And a number of musicologists and composers have already ventured to orchestrate and complete some of the scraps of notation they believe were his first sketches for his next symphonic masterpiece. 

But to mark their 10th anniversary season this year, Berney and the Nexus orchestra have decided to use artificial intelligence to create a four-minute extract which they have dubbed BeethovANN Symphony 10.1. 

“That is not a typo,” Berney told the audience at the first night.

Berney explains that the ANN refers to the artificial neural network that created it, basically without human intervention. 

“We don’t know what it will sound like,” Berney acknowledged to AFP ahead of the Lausanne concert. 

The final score was only generated and printed out hours before the performance, after computer programme designer Florian Colombo oversaw the final step in what for him has been a years-long process.

‘Like watching a birth’

Seated in his small apartment with a view over the old city of Lausanne and the Alps in the distance, Colombo made a couple small changes before clicking a button to generate the score. 

“It’s like watching a birth,” Berney said as he picked up the first pages emerging from the printer. 

The excitement was palpable as the freshly created sheet music was presented to the orchestra.

The musicians eagerly began rehearsing for the evening concert, many smiling with surprise as the harmonies unfolded.

“This is an emotional experience for me,” said Colombo, himself a cellist, as the sound filled the hall.

“There is a touch of Beethoven there, but really, it is BeethovANN. Something new to discover.”

Berney agreed. 

“It works,” he said. “There are some very good parts, and a few that are a bit out of character, but it’s nice,” the conductor said, acknowledging though that “maybe it lacks that spark of genius”.

Colombo, a computer scientist at the EPFL technical university, developed his algorithm using so-called deep-learning, a subset of artificial intelligence aimed at teaching computers to “think” via structures modelled on the human brain or ANNs.

To generate something that might possibly pass as an extract from Beethoven’s Tenth, Colombo first fed the computer all of the master’s 16 string quartets, explaining that the chamber works provided a very clear sense of his harmonic and melodic structures. 

He then asked it to create a piece around one of the theme fragments found in Beethoven’s sparse notes that musicologists believe could have been for a new symphony.

“The idea is to just push a button to produce a complete musical score for an entire symphonic orchestra completely without intervention,” Colombo said.

“That is, except for all the work I put in ahead of time,” added the computer programmer who has been working for nearly a decade towards deep-learning-generated music.

‘Not blasphemous’

Colombo said that using a computer to try to recreate something begun by one of the world’s greatest musical geniuses was not encroaching on the human creative process.

Instead, he said, he saw his algorithm as a new tool for making musical composition more accessible and for broadening human creation.

While the programme “can digest what has already been done and propose something similar”, he said the aim was for “humans to use the tools to create something new”. 

“It is not blasphemous at all,” Berney agreed, stressing that “no one is trying to replace Beethoven”.

In fact, he said, the German composer would likely have been a fan of the algorithm.

“Composers at that time were all avantgarde,” he said, pointing out that the best were “always eager to adopt new methods”. 

By Lucie Aubourg
Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — Human babies are not the only babblers, said a study published on Thursday, some bats are also very talkative in their infancy and even make sounds that recall the googoo-gagas of our own tots.

Babbling in human children is key to developing the careful control over the vocal apparatus necessary for speech. 

The study published in the journal Science indicates the same is true for the greater sac-winged bat, or Saccopteryx bilineata, native to Central America.

“Human infants seem to babble on the one hand to interact with their caregivers, but they also do that when they’re completely alone, seemingly happily just exploring their voice, and that’s the same what our bats are doing,” study co-author Mirjam Knornschild, behavioural ecologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, told AFP.

Bats communicate by ultrasound, sound waves at frequencies above human hearing, but they can also make sounds audible to people.

“It sounds like a high pitched twittering to our ears... it’s melodic,” said Knornschild, who has worked with bats since 2003.

Saccopteryx bilineata don’t hide away in gloomy caves, but prefer to live in trees, making them easier to observe. 

The babbling of 20 baby bats was recorded in Costa Rica and Panama between 2015 and 2016 by researcher Ahana Fernandez, also affiliated with the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, who spent hours with the bats in the forest.

Up to 43 minutes

The mammals, like us, have a larynx, and start babbling about three weeks after birth, for about 7 to 10 weeks — until they are weaned.

During this period, the bats spend around 30 per cent of their days babbling, with sessions lasting on average about seven minutes, the researchers calculated.

But one bat babbled for a full 43 minutes, a long stretch considering adult communication generally lasts but a few seconds. 

“That’s something really, really peculiar that the other bat species that have been studied to date simply don’t do,” said Knornschild.

“They’re very chatty.” 

The vocalisations were converted into images, called spectrograms. 

“Each syllable has a very specific shape, so to say, and they are easy to distinguish by eye,” Knornschild added. 

The researchers analysed more than 55,000 produced syllables, finding universal characteristics of babbling in human infants in the bats, such as repetition, lack of meaning, but also that the sounds followed a certain rhythm. 

On top of that, like with humans, the learning curve is not linear.

Out of 25 syllables in the adult repertoire, young bats have not yet mastered all of them by the time they are weaned, suggesting that they continue to learn. 

Song

The researchers were able to show that the young bats learned fairly early on a six-syllable song used by males to mark their territory and attract females.

“The pups listen to adult males singing and then imitate that song,” Knornschild said.

Baby females also learn the song, even though they won’t reproduce it as adults. But the study suggests learning it may help them judge the performance of their potential future partners.

Very few other species babble — only some birds, two species of marmosets and perhaps some dolphins or beluga whales.

Why would certain animals need to develop in this way and others not? 

“Navigating and communicating in a dark, 3D environment, seems to be a huge selective pressure for vocal learning,” Knornschild said.

But no matter the reason, the researchers underscore that developing a complex vocal system opens a world of possibilities — as demonstrated in humans, and now also in bats.

First introduced in 2013 and significantly updated with renewed emphasis on improved exterior and interior aesthetics, driving characteristics, refinement, and technology in 2018, the Nissan X-Trail’s recipe of versatility, practicality accessibility is a winning formula that has made it one of the world’s best selling among crossovers and SUVs. 

Sold in Jordan in Hybrid guise, the popular X-Trail is a well-equipped and well-appointed yet unpretentious crossover that is user-friendly and reasonably priced, while its hybrid system proved to be discrete and un-intrusive, as it operates in a near seamlessly well-integrated manner.

Swooping style

Virtually indistinguishable from regular combustion engine models and lacking the sometimes pretentiously attention-seeking and virtue signalling design and detail differences associated with hybrid versions of cars, the only thing denoting the X-Trail’s combined petrol and electric drive-line are discrete “Hybrid” badges. 

Otherwise, the X-Trail Hybrid features the same swooping bonnet, heavily browed and squinting headlights, curvy waistline and sense of momentum as other versions. Updated in 2018, the X-Trail’s wider, lower and shinier new signature “V-motion” grille and revised lights, sills and bumpers meanwhile lend it a fresher, snoutier and more assertive demeanour.

Negligibly heavier than the petrol-powered 2.5-litre version featured here back in 2018 at the revised model’s launch, the X-Trail Hybrid’s restrained route to electrification trades all-wheel-drive for the addition of an electric motor and battery pack. Comparatively compact, the X-Trail Hybrid’s battery pack sits under the boot, and while it reduces cargo volume slightly, a raised boot floor, however, does allow the X-Trail Hybrid to retain a space saver spare wheel under the floor, unlike some Hybrid competitors with a bulky strap-down spares added as an afterthought for regional markets.

Well integrated

Powered by a naturally-aspirated 2-litre 4-cylinder engine developing 142BHP at 6,000rpm and 147lb/ft torque at 4,400rpm, the X-Trail Hybrid’s smoothly progressive combustion engine is aided by a 40BHP and 118lb/ft electric motor, with which it pairs via a smooth double clutch link for a total 179BHP. With its electric motor serving to boost its low-end response with a significant infusion of torque, the X-Trail Hybrid is flexible in mid-range overtaking manoeuvres and on inclines. Estimated to be capable of 0-100km/h in around 8.8-seconds, the 1,648kg X-Trail Hybrid meanwhile returns moderate 6.7l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

Launching eagerly from standstill with a chirp of tyres and tug of steering owing to the immediacy of torque channelled through the front wheels, the X-Trail Hybrid is driven through a seamlessly smooth and efficient continuously variable transmission (CVT) system. If not as committed or predictably accurate as a traditional gearbox for sportier driving through switchbacks, the X-Trail Hybrid’s CVT nevertheless intuitively matches revs with throttle position and vehicles speed, and minimises the “slingshot” feel typical to many CVT systems. Meanwhile, in “manual” mode one can select pre-set ratios to mimic a traditional gearbox.

Keen cornering

Well-integrating the connection between petrol and electric motors, the X-Trail Hybrid is also notable for quickly recharging its battery pack through braking regeneration and directly from the combustion engine. During extended hill climbs, it coped well in using brief respites between inclines to maintain battery charge, rather than deplete the batteries to the point where the combustion engine struggles in the absence of electric motor input, as is often the case with lesser hybrids. That said, the X-Trail’s chassis proved well able to handle demandingly twisting and sprawling switchbacks with poise. 

Tidy on turn-in and with good handling properties and light, quick and accurate steering, the X-Trail Hybrid drives with more eagerness and cornering adjustability than most in its segment, especially with stability control system set to low intervention mode, where automatic braking and weight shifts are more natural, progressive and predictable, than overly cautious in braking the front wheels and shifting weight to the rear. Driven so, the X-Trail Hybrid is keen, chuckable and refreshingly light on its feet through corners, while its agility is aided by a brake-based Active Trace Control torque vectoring system.

Stability and space

Stable and refined on highway and manoeuvrable in town, the X-Trail Hybrid’s somewhat lower profile 225/55R19 tyres might slightly improve handling and appearance, but don’t seem to much affect ride comfort unduly. Slightly firm over some more jagged bumps, it is nevertheless forgiving, fluent and comfortable over most road imperfections, and is settled through dips and crests in vertical travel. With a supportive and comfortable driving position, and decent visibility for its class, the X-Trail Hybrid also features useful 360° and reversing camera to aid visibility, albeit projected through a modest-sized screen.

Refreshed with a more up-market interior since 2018 the X-Trail features improved interior trim, quality, textures, padding, sporty steering wheel, and even faux carbon-fibre door panels. Contemporarily pleasant inside, with good equipment levels, including an intuitive infotainment system, panoramic sunroof, leather seats, automatic tailgate, dual zone climate control, and side and curtain airbags, the X-Trail Hybrid is notably spacious in its segment, with enviable rear leg and headroom. Meanwhile, Hybrid spec precludes optional third row seating and reduces luggage volume slightly from the standard model’s 455-litre minimum, but cargo capacity is nevertheless good, especially with rear seats folded.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, 16-valve, DOHC, transverse 4-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84 x 90.1mm

Maximum engine speed: 6,400rpm

Hybrid system: Parallel electric motor, 35Kw lithium-ion battery

Gearbox: Continuously variable transmission (CVT), front-wheel-drive

Transmission ratio range: 0.378:1-2.631:1

Power–petrol engine, BHP (PS) [kW]: 142 (144) [106] @6,000rpm

Power – electric motor, BHP (PS) [kW]: 40 (41) [30]

Power, combined, BHP (PS) [kW]: 177 (179) [132]

Torque – petrol engine, lb/ft (Nm): 147.5 (200) @4,400rpm

Torque – electric motor, lb/ft (Nm): 118 (160)

0-100km/h: 8.8-seconds (estimate)

Fuel consumption, combined: 6.7l/100km

Length: 4,690mm

Width: 1,830mm

Height: 1,730mm

Wheelbase: 2,705mm

Headroom, F/R: 1,057/978mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,092/963mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1,438/1,420mm

Kerb weight: 1,648kg

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multilink

Steering: Electric-assisted, rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.3-metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs

Tyres: 225/55R19

Price, on-the-road: JD31,9003rd (including 3rd party insurance)

Warranty: 5-years or 300,000km

Meet Dame’s Rocket, a biennial flowering plant from the mustard family and a cousin of many plants we eat, like Arugula. Also known as Mother of the Evening due to its evening fragrance, this plant offers many benefits.

Did you know?

This herb is native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia, extending now to Europe and North America.

Plant of deceit

It is known as a flower of deception as there it has no fragrance during the day. Come nightfall, however, the flower has a lovely perfume. It grows wild in woods with tall slumps of lavender blooms in the spring and summer months. 

Its slender threadlike tooth-shaped leaves with cluster flowers vary in colour depending on the soil and sun exposure. It requires moist, well-drained, slightly alkaline soil in full sun or partial shade. Dame’s Rocket is a food source for caterpillars, moths and hummingbirds.

Aesthetic and medicinal marvel

Each flower produces a long thin seed pod attached to the flower stalk and held outward in an ascending position often used in flower pots to complement a bouquet. It is used medicinally to induce sweating, treat coughs and used as an antidote for insect stings and snake bites-the leaves are rich in Vitamin C. 

Culinary creation

Young Dame’s Rocket is one of the most exotic flavoured greens I have ever eaten. It resembles Arugula with a tinge of spice and sweetness. Grab them as buds, toss them in a pan with olive oil for a few seconds and add vinegar and nuts, making a perfect summer salad.

They can be candied and used for cakes and as dessert garnish. Jelly made out of this blossom is very popular in Alaska. 

You can blend it with butter like any other herb as it tastes like garlic, giving your vegetables a distinct flavour. 

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

GENEVA — Drowning is now a leading cause of death for children aged under five in many countries, the World Health Organisation recently said.

Around 2.5 million people died by drowning in the decade to 2019, the WHO said, as it set out a series of simple measures to help reduce the “entirely preventable” toll.

The first World Drowning Prevention Day marks a timely reminder in the northern hemisphere, as the summer months correlate with a peak in drowning deaths.

The WHO said that around 60 per cent of all drowning deaths were among those under the age of 30, with the highest rates among children aged under five.

“This is an entirely preventable cause of death,” Doctor David Meddings, from the WHO’s Social Determinants of Health department, told reporters in Geneva.

He said the “shocking numbers” included an estimated 236,000 people in 2019 alone who lost their lives due to drowning.

Flood-related mortality, deaths due to water transport accidents and intentional drownings are not included in the overall statistics.

He said the reduction in the death rates of children aged under five from all causes over the past 40 years had masked the residual problem of deaths due to drowning.

“Drowning is now a leading cause of death for children under the age of five, in many, many countries,” Meddings said.

He said drowning was the leading cause of death for under-fives in China and the second-biggest in the United States and France.

Meddings said that in Bangladesh in 2016 alone, an estimated 40 children died from drowning every day.

Prevention methods

In Asia, drowning deaths predominantly involve young children.

But recent surveys in Tanzania and Uganda found that 80 per cent of drowning deaths were among young adult fishermen, the WHO said.

Drowning rates in low- and middle-income countries are more than three times higher than in high-income nations.

The WHO said drowning disproportionately affected poor and marginalised communities which have the fewest resources to adapt to the risks around them.

Meddings said simple steps could prevent many deaths, such as installing barriers around wells, providing safe places for children to play away from water, and teaching youngsters basic swimming and water safety skills. 

Greater training in safe rescue and resuscitation techniques would also help people to assist anyone who is drowning. 

Enforcing safe shipping loading and ferry regulations, and improving flood risk management, are two other interventions recommended by the WHO.

LOS ANGELES — At the age of 91, Clint Eastwood is not just directing but also climbing back in the saddle, and even throwing a punch for his new Western "Cry Macho." 

The legendarily prolific Hollywood star has never shown much interest in retiring and appears on-screen in the movie, out Friday, as a former rodeo champion tasked with one last job.

Mike Milo (Eastwood) must travel to Mexico and retrieve his former boss's son Rafo, teaching him to ride horses in the process.

"This picture came along about 40 years ago," recalls Eastwood in the film's production notes.

"I'm too young for this part, why don't I direct it and we'll get Robert Mitchum?" he told a producer at the time.

But with his career now well into its seventh decade, Eastwood decided to take on the role himself — to the delight of long-time collaborator and producer Tim Moore.

"The thing that everybody loves to see is Clint in a cowboy hat and on a horse," Moore told the recent CinemaCon gathering in Las Vegas.

"He hasn't been on a horse since 'Unforgiven,'" he said, referring to the 1992 Oscar-winning film.

"The first day that we filmed the scene of him up on the horse, the crew were just all so excited. It was a special moment."

Eastwood, a multiple Oscar-winner born in 1930, first came to global stardom as an actor in seminal Westerns "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

His output as a director since 1971's "Play Misty for Me" has been prolific and diverse, and he has spoken in interviews of his desire to keep working as long as he finds projects that are "worth studying."

While he did announce his retirement from acting after 2008's "Gran Torino," Eastwood returned in front of the camera four years later in "Trouble with the Curve," and again in 2018's "The Mule."

In a trailer for "Cry Macho" — hitting theatres and HBO Max streaming platform simultaneously — frequent references are made to the age gap between unlikely pair Mike and Rafo, who bond over the course of their perilous journey back to Texas.

"You used to be strong, macho," says Rafo, played by Mexican newcomer Eduardo Minett.

"I used to be a lot of things," replies Eastwood's Mike.