Category Archives: Hedonism

In January 1996, Terry Donovan was, happily, in the rave and techno trenches.

DJing in his hometown of London, and back in Birmingham where hed studied philosophy at university, the 25-year-old was spinning the likes of Vamp by Outlander, Energy Flash by Joey Beltram, Jeff Mills Mecca EP and LFO by LFO.

It was amix of historical rave culture you could take anything from 87, 88 onwards alongside some of the more metallic, fierce stuff that the actual DJs at the club were making, he says of his sets, mentioning Surgeon (aka Tony Child), the sound of UK techno at the time and the genres local hero.

That location in Englands second city was The Que Club, housed in the historic, 1904-built Methodist Central Hall, with 35 to 40 rooms spread over three or four floors. Quite the venue, and it created legendary nights like House of God, where Donovan spun.

Id been aDJ for along time by that point, and it was really hard to find that feral energy, Donovan remembers, where the crowd could overwhelm the sound system. And then you took that to the architectural scale of this venue, and the scale of 2000 or 3000, whatever the number of people in The Que Club was Id never done anything in my life where Iwanted to say to my dad who had apretty special eye and had seen some pretty special things over the years Dad, could you come and look at this please? It was literally like alittle kid saying: Hey, Ithink this is cool.

Terry Donovans dad was Terence Donovan, the legendary fashion photographer. Alongside David Bailey, Donovan Sr. had pretty much captured the Swinging Sixties, shooting models and celebrities galore. He also directed sleek Eighties pop videos like Robert Palmers Addicted to Love, lensed myriad television commercials and snapped assorted royals, including Diana, Princess of Wales in 1987 and the Duchess of Yorks engagement photographs.

And now here he was, at his sons urging, aged 59, patrolling aheaving, throbbing late-Nineties rave in wee hours Birmingham.

He was wearing apair of black tracksuit bottoms and an old British army camo jacket, and he just wandered around and did his thing. You know, the nature of Birmingham and the nature of House of God, people were unimpressed by fame and celebrity, says Terry, who went on to become co-founder of Rockstar Games and now lives in Colorado. Thats one of the greatest gifts Iever got out of both dad and Birmingham aconstant reminder to treat everybody equally.

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Terence Donovan captures the hedonism of Birmingham's '90s raves - The Face

I recently spent three days with a group of pastors, almost all our time devoted to deep sharing of our life stories. We laughed at the silly things weve done. We marveled at the lineaments of Gods grace. We wept over sins, wounds, and struggles, both past and present.

I drove home pondering the fact that when ten tenderhearted, Jesus-loving, spiritually alive pastors get into a room and are honest with each other, we share stories of theft, pornography, broken families, paralyzing anxiety, suicidal thoughts, marital struggles, and unfulfilled longings. If theres such brokenness in the histories and hearts of godly shepherds, what must be the inner reality of the sheep in our churches? Surrounded by such brokenness within and without, how can the people of God possibly hope to sustain their joy in God?

The odds seem long and the situation bleak. But Psalm 70 gives me strong hope.

Ive been drawn to Psalm 70:4 for many years, because it brings together two awesome truths that thrill the heart of every Christian Hedonist:

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great!

Only a capacious heart could breathe such an expansive prayer. Notice that David isnt content for just a few (or even most) seekers of God to rejoice. No, he longs for all to experience God-centered gladness. And Davids requesting more than just a flickering, intermittent passion for the glory of God among the people of God; rather, he prays for their lips and lives to communicate Gods worth continually, at all times, without interruption.

This is a plus-sized prayer. Its so big that many millions of people can (and have) fit inside it. David was surely praying it for himself. He was also praying it for those of his generation and all future generations. In fact, if were seeking God and loving Gods salvation, Davids prayer is for us. David is asking God to sweeten our joy and strengthen our passion for his glory. He doesnt specify how these two prayers might fit together, but John Piper has helped many of us treasure the biblical teaching that they are in fact one. As we find our deepest joy in God (in you), we display his worth to the world.

Though Ive loved Psalm 70:4 for years, it wasnt until recently that I noticed the context. And its the context that has filled me with hope.

Heres what Ive noticed: Psalm 70 is not a sunny psalm. Its not a walk in the park or a day at the beach. Life is not good in this psalm. Instead, its hard very hard. In fact, the psalm is an almost-unremittingly desperate plea for Gods help. Verse 1 (the first verse) and verse 5 (the last verse) are bookends:

Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!

Hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!

Theres a focused urgency here. David sounds like a soldier pinned down by enemy fire, radioing desperately to central command. His enemies want David dead, and they gloat over Davids misfortunes (Aha, Aha! verse 3).

Weve already seen Davids response to this dark situation. He feels two overwhelming desires, one expected and the other exceptional. First, David wants out of the situation. In four out of five verses, he pleads with God for speedy deliverance. This reaction is perfectly natural and completely understandable. Who wouldnt want this? Of course, wed all be asking for the same rescue.

Second, however, the intense pressure of Davids circumstances also squeezes from his heart another cry, this one much more unusual. Stunningly, the request in verse 4 is not just for himself, but for others. Its nothing short of miraculous that David, in his foxhole, under heavy fire, prays not simply for personal escape, but for gladness among all Gods people, and for the continual glorifying of God. What is going on here?

Some of us hear the Bibles repeated calls to pursue our joy and believe that its simply beyond us in our present state. For the moment, our attention is occupied by other matters: sin, sickness, loneliness, financial difficulty, opposition, relational pain. We feel were in the 101 class of Surviving Our Problems and not quite ready for the 201 class of Pursuing Our Joy. Verse 4, we think, is for people who have it all together (or at least more together).

And this is why the context of verse 4 is so challenging and so encouraging, because verse 4 exists in a sea of suffering. David doesnt say, Once I get free from my enemies, then Ill start to care about the gladness of Gods people and the glory of God. His foxhole prayer, in worrying and uncomfortable circumstances, is for gladness and glory. This is a real-world prayer. Christian Hedonism is as much for bleak days as it is for bright ones.

If God can work this extraordinary impulse in Davids heart, why cant he do the same in us? Why cant he implant a renewed passion for our joy and his glory even in the midst of intense suffering? Could it be that God might even use the desperation of our brokenness to drive us to him?

In his poem The Storm, George Herbert ponders how, like the violent force of a terrible rainstorm,

A throbbing conscience spurred by remorseHath a strange force: It quits the earth, and mounting more and more,Dares to assault thee, and besiege thy doore. (lines 1012)

Our inner and outer conflicts may produce something good. They purge the aire without, within the breast (line 18). This was certainly the case for David in Psalm 70. His desperation yielded a passionate cry to God that continues to encourage followers of God to this day.

You can pray a David-like prayer in your own bleak situation by taking two cues from David himself.

First, seek God. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! Joy and gladness are the unassailable possession of those who fix their eyes on Jesus in the storms of life. Look more deeply and more often at Jesus than you look at your enemies or your troubles.

Second, love Gods salvation. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great! Consider frequently how God has saved you (and how hes saving many others). Delight in this salvation. Rest in it. Love it. The more you love your salvation, the more readily your lips will spill over with natural praise of the God who saved you.

Please dont wait to pursue your joy in God until God has healed your brokenness and resolved your problems. Verse 4 isnt a postscript to Psalm 70; it doesnt come after Davids crisis. It emerges from the midst of it. This is an example and invitation for us. Dont wait to pursue your joy. Start right now.

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Finding Joy in the Dark: The Bold Prayer of Psalm 70 - Desiring God

When you get right down to it, so much of rock and roll (and pop music in general) is about fantasy. Imagining how the good life sounds, feels differently when youre listening to a rock band. Lets be real; you will probably never approach the hedonistic apex of, say, Led Zeppelin or KISS and if you really tried to rock and roll all night and party every day, youd most likely collapse from sheer exhaustion, as many rock stars tend to do. And thats probably a good thing; burning out isnt necessarily more glorious than fading away.

Rock and roll is an inherently democratic art form; you dont necessarily need any specialized musical knowledge or skill to do it well. Virtuosity is certainly appreciated but not a prerequisite. If you yeah, you just step up and give it a try some time you might find yourself uncorking a style, a sound, a worldview you didnt even know you had, which can be exhilarating and downright life-changing. Everyday life is what most of us are muddling our way through, with musics spiritual booster shot keeping the blood pumping and the soul refreshed, makes life a little less ordinary, transforming the given through the alchemy of art.

So its entirely appropriate, then, that the greatest rock song of all should concern itself with what the people in the audience actually do, speaking directly to and for the lives we actually live by, celebrating the act of listening itself. The cynics who claim that rock amounts to no more than adolescent self-obsession or mere hedonism are utterly missing the point.

And thats why I submit that the greatest rock song of all time is Roadrunner by The Modern Lovers, written by the truly sui generis Jonathan Richman. Anybody can play it, for starters. And as Richman hoarsely enthuses about being in love with the picayune details of modern moonlight, cruising to the Stop & Shop at night with the radio blaring, anybody can live it. To adapt a line from the underrated band The Minutemen, Roadrunner could be your life.

After counting off to an eccentric six beats instead of the usual four, Roadrunner opens with a bang, stealing the two-chord churn of his beloved Velvet Undergrounds manic Sister Ray. The way Richman sets the scene, the song thrives on the space in which most of us grow up listening to music most passionately: in the car, at night, barreling down familiar highways and backstreets, with no particular place to go, in love with the music on the radio.

When Richman sings I love the fact that all his vocals come out as an impassioned croak, which makes him sound hip but in truth was due to a head cold that hes in love with Massachusetts / 128 when its dark outside hes talking about a specific place that anyone like him from the Boston suburbs knows very well. But the regional shoutout paradoxically enhances the songs universality. New York or L.A. would have been a much more glamorous place to namecheck, which has been done a million times, but instead, the landscape Richman is singing about so passionately is trust me on this about as pleasantly ordinary as it gets. Which is precisely why hes so in love with it. He honors his humble little life and the world around him.

Despite the countless times Ive heard it, I never fail to fall in love all over again with that surging momentum, the brisk head-snapping insistence of the backbeat, the songs center of gravity always chugging relentlessly forward. Everyone feels utterly locked into that very simple but potent groove, synchronized like a well-oiled machine. Drummer David Robinson, who will later join The Cars, sets the pace and thrillingly tosses in some quick fills that keep the energy up between the extremely basic chord changes, D to A, as elemental as a beating heart or a sudden gear shift.

As Richman talk-sings about the power of the AM radio and of the flash of suburban streets going by at top speed, he gets some stop-and-start support from the band: Roadrunner once / Roadrunner twice / Im in love with rock n roll / And Ill be out all night. Then future Talking-Head, Jerry Harrison, the bands secret weapon, plays a keyboard solo that gracefully undulates over the churning rhythm like a hand waving out of an open window as the wind rushes past.

Towards the end, Richman starts almost chanting in a stream-of-consciousness about everything thats happening to him all at once: the radio, the night, the highway, the moonlight, the beauty of it all. The band encouragingly shouts, RADIO ON! behind him, punctuating his euphoria like the dorkiest pep rally ever, and the song finishes grandly with some final swipes at those immortal two chords. Richmans satisfied voice bids us adieu with a casual alright, bye bye and informs us that we have reached our destination, wherever that may be.

When he blurts out I love the USA! its not about flag-waving patriotism; its about adventure, newness, and fresh possibility. These are all part of what America has represented to many (though, of course, not everyone) from the beginning. Theres nothing provincial about his vision: Richman started doing eccentric open mics in Boston and hung out with his adored Velvets in New York, went on to a long and sterling solo career, recorded country songs and folk tunes, and has lived in California for many years while singing songs in translation from all over the globe. Route 128 was merely the launching pad for his fertile imagination he might as well be getting his kicks on Route 66 or out on Dylans Highway 61.

In terms of rock history, Roadrunner simultaneously points towards the past and future. Those two chords hearken back to the raucous bang and clang of the garage rock of the past (the tune also name-checks Bo Diddleys lively Roadrunner, the chorus of which is rumored to be the inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoons signature beep-beep) while anticipating the primal shape of the punk rock to come shortly thereafter, perfected by the likes of The Ramones. Then theres also a wink at Chuck Berrys witty takes on motorvatin over the hill in a Cadillac, of course.

Richmans a very passionate fellow but hes not a slick, cocky player like Diddley and Berry. All hes aiming to do is drive to the Stop & Shop, with the radio on but that midnight snack attack carries a little extra swagger when the radios on full blast. He doesnt need the decadent life; hes resolutely following his own idea of bliss.

Despite a million sullen teenage suburbanites complaining about how theres nothing going on, Richman challenges us to find something worth singing about anyway. I used to bemoan the fact that plenty of my youthful nights were just like the lyrics in the That 70s Show theme song: hanging out / down the street / the same old thing we did last week / wish we had / a joint so bad. Little did I know this was, in fact, a cover of a song by the wonderful and unappreciated band, Big Star a near contemporary to The Modern Lovers, and if they saw fit to write and perform anthemic songs about such suburban ennui, then maybe it wasnt so bad after all.

This might be what Richman is gesturing towards when he murmurs that the highway is your girlfriend as you go by quick / suburban streets, suburban speed / and it smells like heaven.As a record, The Modern Lovers paved the road that Jonathan Richman has been driving on ever since: Taking the road less traveled by openly embracing an almost childlike innocence and earnestness that, given our cynical hyper-ironic age, almost seems like a put-on until you see the look in his eyes.Its too bad that the lack of hip marketability hurt the bands chances of survival and success at the time, an often predatory record deal was pretty much the only way to get on that sacred radio.

The Modern Lovers were a unique band for a number of reasons, not the least being theres so little of their work that survives. Aside from some live bootlegs, its mostly just one self-titled record which was cut in the early 70s only to be released in 1976, which has a diary-like intimacy partially because it was initially intended to be demos for a record that was never to be made due to the band breaking up. The instrumentation is potent but unfussy, vibrant but minimalistic, which is an ideal backup for Richmans earnest tour through his deeply personal but all-too-human joys and sorrows.

Name me another band, especially one from the bloated, hairy mid-70s whose songs celebrate the joys of monogamy (Someone I Care About and Astral Plane) or being proud not to do drugs (Im Straight and Shes Cracked) and offered some of the most heartbreakingly naked love songs (Hospital and Girlfriend) ever. These songs are about the kind of vulnerability that most rock songs can only hint at, where egomania tends to carry the day.

Roadrunner is the subject of a recent book-length study by the poet and academic Joshua Clover, paying tribute to the universality and vitality of Richmans song while occasionally veering off into unnecessary, if informative, detours.Clover accurately remarks that Richmans career really isnt like anyone elses. Even if hes the leader of a band with plenty of garage rock edge, he never presents himself in the usual egocentric way of lead singers and principal songwriters pretty much all of his songs are about being lovelorn, vulnerable, anxious, and yet still ready for a good old fashioned rave up. One 70s-era journalist described the vibe perfectly: Richman looked like Dustin Hoffman but he moved like Mick Jagger. Clover admires the fact that Richman doesnt pretend not to care about mainstream success; if anything, he couldnt be bothered.

An academic as well as a poet, Clovers detailed and informed aesthetic-socio-historical analysis of Roadrunner veers off into many interpretive directions and varying degrees of success. He connects Roadrunner to the aforementioned American tradition of early rock songs that celebrate the open road and were consciously created to appeal to a youth culture besotted with disposable income, vehicles of their own, and the exhilarating autonomy they offered.

When Richman says hes in love with modern world hes not applauding a lifestyle that is out of the reach for ordinary people like him. He just wants to make it new, which is pretty much what Modernism was about in the first place. Clover perceptively emphasizes how postwar suburbanization changed the face of American life forever, spreading it out from the density and unease of the city into the kinds of spacious highways Richman celebrates.

The reverberations of that social and economic policy are still being felt today, especially in Richmans home turf of Boston, gentrifying like crazy through what used to be called urban renewal all over again, pricing out all the gifted weirdos who make it special, like Richman. Suburbanization is by no means always for the best, and, historically, it has very much excluded people of color. Clovers radical politics make him especially sensitive to the ways in which capital and urban planning changed the landscape of America during the postwar boom. In some ways, Clovers historical analysis is quite sharp and certainly relevant to todays concerns. Yet its somewhat misplaced since politics were never really Richmans bag. Richman has never written what Bob Dylan once referred to as finger-pointin songs.

Where Clover especially gets a bit carried away is when he starts to go off on a tangential discussion of the song Brimful of Asha by the band Cornershop. Its a fine song, but theres not much connective tissue between it and Roadrunner. Clover gets closer to the mark when he goes deep on the brilliant M.I.A.s smash record Kala and its breakout single Paper Planes which actually does reference Richmans tune, citing the RADIO ON! chorus, and takes the possibility of the open road in a more politically potent direction.

M.I.A. offers catchy, edgily Swiftian satire on the xenophobes caricatured attitude towards immigrants (all I wanna do is / bang bang bang bang / and take your money) which is ironically the least American attitude there could possibly be. The gunshots, so potently used in the songs chorus, were censored when performed on network TV. For that matter, the insistent beat of Paper Planes is more heavily indebted to The Clashs superb, Straight to Hell, which is also a pro- immigration song, and which deserves a book-length treatment all on its own.

Explaining why he wrote so much about Dublin while spending his life in self-imposed exile, James Joyce once wrote that in the particular is contained the universal. He ambitiously assumed that if I could get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities in the word. Thats exactly it: Wherever you are, whatever you know best, no matter how humble or nondescript, contains multitudes, if we can only learn to see rightly. Art helps us to do that. The greatest songs change lives by giving the listener back what is truly and uniquely theirs, allowing them to experience it anew and take off in their own directions.

Roadrunner is a song for all of us, whoever and wherever we happen to be, and whatever frequency youre on. Roadrunner reminds us of the elemental truth that you can feel the universe flowing through you even when youre doing nothing more noteworthy or dramatic than sitting in a car, cruising through your familiar suburban streets, hitting up the Stop & Shop, in love with rock and roll, out all night, with the radio on.

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Like the Roadrunner - The Smart Set

BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday called for further efforts to combat corruption and build a clean and honest government.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks at a State Council meeting on clean governance.

Zhao Leji, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Vice Premier Han Zheng, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the meeting.

Li said that advancing economic and social development is the basic responsibility of governments at all levels and also an essential requirement for improving Party conduct and building a clean government.

The new, increased downward pressure facing China's economy due to the impact of the greater-than-expected changes in the domestic and international situations deserves great attention, he said.

Li stressed that policy initiatives that have already been formulated must be largely implemented in the first half of this year so as to ensure stable jobs, prices, and supplies, and to keep the fundamentals of China's economy stable.

Governments are urged to shoulder their responsibilities to safeguard food and energy security and keep supply chains stable, according to the premier.

Li called for further efforts to create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, noting that tax and fee reduction policies should be implemented in a fair, equitable and efficient manner.

Moreover, the premier stressed the need for greater efforts to oppose pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, with a particular focus on the first two problems. Enditem

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Chinese premier stresses need to further anti-corruption fight, build clean government - China.org.cn

The 2022 Chevrolet Corvette is 182.3 inches long. That is 7.9 inches longer than the Audi R8, which squeezes a V-10 into its engine bay. Its 3.8 inches longer than the Acura NSX, and 2.6 inches longer than the Ferrari 296 GTB. And much of that extravagant length is concentrated aft of the cabin. The C8 is radically cab-forward, and from a three-quarter view, front or rear, it can look like the front third of the car is being swallowed by an 8/7ths scale version of itself. Or as if its in the process of telescoping, like the Rinspeed Presto. The Corvette looks fantastic in profile and dead on, but it isnt as tidy, visually, as it might be if it didnt have about 20 inches separating the engine bay from the rear bumper. Theres just no disguising the Corvettes big ol trunk.

Car and Driver

But that little stretch aft of the engine bay is what transforms the C8 from a gaudy plaything into a real everyday car. When you start seeing Corvettes with 150,000 miles, that wont be because they get great fuel economy or have Barcalounger seats. Itll be because of the trunk. Its easy to take off on a 600-mile trip when you dont have to think about what to pack. And removing a practical obstacle to road trips means racking up more miles, which ought to be the ultimate goal for a car that treats driving as hedonism rather than a chore. And for this glorious flexibility, we can thank the roof.

The C8 can impersonate a practical car. Even in the snow.

Early on in the C8 planning, Chevys focus groups confirmed that a switch to a mid-engine layout would not change customers expectation that all Vettes are convertiblesas in, coupes get a removable roof panel. And if the roof comes off, you need a place to stow it in the car. Hence, the C8s rear trunk isnt designed around your luggage or golf clubs (though itll hold two sets) or the bags of mulch you might throw in to flex at Home Depot. Its designed to store the roof, and this thing aint a T-top. That panel is large. And so the C8s total cargo capacity is 13 cubic feet, which is comparable to one of those rooftop cargo bags you might see on an SUV.

Car and Driver

As a consequence, when I took a 2022 Corvette on an overnight trip to the North Carolina mountains, I had plenty of room for the bulky detritus demanded by winterno cramming every air pocket in the cabin with rolled-up jackets and individual socks, no sliding the seats uncomfortably forward to create a few spare cubic centimeters of cargo space, as Ive done in an R8. Just get in and go, both trunks filled to the brim but the interior uncluttered.

Car and Driver

And that capaciousness leverages what is otherwise a fantastic year-round road-trip car, a grand tourer in track-rat clothes. When I got a ride in a heavily camouflaged pre-production C8 at GMs Milford Proving Grounds back in 2019, chief engineer Tadge Juechter said, It's got 911 performance along with the best attributes of the Boxster and Cayman. And some Lexus refinement thrown in, which might surprise people. While the Corvette can execute brutal launch control clutch-drops and hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, it can also mellow out on the highwayactive exhaust muted, magnetic ride control limber, transmission smoothly slurring from gear to gear. With winter tires, you can blast up a snow-covered mountain road with no trouble whatsoever. And the optional front-end lift system helps the C8 shimmy over steep approaches or speed bumps without grinding. The Corvette isnt a normal car, but it can impersonate one.

Car and Driver

Not everyone is satisfied with the Corvettes compromise between aesthetics and utility. I have a friend who bought the past two Z06s, the C6 and C7, but doesnt know if hell go back for a third. The new Corvette just looks weird from some angles, he said. The last one looks much better to me. And I know what he means, but hes also not one of the people who takes advantages of the Corvettes capaciousness (the C7 had even more cargo space). When I asked him how many miles were on his C7 Z06, now four years old, he replied, 3000. I got a long way toward that number in one weekend with the C8.

Back when I visited Milford, Juechter said, There are literally a million decisions on the way to making a new car. Going with the removable roofand hence big trunkwas one of them. And they got it right.

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The Corvette's Junk in the Trunk - Car and Driver

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)Shot Sage Blue Marilynacrylic and silkscreen ink on linen40 x 40 in. / 101.6 x 101.6 cm.Painted in 1964.

IF you remember the 60s, you werent really there. This famous quip says much about our rose-tinted nostalgia for the decade. The fun-loving hedonism of Woodstock and Beatlemania may be etched into cultural memory, but Andy Warhols Marilyn Monroe portraits reveal a darker side to the swinging 60s that turns our nostalgia on its head.

Warhols iconic Marilyn Monroe portrait Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, due to go on sale at Christies in May, is expected to fetch record-breaking bids of $200 million (153 billion), making it the most expensive 20th century artwork ever auctioned. Nearly 60 years after they were first created, Warhols portraits of the ill-fated Hollywood star continue to fascinate us.

According to Alex Rotter, Christies chairman for 20th and 21st century art, Warhols Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American dream, encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once.

Hollywood stars were great sources of inspiration for the Pop art movement. Monroe was a recurring motif, not only in the work of Warhol but in the work of his contemporaries, including James Rosenquists Marilyn Monroe, I and Pauline Botys Colour Her Gone and The Only Blonde in the World.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson but renamed Marilyn Monroe by 20th Century Fox, the actress went on to become one of the most illustrious stars of Hollywood history, famed for her roles in classic films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot. She epitomized the glitzy world of consumerism and celebrity that Pop artists thought was emblematic of 1950s and 1960s American culture.

While Rotters statement may be true to some extent, there is also a sinister edge to the Marilyns because many were produced in the months following her unexpected death in 1962.

On the surface, the works may look like a tribute to a much-loved icon, but themes of death, decay, and even violence lurk within these canvases. Clues can often be found in the production techniques. One of the collections most famous pieces, Marilyn Diptych, uses flaws from the silkscreen process to create the effect of a decaying portrait. Warhols The Shot Marilyns consists of four canvases shot through the forehead with a single bullet. In this, the creation of Warhols art is as important as the artwork itself.

At a glance, the surface-level glamor of Warhols Marilyn immortalizes the actress as a blonde bombshell of Hollywoods bygone era. It is easy to forget the tragedy behind the image, yet part of our enduring fascination with Marilyn Monroe is her tragedy.

Her mental health struggles, her tempestuous personal life, and the mystery surrounding her death have been well documented in countless biographies, films, and television shows, including Netflixs documentary The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes and upcoming biopic Blonde. She epitomizes the familiar narrative of the tragic icon that is doomed to keep repeating itself something that Warhol understood all too well after surviving a shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

The death at the heart of Warhols Marilyns is not just rooted in grief but is also a reflection of the wider cultural landscape. The 1960s were a remarkably dark period in 20th century American history. A brief look at the context in which Warhol was producing these images reveals a decade plagued by a series of traumatic events.

Life Magazine published violent photographs of the Vietnam War. Television broadcasts exposed shocking police brutality during civil rights marches. America was shaken by the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Footage of JFKs death captured by bystander Abraham Zapruder was repeatedly broadcast on television. Celebrated Hollywood stars were dying young and in tragic circumstances, from Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland to Jayne Mansfield and Sharon Tate.

This image of the 1960s is echoed by the postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson, who describes the decade as a virtual nightmare and a historical and countercultural bad trip. Stars like Monroe were not as flawless as they may appear in Warhols portraits, but were notorious cases of burnout and self-destruction.

Warhol understood this more than anyone. His Death and Disaster series explores the spectacle of death in America and affirms the 1960s as a time of anxiety, terror, and crisis. The series consists of a vast collection of silkscreened photographs of real-life disasters including car crashes, suicides, and executions taken from newspapers and police archives. Famous deaths are also a central theme of the series, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy all of whom are associated with significant deaths or near-death experiences.

Death and Disaster came about in 1962 when Warhols collaborator Henry Geldzahler suggested that the artist should stop producing affirmation of life and instead explore the dark side of American culture:

Maybe everything isnt always so fabulous in America. Its time for some death. This is whats really happening.

He handed Warhol a copy of the New York Daily News, which led to the first disaster painting 129 Die in Jet!.

The recent hype around the auctioning of the Marilyn portrait reveals as much about our time as it does about our nostalgia for the 1960s. We choose to remember the decade in all its glorious technicolor, but uncovering its darker moments provides room for reconsideration. Perhaps Warhols Marilyn is not just a symbol of the swinging 60s, but an artefact from a time that was as turbulent and uncertain as our own.

Harriet Fletcher is an Associate Lecturer in English and History at the Lancaster University.

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Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portraits expose the darker side of the '60s - BusinessWorld Online

In The Northman, a child born to be king grows up to be a wild man rippling with muscle and consumed by revenge. In a loose reworking of Hamlet, set in the heyday of Vikings and old religion, a man will do anything to avenge his family. He will pillage and plunge, and will voluntarily subject himself to slavery, all in pursuit of his goal. His single-mindedness reduces him to a shell of a person, an almost mythical beast driven by a single, all-consuming purpose.

Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) continues to explore his fascination with the intersection of the folkloric and the grotesque in The Northman. Following very much in the footsteps of his previous films, he manages to zero in on the strangeness of the world to retell an otherwise familiar story. The film is at its best when he leans into that aspect of the world, exploring the rituals and practices of the old religion, particularly how those beliefs break down the line between man and animal.

Eggers understands that folklore is a set of stories told by a community in order to make sense of themselves and the world around them. In the savage world of The Northman, the gods need to be ruthless and earthy to align with how the Vikings see themselves and their lives. Hedonism and brutality play equal roles in this system, which sees blood as a symbol of power. Blood lineages may birth future kings but blood spilled can make anyone a royal. The religion paradoxically inscribes power in both conformity and rebellion all at once. As a viewer, we sense the liberating power of this system of belief, particularly as rituals allow people to explore hidden parts of themselves. In a dark wood, as a fire crackles, everyone regardless of social status wanders through the trees searching for a mate. For one night, slave and owner become equals, able to live free and carnally, at least until the sun rises.

The earthiness of these pleasures, though, is the same earthiness of the carnal violence inscribed in religion. In images evoking The Wicker Man and the opening sequence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a monstrous God rips people apart only to arrange them back together again into an unholy horse sculpture as a warning of impending divine vengeance. As shocking as this may be to the people of the small Icelandic farm where much of the film takes place, they also readily accept it as part of a world forged through blood and violence.

The folkloric aspects elevate The Northman into something a bit more interesting than just a Skyrim-inspired Viking revenge story, but it can only do so much in elevating a rather thin and poorly constructed story. For all the ecstatic folkloric work at play, Eggers has a dull tendency of laying too many of his cards down on the table at once. Almost immediately, we understand that the character relations are not as rosy as seen from a childs POV and that we are missing core pieces of the puzzle. This may be more true to life, in the sense that old gods dont exist and most royal men suck, but it deflates almost all the narrative tension before the movie even gets started. Everything feels carefully set up for a late-movie revelation that anyone with a modicum of social awareness could have spotted a mile away.

These decisions also impact the writing and performance of the main character. While there are many great films about men run ragged by revenge, this one simply does not work. From the get-go, the revenge plot feels misguided, a childish fantasy, therefore we never have time to grow with the character. The normally charismatic Alexander Skarsgrd is demure and flattened here, coming across as a wounded slow-witted animal. Its hard to fault him though, as the script does him very few favours.

Ironically, his parents, played by Nicole Kidman and Ethan Hawke, are too much, taking their performances in a completely different direction. They embrace the most indecent and high-strung aspects of their characterizations and also adopt weirdly SNL-like Scottish accents. Kidman, in particular, creates a character who feels like a cross between Lady Macbeth and the Wicked Witch of the West. Shes maniacal and duplicitous, delivering a performance at a high register of over the topness. Its genuinely entertaining though, much in the same way Ben Afflecks spoiled bottle blonde was in The Last Duel.

If anyone comes out looking good, its Anya Taylor-Joy, whose otherworldly intensity shifts the tone of the entire film. She has a nymph-like quality that draws from the barren landscapes most ethereal and fantastic elements. Her performance, shrewd and open-hearted, offers a clever mirror image to Kidmans more craven mother figure. Both women have contrasting relationships with dignity and power. While they rarely share any screen time, the way their fates intertwine is compelling and rich in its ideas and execution.

Depending on your feelings about Eggers other films, The Northman may or may not be for you. Personally, Ive yet to really connect with any of his movies, though Im happy hes able to draw in audiences hungry for dirty, subversive and smart genre cinema. The Northman is certainly flawed, perhaps more so than his previous films, but it more than makes up for it with its strangeness and spectacle.

The Northman opens in Montrealtheatreson Friday, April 22.

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Sex, blood and strangeness reign in The Northman - Cult MTL

Good-looking rocknroll corpses are few and far between. Those aspic encased icons the Kurts, Jimis, Jims and Amys who glare tragically from atop a million 27 Club articles are but a pinnacle of a far less photogenic iceberg. Behind their tortured glares lie an incalculable number of lesser-sung casualties who got dragged along by the music industry juggernaut and ultimately fell beneath the wheels; the wrecked, burnt-out roadkill of rocknroll.

Bodies: Life And Death In Music, a new book by esteemed rock writer Ian Winwood released last week, delves into the stories of numerous cases of musicians weve lost to a damaging and outdated musical ideology. Arriving in the wake of the loss of Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins and alongside a documentary on the final years of Blind Melons Shannon Hoon,All I Can Say, the book has opened up a much-needed debate about the nature of the music industry as an insatiable meat grinder for creative souls with an instinct for self-destruction. If musics #MeToo moments have forced a welcome reassessment of the manipulative behaviours lurking behind the sex part of sex, drugs and rocknroll, Bodiesblows apart the rosy mythologies of the drugs (and booze, and prescription medications, and ceremonial Fleetwood Mac sphincter straws) element too.

We have, after all, too long celebrated and encouraged the raging damage that musicians do to themselves in pursuit of the great rock dream. The months of touring surrounded by well-stocked dressing room fridges every night, with local venue contacts on call and a post-gig adrenaline rush to ride out: weve historically spot-lit those who admit they couldnt handle these environments as having a problem, but it takes superhuman restraint and self-control to not fall into harmful habits when your entire world feels like being in a COVID bubble with Boris Johnson.

Add in the short-lived nature of so many pop careers, made or broken on the whims of a fickle public like an emperor at the Coliseum forgetting to do the thumb thing because hes been distracted by a model playing chess with herself on Instagram and youve got the perfect recipe for post-fame overdose and widespread middle-age sclerosis. To come out of rock unscarred and well-adjusted is akin to surfing the lava out of Pompeii.

Its all built on an ancient mindset, smelted in the 60s counterculture the idea of a life in music as outside and beyond the moral expectations and nine-to-five structures of Squaresville, baby. Supposedly unshackled and free-spirited, musicians have been expected to exist in an art-serving, consciousness-expanding dreamworld for decades, the hedonism at its core hyper-charged by the historic excesses of the multi-platinum dinosaurs of the 60s, 70s and 80s. By the 90s, rock bands were already chasing the ghosts of their mushy-livered forebears, living their wildest life because, well, it was what rock bands did.

Now there was and remains a wilful self-sacrifice to much of this. One of the major draws of being a musician is the belief that you can extend your teenage rebel period well into your 40s, rage indefinitely around the world with your best mates on the major label dollar and live a free life of ultimate self-autonomy, unbothered by alarms, train delays, six-month reviews, Excel and lacklustre fire drills. The reality of a musicians life, once you throw in all the travel, promotion, label pressure and hurry-up-and-wait, is a lot more workaday than many expect, but it will always draw people with a thirst for non-conformity and excess. The issue raised by Bodies is: how can we change the music industry so that it no longer spells inevitable disaster for them?

Its a timely question. With tours now the primary source of income for many acts and day jobs often a necessity, rising musicians need to remain fit and functioning without going to the straight-edge extremes of getting Xs tattooed on their wrists and turning into Minor Threat circa 1981. And thats going to be largely down to the industry around them taking their duty of care more seriously.

Lets be honest from managers to promoters, PRs, journalists, A&Rs and so on, the music industry is populated by people who aspire to the same kind of lives of thrill and freedom but via our own skillsets, rather than looking great in plastic trousers. And that plays out when the circus comes to town. The bands, with their riders and aftershows and chase-the-party attitude, become the fount from which the rest of the industry gets its vicarious taste. Acts are encouraged expected, even to drink late, drug hard and sleep when theyre dead, night after night, because their very presence is every new towns one brief chance to binge on the lifestyle it thinks they lead.

Which is not to say the party has to end. Just that, within the industry, the rocknroll lifestyle should be an option, not an expectation. That warning signs need to be spotted early and inner circles must be unafraid of shouldering the responsibility to point them out and offer help. And that the welfare of the talent should always be put before their money-making potential.

Another new book, Touring And Mental Health: The Music Industry Handbook by music psychologist Tamsin Embleton due in October, looks to be the antidote to Bodies, offering guidance on confronting and tackling issues before they become headlines. Required reading, because living fast and dying young has become distinctly over-rated.

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Ian Winwood's new book 'Bodies: Life And Death In Music': can we build a healthier way of rocking? - NME

From Studio 54 to GGs Barnum Room, the photographer captured the quintessential scenes of the nightlife era

I see a bit of innocence, says Bill Bernstein. Were talking over his pictures from the late 70s, taken in clubs across New York like Studio 54, Xenon, Paradise Garage, GGs Barnum Room, Mudd Club. It was discos heydaya moment where Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Womens Liberation seemed to have found their footing all at once. I mean, people were really just living their lives, Bill goes on. Nobody was getting hurt. There was no hatred, there was no anger. People were very open to having their photographs taken.

In Bernsteins view, the citys disco era presented a sort of fleeting utopia: It arrived at night, and endured through the morning hours, taking shape in converted theaters and various industrial buildings. Of course, it was still a precarious time. The war in Vietnam, Watergate, gender discrimination, racial conflict, economic inequalitynone of that was out of the social consciousness, particularly for minorities. Its a little bit like an older person looking at the Roaring Twenties, Bernstein reflects. It was a great time, and it happened for a certain reason. That is, oppressed people could take a breath of fresh air, however marginal, following the violence of the decades prior.

Bernstein was working for the Village Voice in 77, and went to Studio 54 for the first time on assignment. He kept returning, following the scene through its dissolution in the early 80s, when AIDS first hit New York. His photographs capture discos quintessential qualities: the elaborate staging, the clothes, the characters, the communities. Queer culture was very instrumental in popularizing, says Bill, and Black culture was very instrumental in creating the music. It was the first time that women were the starsthe divas like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, you know.

Between the hedonism and the kinship, Bernstein captured something intangible: the feeling of nightlife as it should be, with room to dance, strangers to meet, and plenty to go around. For Document, he speaks to what he learned as a member of the crowd. Images from his book, Last Dance, are currently on view at Defected Records London office, in collaboration with Glitterbox, through April 29.

Morgan Becker: How did you initially find yourself in the middle of the 70s disco scene?

Bill Bernstein: It was really happening in New York towards the end of the 70s. There were lots of clubs everywhere. I was working at the Village Voice in New York City, and I was assigned to go cover an event one night at Studio 54. I knew really very little about the whole disco scene. Honestly, it was just starting back then. I went there that night, and I just picked up on what was going on, and I thought it was really, really interesting. I decided to keep looking around New York City to see what the other clubs were like. I just kind of went on a mission.

Morgan: What were some of the other venues you would frequent?

Bill: There were all different kinds. There was one that was similar to Studio 54 called Xenonit was also an old theater, so it had a lot of theatrical elements to it. Like, rigging on the ceiling so you could drop scenery. It had lighting on the ceiling. It had a balcony where an audience would sit. I think it was an old TV studioI think they both were, actually.

There was Paradise Garage, which was a car garage [laughs]the second floor of a car garage that was turned into a disco. There was a place called GGs Barnum Room, which was a trans club. There was Mudd Club, which was kind of punk, then there were sort of upscale places like Regines. There was a place called Sybils that was sort of in a Hiltonyou know, more tourist crowd. There were lots of them. All over the place.

Morgan: Did you find that there were characters who would appear across all the venues?

Bill: There was a little crossover between some of the clubs, like Studio 54 and Xenon, although Studio 54 really had their crowd. They went back all the time and attracted the celebrity element, and a certain kind of creative type. Xenon was a little bit of that, and a little bit of the tourist population, and the suburbsNew Jersey, the outer boroughs, that kind of thing. People kind of tended to have their club.

Morgan: Youve spoken about this time as a moment where Womens Rights, Civil Rights, and Gay Rights movements collided to create a feeling of liberation. Do you think that this extended to other facets of everyday life at the time?

Bill: I think that all of those movements from the 60s gained traction during that time period, and I think that the place that you could sort of see them all together, under one tent, was the disco. Because it was a party place, and it was accepted. The whole concept of inclusionwhether you were Black, gay, femalewas really part of the ideology.

And when Im talking about this, Im talking about New York City. Im not talking about the rest of America. I dont really know what it was like outside of New York City, but I know in New York City I definitely saw that diversity that was really welcomed at the door. Not only welcomed, but it was invited, you know? Where else it showed up? I dont really know. I mean, it showed up in many places individually, but all together under one tent, that was disco I think.

Morgan: What is it about nightlife that you feel drawn to document?

I think that all of those movements from the 60s gained traction during that time period, and I think that the place that you could sort of see them all together, under one tent, was the disco.

Bill: I was trying to capture what I saw at that time, that I had never really seen before. I was coming from the 60s Woodstock erathat was the parties that I saw, and the gatherings I saw, the concerts and all that kind of stuff. They werent as diverse. They werent as inclusive. That wasnt really part of the scene.

I think that queer culture had a lot to do with the disco experience. It started in David Mancusos loft in New York City in the early 70s as mostly gay gatherings. That was kind of the birthplace of the whole disco experiencemixing records all night long. Also Fire Island had places like the Ice Palace. Queer culture was very instrumental in popularizing, and Black culture was very instrumental in creating the music. It was the first time that women were the starsthe divas like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, you know. In rock and roll at that time, all the bands were guys, and all the stars were guys. It wasnt uncommon for a woman to become a star in the disco world.

Morgan: In photographing a club night, did you feel fully integrated with the crowd? What was your relationship with your work in comparison to the party?

Bill: I was pretty much there as a reporter. It wasnt about what I was feeling so much as what I was seeing. When I was there shooting, I was really working. I wasnt doing any drugs, I wasnt stopping to do any dancing. Most of the time, I went by myself with my camera. There was so much to see, you know? It was so visual. It couldnt just be described in words, like some things.

Morgan: Can you talk about the moment where disco seemed to come to an end, at least in respect to what it once was?

Bill: I started shooting in 77, when Studio 54 opened up and Saturday Night Fever was a very popular movie. The whole thing about disco became part of the national discussion. I stuck with it until the beginning of the 80s, when I felt a couple things. In some ways, disco had reached its peak, and it was starting on its way down. It had become overly popular and overly commercialized to the point where you would see commercials on TV for some product, and it was all about disco.

There was also something called Disco Demolition in Chicago. This DJ was playing rock music, and when disco came in, he lost his job. He was very vocal and angry about the whole disco scene. He created the Disco Sucks movement, and invited everyone to come to this baseball game, this double header, and bring their disco records. After the first game, they put all the disco records in the center of the field and blow them up [laughs]. It was this crazy event that was just trying to say, Hey, were really sick of disco. Studio 54 got so big and so popular, and Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the owners, were sifting cash out of the register and hiding it in the ceilings and floorboards. They got busted by the IRS. They got sent to jail. So the whole tone of Studio 54 changed. It wasnt quite as great as it was.

The big thing that happened was AIDS. It really shut down nightlife in New York City. It changed the culture of nightlife. By that time, I felt like I had pretty much said what I needed to say, or seen what I needed to see, or captured what I needed to capture.

Morgan: Looking back at these photos today, whats the emotion that comes with that?

Bill: You know, its funny. In spite of all of the freedom of expression and open sexuality and drugs, I see a bit of innocence. I mean, people were really just living their lives. Nobody was getting hurt. There was no hatred, there was no anger. People were very open to having their photographs taken. It was before the iPhone stuff, where you get a little jaded to the whole photography at a club kind of thing.

Its nice. Its reminiscent of that time period for me, which is gone. Over. Its a little bit like an older person looking at the Roaring Twenties, you know? It was a great time, and it happened for a certain reasonprohibition, and the state of the world at that time. It was a little like that. Like looking back at a kind of open time for club people.

Morgan: Whats a feature of disco that you wish could apply to society at large?

Bill: Inclusion is the main word. I mean, look at the world were living in today. Its like, theres such a strong conservative resistance to inclusion in our world. Its so antithetical to what I would like to see, and what I saw back then. I think that we all have to learn how to live with each other. Theres no reason to not figure that out. I like that in terms of a worldview, what was happening at those clubs.

Morgan: Whats the most memorable moment you witnessed over the years?

Bill: One night at Studio 54, I saw someone that we all know todayMiss J Alexander. She was there dancing with this very straight Wall Street broker. They were both having a great time. They didnt know each other. They just happened to bump up next to each other, and started dancing. I thought that was great. A great visual, and a great moment of acceptance and inclusion.

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The hedonism and kinship of New York disco, through the lens of Bill Bernstein - Document Journal

Zeuss daughter Persephone, the bringer of spring growth, is clearly up from the underworld. Its April in Athens and the city, often dismissed as concrete-plain, is spattered with natures colours bursting out of the earth. The pink blossom of Judas trees spreads like rashes against a cloudless blue sky. Geraniums on window sills and balconies are as bright as their terracotta pots. Either side of the steep path leading to the Parthenon, poppies flutter in faint breezes, delicate and blood-red. Add a clutch of new design hotels as well as some clever people shaking up the cocktail scene, and for my money its this springs city-break star, a much needed jolt to the senses after the drudgery of recent times.

All across town, swarms of brilliant-yellow taxis flit past idle weekenders savouring the bitter hit of iced freddo coffees at pavement cafs. Everyones in shades, leaning back, facing the days rays like sunflowers. After dark, en route to a downtown bar, I turn an alley corner and inhale the sweetest aroma: emitted by bitter-orange trees, it could be bottled and sold by Herms or Bulgari.

Athens needs green, and with a narrow trunk and a massive canopy these trees dont invade the street, says Constantine, a friend of a friend Ive borrowed for the weekend, who loves this season. Theyre perfect for the old city ways, which were only built wide enough for horses and carts.

The rooftop lounge at the Gatsby Athens

Now theyre built for bar-hopping, a key Athenian pursuit and one of the reasons Im in town hedonism with a dash of history. In the late-night warm air we drink at a table outside Blue Bird, near Cathedral Square. It lines up with a couple of other great nocturnal neighbours, Kiki de Grce and Ipitou the Bar. You could spend a whole evening drifting between the three in this atmospheric corner of town, bordering Syntagma and Plaka.

Over a maxi-weekend Ill fall headlong for Kalimeres, in the graffitied district of Psiri. Its all high stools and busy chatter outside the premises: a revamped art deco building thats alluringly South Beach Miami with its fairy lights and streamline-moderne curves. Then theres Birdman, the clamoured-for Japanese pub and grill where you sit under burners eating gyozas, necking Greek red. Last call? Definitely Baba Au Rum, with Peggy Lee and Latino soul on the turntable, tiki-flowery paper on the walls and rum negronis among the avant-garde cocktails on the menu. Final last call? The Dude Bar weirdly anarchic with its industrial playlist and worker bee Alex at the counter, still rattling up margaritas at 4am.

For now, alfresco carousing comes in handy citywide, you still have to don a facemask to step inside anywhere or use transport. Its only three weeks since people were obliged to wear them on the streets, Constantine recalls. The mood feels upbeat, from restaurants to bars to bedding down. Among hotel arrivals, Moxy Athens City and Lighthouse Athens (see panel, overleaf) are helping to revive Omonia Square, the heart of the city, gone to seed in places. Athens Flair is opening its doors early this summer in a neoclassical property in upmarket Kolonaki. Want minimalist-affordable? Sound out Vasi, in the gritty district of Psiri.

A suite at the Gatsby Athens

I stay at the Gatsby Athens, a new spot on a discreet street in Syntagma. The lobby-bar is a riot of faux flowers, toy rabbits almost as big as me, and lots of dangling egg ornaments the Greeks dont do the build-up to Easter by half. If the name Gatsby suggests the 1920s, the building is actually from the 1930s. It was a police holding facility.

21 fun things to do in Athens 28 of the prettiest Greek islands

Youd never know this as a guest. Its a boutique beauty. There are swathes of terrazzo flooring, flecked like nougat. Bathrooms even in entry-level rooms are impressive spaces, with smart, simple brass taps and harlequin tiling in shades of salmon pink or sea-off-Santorini.

Throughout from the ground-floor bar and dining area, via the open-air rooftop lounge with its fine Parthenon views, to the sprawling Gatsby Party Suite the look is sumptuously art deco. Or possibly art Greco. Think golden-age Joan Crawfords dressing room: pouffe-like footstools, giant winged headboards, globe lamps descending bedside, and retro rattan furniture on the terrace of your Bubbly Suite (ask for 501). Settle in and watch the goings-on of neighbours, Rear Window-style.

Thoughtfully, there are elegant full-length wall mirrors in which to check your look before venturing out. If by night, this should start with a very now, very Greek mojito mastiche, created by Christos in the hotel bar. Its a winner with a twist, based on 30 per cent mastic liqueur from the island of Chios. If its morning, there are generous pancake or smashed avocado on toast breakfasts to prepare you for city exploration. The location is prime in the right shoes (Nike?), youll find key sights and neighbourhoods close by and easily conquerable, so you can mix ancient and modern without breaking a sweat.

Varvakios Market in Athens

ALAMY

An exception is the climb to the Parthenon the 5th-century BC temple to the goddess Athena; ribcage-white and afloat, dream-like, high on the Acropolis. The sweatiness of our morning ascent is unanticipated after a leisurely wander there, along the shopping strip Ermou. Athens is made for flneurs, and en route we duck into the fridge-cool darkness of the 11th-century Panagia Kapnikarea church in Monastiraki. With its peeling Byzantine wall art, and light shafting in from punched windows high in the cupola, its a perfect Athens moment.

After recovering from the climb, there are more at the Acropolis, where Greek school parties have turned out en masse, sketching excitedly, reminding you, in your seventh decade, how thrilling the ancient world Athens, Rome, Cairo was for your own young mind, and frankly still is. The hulking Doric and Ionic columns, as giant as redwoods, render the domestic neoclassical knock-offs of later western centuries paltry by comparison.

Cocktails at avant-garde Baba Au Rum

History ticked off for the day, its lunch hour in Athens itll be a long, leisurely one. Ideally at somewhere such as To Potami, which does meze sharing plates in the eccentric, must-visit peoples republic of Koukaki, just beyond the southern slopes of the Acropolis. What a great district, home to a workers collective restaurant or two; and what a fine place to laze. With Foo Fighters and the Killers on the playlist, its alt-Athens at its finest. People read books rather than iPhones, taking notes, and its OK, possibly expected, to have purple hair.

But its a hot afternoon, making chilled dishes the obvious choice. Which leads us to Hasapika, a new startup in the old central Varvakios Market, run by three friends, Marios, Spiros and Giannis, who love travel and eating. The food is Japanese-Peruvian (including a tongue-tingling ceviche), prepared by Filipino and Bangladeshi chefs, using the freshest red mullet, salmon, sea bass and tuna. Its an unshowy place, and the three guys look like grunge guitarists with their long locks.

It was in the contract you wanna work here, you gotta have long hair, says Giannis, tongue in cheek. And theres something about this Athens moment funny, alternative, slightly anarchic thats appealingly new-Greek. Bring on spring 2023.

Nick Redman was a guest of the Gatsby Athens, which has B&B doubles from 150 (gatsbyathens.com). For expert-led city tours with a local, try Alternative Athens (alternativeathens.com); food and drink guiding can be arranged with the city insiders Culinary Backstreets (culinarybackstreets.com). Fly to Athens with British Airways or Wizz Air

A room at Moxy Athens City

By Isabelle Kliger

Moxy Hotels is Marriotts playful and affordable brand, and its latest outpost is in the heart of Athens over the road from Omonia metro station. The urban design and bold artworks certainly contrast with the ancient city: the 201 rooms, above, are compact but equipped with walk-in showers, LED lighting and ergonomic chairs. Bar Moxy, which doubles as the check-in desk, offers self-service food and drink 24/7.Details Room-only doubles from 83 (marriott.com)

A room at Xenodocheio Milos

Athenss most glamorous opening of the year is not just easy on the eye, it has the culinary kudos to match. This is the first foray into hotels for the Greek chef Costas Spiliadis, best known for his swanky Estiatorio Milos restaurants that attract deep-pocketed seafood lovers from around the globe. Apart from the excellent restaurant, the hotel has 43 guest rooms with high ceilings, wooden floors and marble bathrooms, as well as fine views over Mount Lycabettus.Details Room-only doubles from 265 (xenodocheiomilos.com)

A room at Lighthouse Athens

If partying from dusk till dawn is your vibe, look no further than white-hot new Lighthouse Athens. Ultra-contemporary and centrally located in Omonia Square, this sleekly designed hotel features two restaurants, a nightclub and a buzzy rooftop bar all supporting the ethos of work hard, play harder. Not a party animal? From June youll be able to pamper yourself in the wellness centre and spa, before watching the sun set over the Greek capital from the plunge pool on the roof.Details B&B doubles from 120 (brownhotels.com)

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Athens city break: hedonism with a dash of history - The Times