OLD NEWS

WINTER: A CHALLENGE FOR OPOSSUMS
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Even with the milder winters that climate change has produced, winter is challenging for any mammal that stays active year-round in the Northeast, none more so than the Virginia Opossum. A range expansion from the deep south northwards has these mammals encountering conditions they aren’t designed to deal with. With short legs, paper-thin ears and an almost hairless tail, our only marsupial is susceptible to the rigors of deep snow and low temperatures. Frostbitten ears and tail tips are common, and finding enough food to survive is a daily challenge.
Opossums are omnivores – their diet ranges from ticks, insects, rodents, birds, eggs and frogs to plants, fruits and grains. The majority of the summer diet of an opossum consists of vegetation. In winter, more animal food, often in the form of carrion, is consumed. Not being particularly fast movers, opossums find dead animals more far more accessible than live ones. (Photo: young opossum at the beginning of its first winter – note opposable thumbs on hind feet gripping branch) _NaturallyCurious

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APPROVES
<https://tinyurl.com/huxx3dju> _DavidShrigley

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THIS ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI PAINTING IS UNLIKE ANY OF HER OTHERS
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The donne forti, or strong women, painted by Baroque Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, did notoriously fierce things. Behead an Assyrian general? Slay, Judith. Stab yourself to death and inspire a rebellion? Absolutely, Lucretia. And yes, Esther, we see you risking it all before your kingly husband, in an effort to save your people.
But in all of Gentileschi’s many paintings of mythological, biblical, and historical heroines, we don’t generally see powerless men. The men we see are serious contenders, their stature a testament to the strength of the women who overpowered them.
Enter Hercules. Or to be more precise, Hercules and Omphale.
It was a subject Gentileschi painted at least twice, in the later (and lesser known) part of her career when she was based in Naples. One of them was commissioned by King Philip IV of Spain and hung in the Salón Nuevo of the Alcázar in Madrid, the royal residence. And another one, the only known extant version, surfaced dramatically and unexpectedly in 2020 when it was damaged during the devastating port explosion in Beirut.
It had hung in Beirut’s Sursock Palace, and after Lebanese art historian Gregory Buchakjian wrote an article about cultural damage from the explosion and noted what he believed were unidentified Gentileschi works, scholars took a closer look at the work. As a result, Hercules and Omphale (ca. 1635–37) is now a firmly attributed Gentileschi. Once held in the collection of the Neapolitan Cárdenas family, it transferred to the Spinelli family, who sold it, through a dealer, to Alfred Sursock (who wanted to make his Neapolitan bride, Donna Maria Teresa Serra di Cassano, feel more at home in Beirut).
A complex three-year restoration of the painting ensued at the J. Paul Getty Museum, which unveiled the work this past June.
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But what’s the story of this formidable woman and gentle man? According to Greek mythology, Omphale was the Queen of Lydia and enslaved the Greek demigod Hercules as punishment, after he inadvertently murdered a prince named Iphitus. Hercules was forced into servitude, and Omphale reigned dominant, donning his lionskin. Meanwhile, the disgraced demigod took on domestic chores and wore women’s clothing. Throughout art history, the gender reversals in this story have been played up for comic effect—a cross-dressing Hercules doing women’s work opposite a commanding woman who deftly wields control over his, ahem, club.
The art historical tradition of this theme is summarized in a touchscreen station alongside the painting at the Columbus Museum of Art, which includes a carousel of 50 to 60 images of Hercules and Omphale from antiquity to the early 20th century, by artists such as Hans Cranach and Peter Paul Rubens. The story saw a resurgence of popularity in Gentileschi’s time, and yet her version doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories for how this story was portrayed.
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In many post-Renaissance versions, the story of Hercules and Omphale is a moralizing tale about misaligned marriages (ones with a cuckolded husband, or an otherwise deceptive wife). These also depicted Omphale as an alluring figure who undoes Hercules’s senses and ability to reason, adding to the demigod’s generally ludicrous and emasculated appearance.
“Artemisia is an interesting interlocutor in this discourse,” says Daniel Marcus, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Columbus Museum of Art. “And it’s a charged motif for her to take up. She’s known already and quite sought after for her donni forti—strong women, these figurations of powerful, often physically and militarily commanding women.” That genre would have included Omphale, so in that sense it’s on brand for Artemisia, who was also drawn to scenes depicting women as moral champions.
“But this feels like something else,” Marcus goes on to explain. Gentileschi chose to paint the moment when Hercules and Omphale fall in love, an unlikely romance between adversaries witnessed by the chubby cupid leaning on Hercules’s thigh. An open-mouthed Hercules looks at Omphale with infatuation, and she returns his gaze with tenderness. It’s an odd choice for Gentileschi, better known for gore and antagonistic male-female relationships, than for sweet images of romantic love. Generally, her gender role-reversals featured surprising female strength and male vulnerability.
<https://tinyurl.com/24dyzbp5>
“And yet this is a beautiful picture of the circumstances under which it might be possible for a man and woman, in Artemisia’s mind, to find some sort of way to each other. He has to surrender his capacity to do violence; it’s not only the key to the picture but so resonant to her life and to her own experience with men as romantic partners,” Marcus explains, referencing Gentileschi’s assault at the hands of her teacher, Agostino Tassi, and subsequent public trial. By the time she painted Hercules and Omphale, Gentileschi had separated from her husband and become romantically enmeshed with a lover, Francesco Maria Maringhi.
The love between these two mythological figures is possible, in part, because Hercules is not physically menacing. “Artemisia almost naturalizes the feminization of the male, by showing everyone in the scene to be happy. It is presented as a basis for domestic harmony and for the love that grew up between Hercules and Omphale,” says art historian and Gentileschi scholar Sheila Barker, author of the scholarly monograph Artemisia Gentileschi (Lund Humphries and Getty Publications, 2021).
Barker’s monograph explores Gentileschi’s other known Hercules and Omphale, which hung in the Madrid royal residence opposite another painting where the male hero is dressed as a woman—Achilles Discovered by Ulysses and Diomedes (1617–18) by Anthony van Dyck. Achilles may have been wearing a dress, but he was still all man. “Van Dyke presents the feminization of the male as a superficial affectation that does not succeed in hiding an inalienable, irreducible masculinity,” Barker notes. Gentileschi’s painting of a gentle Hercules was different, though, which may be why Philip IV removed it from the Salón Nuevo only a decade later (and replaced it with a macho depiction of the demigod, Hercules and Antaeus, by Peter Paul Rubens).
<https://tinyurl.com/3tnk8knj>
Gentileschi’s Hercules and Omphale is an outlier—both in the long visual tradition of this story, and in the artist’s own work. What does it take for a strong woman and an equally strong man to be together? This painting proffers one possible version of romance, à la Gentileschi._Karen Chernick _artnet

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THE MOUNT WASHINGTON POST
<https://tinyurl.com/6yxsn8az> _LisaAnneAuerbach

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STRIKES AND A $100 MILLION HEIST PUSH THE LOUVRE INTO HISTORIC CRISIS
The ongoing strike at the Louvre is no longer just a labor dispute. It has become a test of how securely, credibly and competently the world’s most visited museum is being run.
Behind the walkout are not only frayed labor relations, but a building itself under strain, with crumbling parts of the aging former palace now deemed unsafe.
At the heart of the crisis lies a deeper rupture: a $102 million jewel heist that exposed security failures at the core of the institution and transformed long-simmering staff grievances into a national reckoning.
Tensions were already rising when a wildcat June strike abruptly shut the museum, stranding visitors beneath I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid. Weeks later, the Louvre closed offices and a public gallery because of weakened floor beams, deepening concern about neglect across the centuries-old complex.
The October daylight robbery, in which thieves stole crown jewels, intensified scrutiny from lawmakers and auditors, reframing workplace complaints as questions of institutional failure.
Culture Ministry officials tried to defuse the standoff by proposing to cancel a planned 2026 funding cut, hire additional guards and visitor services staff, and raise pay, but unions rejected the measures as inadequate. They voted Monday to strike over chronic understaffing, deteriorating buildings and management decisions, and extended the action Wednesday
As pressure shifted squarely onto Louvre President Laurence des Cars, the ministry appointed Philippe Jost, the Notre Dame Cathedral restoration chief, to help reorganize the museum. It’s widely read as a sign that confidence in the museum’s governance has been shaken.
French senators were told last week that thieves who stole crown jewels valued at more than $100 million escaped the Louvre with barely 30 seconds to spare, a detail that crystallized the scale of the breakdown.
A parliamentary inquiry described the Oct. 19 theft as a result of cascading failures. Only one of two cameras covering the break-in point was functioning, and security staff lacked enough screens to monitor footage in real time.
When the alarm finally sounded, police were initially sent to the wrong location, investigators said, a delay that proved decisive.
“Give or take 30 seconds, guards or police could have intercepted them,” said Noël Corbin, who led the inquiry.
Audits in 2017 and 2019 had already flagged vulnerabilities later exploited in the heist, but recommended fixes were never fully implemented.
All four suspected robbers have been arrested, but the jewels remain missing. Interpol has listed the pieces in its database of stolen art amid fears they could be broken up or smuggled abroad.
For staff now on strike, the Senate findings confirmed what they say they had warned for years: that the museum’s defenses were thin, its warnings unheeded, and its margin for error measured in seconds.
The heist has sharpened attention on the Louvre’s condition. Parts of the vast complex have been closed after officials discovered structural weaknesses, including nine rooms in the Campana Gallery devoted to ancient Greek ceramics. Technical reports cited “particular fragility” in supporting beams, forcing staff relocations and closures until further notice.
Unions say sections of the centuries-old building are in “very poor condition,” pointing to incidents such as a November water leak that damaged hundreds of historic books as signs of broader neglect.
President Emmanuel Macron’s “New Renaissance” renovation plan, launched in early 2025 to modernize the Louvre and manage overcrowding, includes expanded entrances and major upgrades. Critics say it has moved too slowly and focused too heavily on headline projects. A court audit flagged considerable delays in deploying modern security equipment and found that only a fraction of allocated funds had been spent on safety.
A proposal to give the “Mona Lisa” a dedicated room with its own entrance was intended to ease crushing crowds. Instead, it has become a symbol of what workers see as misplaced priorities.
Backed by Macron, the plan would separate the painting from the Salle des États to improve visitor flow. Supporters say it reflects the reality of mass tourism, with most visitors coming primarily to see the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece.
Unions counter that the project highlights a fixation on blockbuster attractions while staffing shortages, infrastructure decay and security gaps persist. They argue that money earmarked for redesign would be better spent on repairs, surveillance upgrades and front-line staffing.
Former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez told senators this week that the museum’s security plan was sufficient, stopping short of accepting responsibility for failures exposed by the heist.
Martinez, who led the Louvre from 2013 to 2021, acknowledged delays to a planned 54-million-euro overhaul and said he was “struck, shaken and wounded” by the robbery.
When told his successor later judged the plan incomplete, he replied: “I thought this plan was sufficient.” _Thomas Adamson_AP

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ED RUSCHA, "DO AS TOLD OR SUFFER," 2001
<https://tinyurl.com/2f3yh2wv> _MichaelLobel

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LOUVRE REOPENS FULLY AFTER STAFF VOTE TO SUSPEND STRIKE
The Louvre in Paris reopened fully on Friday after staff voted to suspend a strike that had disrupted access to the world’s most visited museum, management and unions said.
The decision was taken during a general assembly of museum workers, who voted unanimously to pause the strike to allow the museum to welcome visitors, unions said in a statement. The walkout had led to a full closure earlier in the week and a partial reopening on Wednesday.
Unions said the suspension followed five meetings with Culture Ministry officials but said progress remains insufficient, particularly on staffing levels, pay and long-term security plans. They also cited concerns over building deterioration and working conditions.
Union representatives criticized what they described as a lack of engagement from Louvre President Laurence des Cars during the strike, saying she neither met staff nor addressed them during the mobilization.
Workers are due to hold another general assembly on Jan. 5 to decide whether to resume strike action. _AP

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SENIOR CENTER ROBINSON, ND
<https://tinyurl.com/3bmabvc4> _RuralIndexingProject

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A FIVE-STAR MUSEUM IN ALEXANDRIA by Mary Beard
After the new Grand Egyptian Museum, the next day we went to Alexandria (about two and a half hours drive from Cairo) to another new museum: The Graeco-Roman Museum. It isn’t completely new. It was in fact originally established in the late nineteenth century, but it closed in 2005 – and eighteen years later, in 2023, it reopened, entirely transformed.
If I am honest, this was less flashy but more my cup of tea than the Grand Egyptian Museum. It houses what its name says: the art and artefacts of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, going up to the early medieval Byzantine and Coptic period. It is an absolute treasure house of all the cultural interaction that I missed in the other museum, Greek style merging with Egyptian, merging with Roman. You can get a flavour of that in this colossal portrait head of Mark Antony, obviously part Roman, part Egyptian.
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But there are also some absolutely stunning pieces, reminders of what an artistic centre the ancient Alexandrian region was, never mind the cultural interaction. The Roman imperial portraits were as good as you can find anywhere (including a full-length, seated Diocletian (most likely) in porphyry, the largest to have survived in that material from the ancient world). And it was worth going for the mosaic of Queen Berenice II alone, signed by its maker, Sophilos.
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That said, the most memorable piece for me was a full-sized wooden statue of the god Sarapis (<https://tinyurl.com/3u3py2tz> whatever size you think an ancient god was!). We know that wood was one material for sculpture in the ancient world, but very little of it survives _TimesLiterarySupplement

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FRANS SNYDERS, PEASANTS ON THE WAY TO MARKET, C. 1650,
<https://tinyurl.com/4435uvpx> _JesseLocker

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KENNEDY CENTER BOARD VOTES TO ADD ‘TRUMP’ TO EMBATTLED INSTITUTION’S NAME
In a move that prompted immediate questions about its legality, the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., voted on Thursday to add President Donald Trump’s name to an institution he has roiled since taking office in January.
The move, following a year-long fascination with a center that has not been a top-of-mind priority for other presidents in the way that it has been for Trump, was met with disapproval from members of Kennedy’s family and legal experts who say it goes against a stipulation put in place after Congress renamed the center in the wake of JFK’s assassination in 1963.
Spokeswoman Roma Daravi said, “The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The claim of unanimity was disputed by Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, who said, “I was on that call and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted.”
In a message, Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman and the great-nephew of the late president, said, “The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
But that has not stopped Trump or his acolytes, who already changed the name to The Trump Kennedy Center on the institution’s website and, added the president’s mantle to the center’s façade. _ARTnews

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THE FEELING WHEN YOU ORDER A DELICIOUS HOT CHOCOLATE FROM A NOTED DOWNTOWN CAFE
<https://tinyurl.com/2kuumc3u> _AndrewRusseth

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POOL
<https://tinyurl.com/5ctfmt7m>

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SURVIVING IMPOSTER SYNDROME IN THE ART WORLD
In the art world, confidence is currency. We speak in concepts, defend our taste for a living, and are somehow expected to have a fully formed opinion on a show we saw for 30 seconds between private views. So when it comes to pitching ideas at work, even the most creative brains can suddenly feel like they’re faking it.
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You’re not imagining it either: research shows that 70% of women experience imposter syndrome at some point in their careers (men trail slightly behind at 58%). And in a field where everyone seems to have three degrees, speak four languages, and casually references Derrida over coffee, that creeping sense of “I’m not good enough” can hit particularly hard.
But here’s the truth: most people are winging it. Seriously. And there are ways to quiet the inner critic long enough to let your ideas shine.
Here is a few tried-and-tested tricks from our team:
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Borrow confidence the way we borrow exhibition furniture
Rename your inner critic
Ask: what’s the worst that happens?
Keep a private “confidence archive”
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Phone a friend
Stand up straighter than an Anish Kapoor installation
Remember that everyone has flops _TheArtGorgeous

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IN 2025, ERICA PELOSINI IS LARRY CODED AND I CATEGORICALLY REJECT THIS TIMELINE
In 2025, Erica Pelosini has been unmistakably Larry Gagosian–coded, and I want to be absolutely clear that I do not accept this as a permanent condition. This is not destiny. This is not infrastructure. This is a moment. A season. A slightly overlit chapter that will eventually close. I have reviewed the optics, studied the patterns, and decided this is temporary at best. The art world has taught me many things, but chiefly that nothing is ever as settled as people want you to believe.
Yes, there is the tidy 30-second cameo on Emily in Paris, now Emily in Italy, which feels less like acting and more like brand reinforcement during a holding period. Erica appearing briefly, impeccably styled, and vaguely symbolic is not new information. It is simply confirmation that this entire situation is operating at the level of image management. I clock it. I note it. I remain unconvinced. She is a Prada Mood board c. 2012.
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Which brings me to my position, stated plainly and without apology. Erica Pelosini is my sworn mortal enemy, but only because narratively this rivalry is correct. And I am still making a play for Larry. Patiently. Strategically. Delusionally, if necessary. Larry, if you’re reading this, let me say it directly: say my name. Let’s remake the art world from the inside. I can help you rebrand. This is not a threat. This is an offer. I have ideas. I have vision. I have stamina. And unlike most people in your orbit, I am not afraid to tell you when something is tired. And at the very least, let me write an exhibition essay.
I refuse to accept this era as final. I refuse inevitability. I refuse the idea that the story has already been written. The long game is alive, the timeline is flexible, and history loves a late pivot. I will be watching, waiting, and documenting accordingly.
ARE THE MEN OF THE ART WORLD OK THIS HOLIDAY SEASON?
The art world men have truly entered their unwell holiday posting era, and this week on Instagram felt less like content and more like a cry for help with a ring light. Ray Ray Bulman the Chaotic Cooker has returned, once again confusing domesticity with performance art and treating a stove like it’s a conceptual prop.
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Magnus, meanwhile, appears to believe he’s in active training for the 2026 Winter Olympics, documenting a boys’ ski trip that reads less leisure and more slow motion benzo breakdown scored by Enya. The fixation on endurance, motion, and vague masculinity through exertion is fascinating. Who is filming, who approved this, and why does every clip feel like a soft launch for a podcast about resilience no one asked for?
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And then there’s Caspar Jopling, whose recent posts look uncannily like a United Colors of Benetton ad staged for Vogue circa 2008, all polished ease, curated multicultural vibes, and lifestyle ambiguity masquerading as depth. This genre of art man content is especially revealing, influencer adjacent, fashion coded, and deeply aware of the camera while pretending not to be. What ties all of this together isn’t just cringe, it’s a specific kind of gendered performance.
<https://tinyurl.com/2fa7vnbf>
Men in the art world narrating themselves into relevance through lifestyle spectacle rather than ideas, labor, or accountability. The result is content that begs to be read, not liked. Anxious, self mythologizing, and increasingly untethered from the institutions and power structures they’re supposedly inside of
_TheArtDaddy

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A CLOSER LOOK AT WOODPECKER TONGUES
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Drilling into wood is just the first step. To reach prey hidden deep inside, woodpeckers rely on an extraordinary tongue, long and flexible enough to thread into insect tunnels the bill can't reach.
The woodpecker tongue is one of the longest relative to body size in the bird world, and woodpeckers use it with remarkable precision.
When not extended, the base of the tongue wraps around the back of the skull, and in some species, stretches all the way to the right nostril.
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Two pairs of muscles guide the tongue, allowing it to move not just in and out, but in multiple directions.
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Sticky saliva grabs prey on contact; insects that might otherwise slip away. In some species, tongue tips may have bumps or backward-facing barbs that hook insects on the way out of the crevice.
Tongue-tip structures vary by species and diet, but they all have keratin tips that naturally regrow when worn down.
<https://tinyurl.com/bmp4p2hs> _CornellLabOfOrnithology