O-Bits: We’ve Only Just Begum Edition

It reads like a story by Salman Rushdie by way of William Faulker: a royal family denied their ancestral home by the vagaries of politics or luck, left to ruminate on their past glories in a mouldering, dilapidated castle, selling off their jewels to get by, living in a state of eternal mourning. The prince of Oudh was the last remaining member of a once-proud clan; his mother, the Begum, died of poison, his sister committed suicide by eating crushed diamonds. He died in September, and the Indian Express has the story.

Marin Alsop, one of the more exciting young conductors working today, takes the baton and leads the London Symphony Orchestra in a reading of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish as part of the celebration of his centenary. The Times of London‘s critic did not quite wish ill upon the dead, but he called the piece an “argumentative elaboration of the Jewish prayer for the dead…struggling too hard to be strident or drowning in watery bathos.” Not even Claire Bloom’s narration helped. He did have kinder words for Bernstein’s Halil, a piece written in memory of an Israeli flautist killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which he called an “elegiac beauty.”

A Chinese funerary shrine was recently discovered at the Pioneer Cemetery in Salem, Oregon, and they’re inviting the public to check out the active archeological site tomorrow. Among their requests: bring mud-ready shoes, and leave the dogs at home.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.