Bronze for Japan

Yukifumi Murakami of Japan throws a personal best of 83.10m to qualifiy automatically for the men's Javelin final at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics.

Silver for Japan

Yoshimi Ozaki of Japan crosses the finish line to take the silver medal in the women's Marathon at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin.

Cheering on the official Berlin 2009 live blog

October 6!

The long awaited release of an original Kiss album has finally come around! The Rock veterans are to release "Sonic Boom" their 19th Original Studio offering on October 6th, exclusively through Wal-Mart.

The 3-Disc spectacular is set to include the 11-Track Sonic Boom album, as well as Kisstory, the band's retrospective album released exclusively to Japan, and a 6-track Live DVD, taken from their April 5th, Argentina show.

Sonic Boom will see both old and new hands at work, in Michael Doret (Artist for the 1976 Album "Rock and Roll Over") and Tommy Thayer, on his first official feature as a Guitarist with the group.

Gene Simmons has described the new album as "...the best new record we’ve done since ‘Destroyer’! It is ‘Rock And Roll Over’ meets ‘Love Gun’." Further hyping the latest effort by explaining Wal-Mart's exclusive distribution rights: "The world’s biggest retailer had better get ready for the hottest band in the world and hire more cashiers before October 6!"

###

Jeffrey Silverthorne

MARK LAGREANGE: POLARIODS

Interview with Daniel Barenboim

The Financial Times had lunch with maestro Daniel Barenboim this weekend.

Here are some excerpts:

Barenboim, now 66, has been at the forefront of classical music for six decades. He gave his first piano recital at the age of seven in his native Argentina (three years later he and his family moved to Israel). At 17 he performed his first cycle of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, a feat he has repeated about 30 times around the world. Aged 20 and already fluent in five languages, he made his conducting debut in Israel, later becoming music director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony and the Berlin State Opera – the last of which remains his fiefdom, along with La Scala, Milan, where three years ago the post of maestro scaligero (master of La Scala) was created for him.

The music in Barenboim’s life never stops but in the West-Eastern Divan, named after a collection of Goethe poems evoking western awareness of eastern culture, it shares the limelight with political activism. He sees the orchestra as a model for dialogue in the Middle East – an example of how to break the wall of hatred between peoples. Its members are drawn not just from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, but also Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran. They share accommodation, food, transport and music desks.

Barenboim himself has taken Palestinian citizenship, a move that, along with his attempts to play Wagner in Israel and his groundbreaking West Bank concert with the Divan in 2005, incenses many fellow Jews. His activism has also been criticised by Palestinians, who argue that dialogue is counterproductive until Israel acknowledges basic Palestinian rights.

###

George Russell R.I.P.

Datsun 240Z

A profile segment on Classic Car & Driver TV Featuring the legendary Datsun 240Z. This car put Japan on the map as manufacturers of affordable, high performance sports cars.

Anti-Sweden

Asger Carlsen

Ryan McGinley - Show Preview

Alison Jacques Gallery announces the first UK solo show of acclaimed American artist Ryan McGinley with an exhibition of 24 new colour photographs shot in caves across North America. Over the last year, McGinley and his crew explored huge caves underground, venturing into unknown territory, seeking out spectacular natural spaces, some previously undocumented. The title of the show “Moonmilk” alludes to the crystalline deposits found on the walls of many caves; it was once believed that this substance was formed by light from celestial bodies passing through rock into darkened worlds below. A book of McGinleyʼs new photographs will be published by Morel books to coincide with the opening of the London show on September 10. [Additional photo on my Tumblr here, ed.]

###