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On a trip to New York about a decade ago, Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli stopped at ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan. The store was among the first to stock ceramics from Astier de Villatte, the line the men co-founded in Paris in 1996. They were admiring how some of their dishes were displayed when a salesclerk told them the pieces were copies of those used by Marie Antoinette. “No, they’re not!” Mr. Pericoli, 52, recalled saying to the clerk, who was unaware that the men who seemed to be browsing had designed the plates. While the plates were not replicas of any belonging to the French queen, their look was informed by tastes of France’s former ruling class, at least loosely. In designing the ceramics, Mr. Pericoli said he and Mr. Astier de Villatte, 60, are inspired by “anything from the past, any period, starting from the Neolithic.” The two, who met after each had graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, drew on their time as students in creating the … [Read more...] about Are You an Astier Person?

When word got out last month that Angel’s Share might close after nearly 30 years, the city — or at least a very vocal slice that was devoted to artisanal cocktails — spun into a paroxysm of despair. Social media was flooded with remembrances of the speakeasy, a softly lit cove of urbanity and elegance hidden in two rooms on the second story of an East Village building. “This hurts more than any other NYC closing I’ve heard in the past 10 years,” ran a typical tweet . Food-obsessed websites bemoaned the news . In all of these lamentations, there was almost no mention of Tony Yoshida, the owner of Angel’s Share. Despite its outsize importance as a trailblazer in the craft cocktail movement, few, in this age of celebrity restaurateurs and bar owners, seemed to know who was behind the place; or that he was the same person who owned a string of Japanese-oriented businesses on the short, angled section of Stuyvesant Street — including the Sunrise Mart grocery, Panya Bakery and … [Read more...] about The Mysterious Man Who Built (and Then Lost) Little Tokyo

A man enters a dark room and faces a suspicious audience. Within these four walls, he explains, he’s going to tell captive strangers a tale with life-or-death stakes. But first, he needs something crucial from them: their trust. Gaining trust isn’t easy for Leonard (Dave Bautista), a heavily tattooed muscleman wielding a pitchfork fused to a scythe in “Knock at the Cabin.” It’s even harder for the film’s director, M. Night Shyamalan, a yarn-spinner who’s become more associated with the twist than Chubby Checker. “I don’t look at it as a kind of fancy dance move,” Shyamalan said of his trickster reputation in a 2021 NPR interview . “Now I’m going to do the moonwalk, everybody! Here we go!” Shyamalan insists he’s not after gotchas. He’s a spiritualist chasing moments of epiphany, that exhalation when the reveal of one piece of information makes the world make sense. Early on in “Knock at the Cabin,” Leonard and his three fellow kidnappers tie up a family — the parents … [Read more...] about What Will It Take to Trust M. Night Shyamalan?

In 1979, the artist Ming Smith arrived at New York’s Museum of Modern Art with a portfolio of her photographs. She had been living in the city for a few years, nurturing her obsession with photography, when she heard that the museum had announced an open call for submissions. As Smith walked into the building, prints in tow, the receptionist thought she was a messenger. A few days later, the department of photography’s then chief curator, John Szarkowski, and assistant curator Susan Kismaric bought two of Smith’s pieces, making her the first Black woman photographer to have her works acquired by the museum. Even before gaining institutional recognition, Smith had faith in her art. “I didn’t care if I fit in,” she said to me in her quiet, Midwestern-inflected voice. “Photography was my sacred space.” It was an overcast day in January, and we were sitting in Smith’s home studio, a compact apartment in a tall residential building in central Harlem, surrounded by her work. … [Read more...] about The Ecstatic, Elusive Art of Ming Smith

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday that industrialized countries in the Group of Seven are imposing a price cap on refined Russian oil products such as diesel and kerosene, as part of a coalition that includes Australia and a tentative agreement from the European Union. The cap follows similar price limits put on Russian oil exports, with the goal of reducing the financial resources Russian President Vladimir Putin has to wage the nearly year-long war in Ukraine. “Today’s agreement builds on the price cap on Russian crude oil exports that we set in December and helps advance our goals of limiting Russia’s key revenue generator in funding its illegal war while promoting stable global energy markets,” Yellen said in a statement. On Friday, EU governments tentatively agreed to set a $100-per-barrel price cap on sales of Russian diesel to … [Read more...] about G-7, Europe reach deal for price cap on Russian diesel

See the article in its original context from August 28, 1988 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. THE BAR IN THE AUDITORIUM lobby at the University of Antwerp was crowded with scholars in baggy suits, itinerant students, assorted hangers-on. There were also a few prosperous-looking older men, who turned out to be childhood friends of Paul de Man - the focus of an international conference held last June at the university. You wouldn't have known from the sessions listed in the … [Read more...] about The Case of Paul De Man