Category Archives: Hedonism

We may be tempted to think that once Jesus had risen from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit upon the early Church, the lives of the Apostles were easy; after all, they were filled with the light and joy of knowing that the Lord had conquered sin and death; they knew that He was with them in the power of the Holy Spirit and the sacraments of the Church.

Yet, a simple reading of the Acts of the Apostles reveals that they met with immediate and violent opposition when they began to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ. Those who had conspired to kill Jesus certainly did not want Him coming back from the dead. How much easier for them if He had remained cold and lifeless in the tomb.

After Peter and John heal the blind beggar in Acts 3, the Sanhedrin -- the same body which condemned Jesus for blasphemy on the night of His arrest -- summons the Apostles for questioning, attempting to frighten and intimidate them into silence.

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, mounts a bold defense, fearlessly proclaiming the risen Jesus as the savior of the world. The same man who cowardly denied even knowing Jesus in the moment of the Passion, is now filled with an evangelizing zeal which cannot remain silent. The Sanhedrin threatens the Apostles but cannot deny the truth of the miraculous healing of the beggar which has all of Jerusalem talking.

The fact that all of the Apostles, with the exception of John the Evangelist, were martyred for their faith in the risen Lord reminds us that proclaiming the Gospel is dangerous business. Satan, the master of the sinfully established disorder of things, wants Jesus to remain in the tomb and His followers to stay fearfully silent.

If Jesus Christ has been raised and is the Lord of Life and the center point of human history, then every person is called to follow Him and live by His teachings, to enter in this New Covenant, sealed in the Precious Blood of the Son of God, and there discover healing, forgiveness, and salvation. Evil does not want salvation to happen.

If Jesus Christ has been raised, then the abortion industry must close, euthanasia cease, the radical economic inequalities which afflict us end, the forces of greed, lust, violence, and selfishness surrender, and the reign of sin and death admit that God has definitively defeated them.

If Jesus has come forth from the tomb and reigns forever, this fundamental truth becomes the keystone for an entirely new moral and social order of things. Early Christians stood out from the crowd, not only for their heroic charity and contagious joy, but also because they rejected infanticide, hedonism, materialism, and sexual profligacy, common practices of the culture they lived in.

For many years now, Western civilization has fallen prey to the illusion that "willful desire" should be the guiding principle of human action. In the areas of sexuality, economics, politics, and even religion, the subjectivity of the autonomous self dictates one's course of action. Appeals to objective truth, natural law, moral principles, and religious doctrine are dismissed as echoes of a regressive consciousness which modern humanity has finally overcome.

What a different Spirit exudes from the pages of the New Testament! In the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, the writings of Saints, Paul, John, Peter, Jude, and James, Christians clearly understood that faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ demanded a radical and profound conversion of morals, values, practices, and beliefs.

Christians had left bad habits, sinful practices, and destructive attitudes behind. They needed their hands and hearts free in order to receive the astonishing Good News of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the transformation such a gift offered.

Thankfully, it is the same for us 2000 years later! The Lord Jesus invites us to leave sin and death behind and step into the vast, beautiful world of the Resurrection.

I value this quotation from Francis Cardinal George: "If the earth is our mother, then the grave is our home and the world is a closed system turned in on itself. But if Christ is risen from the grave and the Church is our mother, then our destiny reaches beyond space and time, beyond what can be measured and controlled. And therein lies our hope."

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The resurrection invites us to leave sin and death behind - Catholic Herald

The release of this documentary coincides with #MeAt20, a heart-twisting craze on social media for posting pictures of yourself at 20 years old. Middle-aged peoples timelines are speckled with funny, sweet and sometimes unbearably sad images of themselves in unlined, unformed youth, doing goofy things in milky analogue pictures from back when you had 12 or 24 exposures on your roll-film camera and getting them developed at Boots was a pricey business. Thats what I thought of while watching this engaging, oddly moving film from Spike Jonze: a record of the live stage show he devised at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, in tribute to white hip-hop stars and tongue-in-cheek party-libertarian activists the Beastie Boys. It is presented by the two surviving members, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, in tribute to the third member, Adam Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012. Jonze is reuniting with the band after having directed a string of their music videos, including the crime-TV spoof for their single Sabotage in 1994.

Horovitz and Diamond amble on stage, apparently dressed head-to-toe in Gap, and appear for all the world to be about to unveil the iPhone 4S, although actually their jokey anecdotalism makes the show in some ways like the regional tours once presented by George Best and Rodney Marsh. With amiably rehearsed back-and-forth banter, they introduce the embarrassing photos and excruciating TV clips that are shown on a big screen. And the effect of seeing them juxtaposed with the plump-faced frizzy-haired imps of 1986 is startling and bizarre. In the present day, the advancing years seem to have boiled away the badass attitude, leaving behind the quirky humour.

They started out in their teens as post-punk enthusiasts for the Clash, and the photos of them at this stage are starkly black-and-white. But then the archive images turn into the garish colour of MTV. The Beastie Boys got very excited by rap, were picked up for management by the (now notorious) Russell Simmons, brother of Run DMCs Reverend Run, and soon they were opening for Madonna. In 1986, their album Licensed to Ill happened, along with its fascinating and deplorable and horribly brilliant single (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) an anthem for blearily defiant Reagan-years hedonism. I remember hearing it around the time I read PJ ORourkes Republican Party Reptile.

The Beastie Boys sold truckloads of records all over the world, and their puppyishly zany image co-existed with limitlessly energetic anarchy. They were, as they fondly recall, expected to be very dangerous on their foreign tours: particularly the British tour. Surreally, a full page of the Sun is flashed up on stage, and the band appear next to a giant picture of former Tory education secretary Kenneth Baker.

The bands live show featured a giant penis emerging from a box. Horovitz and Diamond explain they were intending to satirise the frat-boy image and it took over though they have the grace to say that they didnt really care at the time about an alleged misunderstanding that was making them globally famous and rich. However, they also appear genuinely mortified at the fact that, in the early days, they fired the only woman in their original lineup: Kate Schellenbach (now the TV producer of The Late Late Show with James Corden). They repudiate their early reputation for sexism, but nobody in the film mentions these lyrics from the early single Paul Revere: I did it like this / I did it like that / I did it with a whiffle ball bat.

Inevitably, the Beasties spiralled financially over the top, relocating to LA where they rented a gigantic house featuring a swimming pool with a bridge over it, and went broke. Their accountant phoned to announce this event and heartlessly signed off with: Ive gotta go; Ive got Donny Osmond on the other line. A relocation back to New York, a chastened existence playing smaller clubs, and continued musical experimentation proved to be their path back up to the big league, and Yauch became a campaigner for Tibet. This film is a time capsule of the 1980s: an era that was crass and excessive in so many ways, but now seems weirdly exotic.

Beastie Boys Story is available on Apple TV+ from 24 April.

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Beastie Boys Story review Spike Jonze and the boys are back in town - The Guardian

Box sets arent the only thing to binge on while you social distance at home: some of the most famous names in London dining have responded to the coronavirus closures by offering home delivery. Read on to find out about the most delicious ways to survive lockdown all come with a comforting side order of knowing that youre supporting the restaurant trade in its darkest hour.

The Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant has launched an all-day offering to provide round-the-clock sustenance for the self-isolating residents of central London. Enjoy a leisurely breakfast or brunch until 3pm, starting the day with a black truffle-topped croque monsieur or seasonal fruits in a lemon verbena infusion, with perhaps some seeded sourdough and home-cured charcuterie to graze on, or 30g of Beluga caviar.

For lunch and dinner, Hides signature Nest Egg may not have been deemed robust enough by chef Ollie Dabbous to survive a journey by scooter, but there are barbecued langoustines in a pandan leaf broth with baked pumpkin and peanuts, glazed guinea fowl with white miso, celeriac and kaffir lime, and chocolate tartlet with saffron and sunflower all with a suggested wine pairing from Dabbous backer, Hedonism.

If youre stuck for what to feed the kids, Huntsham Farm pork sausages with crispy potato cake and seasonal greens is a posh spin on bangers and mash youll wish came in an adult portion.

Order from: Supper London, within a 2.5-mile radius

Quite possibly the most upmarket Chinese takeaway that London has to offer, Michelin-starred Hakkasan is now available at home, where youll need to light some incense and download the Hakkasan playlist on Mixcloud to get the full clubby effect.

Set menus include the banquet meal for two (135), on which youll find the likes of crispy duck salad, rib-eye in black pepper and merlot and roasted silver cod in Champagne. Alternatively, order individually from the a la carte; the hot-and-sour flavours of the crispy fresh water prawns or intensely savoury black truffle roast duck are both top shouts.

Wash it all down with something from the fabulous wine list: Ruinart Blanc de Blancs followed by Antinori Tignanello, say. For the last word in at-home authenticity, track down the recipe for Hakkasans strawberry and basil martini online.

Order from: Deliveroo and Supper London, within a 2.5-mile radius

For the fully immersive Hakkasan experience, order some daytime dim sum from its teahouse spin-off Yauatcha.

All the dumpling classics are here, though in our experience, steamed dim sum travels better than the fried stuff. Major on scallop shui mai with prawn and tobiko caviar, edamame truffle dumpling with water chestnut, or crystal jade dumpling with pine nut, and save the crispy duck rolls and venison puffs for when we can all eat out again.

Bulk out the dim sum with some stir-fried scallops and prawns or a Mongolian lamb claypot, and top it all off with one of the exquisite pastries; the pastel-coloured macarons are a jewel box of sweet treats.

Order from: Deliveroo and Supper London, within a 2.5-mile radius

The new home delivery service of this famous Mayfair Indian offers a timely opportunity to try the cooking of recently installed executive chef Sameer Taneja. Whats more, for every meal ordered, the restaurant will donate a meal to NHS workers.

Alongside the expected lamb samosas and chicken tikka, look out for more individual creations such as tandoori king prawn marinated in kasundi mustard and raw mango, or wild sea bass marinated in coriander and chilli chutney testament to Tanejas time spent in some exalted Michelin-starred kitchens.

Vegan and vegetarian options, such as paneer malai tikka (mace and cardamom-spiced cottage cheese with mint chutney) and baingan bharta (smoked and mashed aubergine tossed with green peas, onion, tomato and ginger), are no less appealing.

Spice-friendly drinks, meanwhile, range from Meantime and Cobra beer to Killermans Run Shiraz and Ebner-Ebenauer Gruner Veltliner.

Order from: Supper London, within a 2.5-mile radius

Run by two talented young chaps with a brilliant pedigree former Anglo front-of-house Nick Gilkinson and ex-Petersham Nurseries chef Joe Fox Townsend has responded to Covid-19 with an approach every bit as creative as youd expect for a restaurant within the Whitechapel Gallery.

Townsends signature dishes are now available to order direct from the restaurant, ready to eat at home. Start with a snack of fried Wensleydale with heather honey and smoked chilli ahead of potato dumplings with potted brown shrimp and purslane, with ginger and treacle pudding with clotted ice cream for pud.

Wine delivery is also part of the service and you can stock up on an Essentials box of supplies when youre ordering, including fresh eggs, dried pasta, chopped tomatoes and milk and butter. All thats missing is a 16-pack of Andrex.

Order from: Townsend Restaurantfor delivery within eight miles.

French-born, New York-based chef Dominque Ansel has launched an at-home range for delivery from his Belgravia bakery. There are freshly made breads such as thyme and sea-salt focaccia and fresh pastas and sauces like macaroni with three-cheese sauce but ordering any of this is merely a cover for stockpiling the former winner of the Worlds Best Pastry Chef awards bid for immortality: the Cronut.

The croissant/doughnut hybrid, named one of Time magazines best inventions of 2013, is released in a different flavour each month. Currently its pineapple upside down cake, filled with homemade pineapple jam and creamy vanilla cake ganache, which can now be scoffed without shame in the privacy of your own home.

Order from: Deliveroo and Uber Eats or, if you live within five minutes of the Belgravia bakery, you can request an at-home drop-off from Dominique Ansel

Read more: The best high-end home delivery food boxes

Read more: 'I have a secret kitchen gadget thats better than any box of ingredients in isolation'

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Michelin-starred meals that can be delivered to your home during lockdown - Telegraph.co.uk

The Byrdes accountant Marty (Jason Bateman, seen here) and his coolly scheming wife Wendy (Laura Linney) have their casino licence and are laundering money for the vicious Navarro drug cartel.

Steve Dietl/Netflix/Netflix

Its up to you: Comfort viewing or journeys into the exotic or unknown in these times of lockdown and isolation. As its the weekend, lets assume comfort is your choice.

Ozark (Netflix) returns for a third season and its a familiar, furiously paced escape. It will be a top choice for many readers. Me, Ive been a bit skeptical about it from the get-go. Sometimes it looks like fabricated prestige-TV drama done with a simple-minded adherence to fiery narrative twists coming with such regularity that narrative and character development are tossed aside. Still, Ill admit its addictive, all that propulsion. And it did win some Emmy awards.

Happy to report that in the evidence of the first batch of episodes, its tighter, better paced now and still has that pulpy appeal. The Byrdes accountant Marty (Jason Bateman) and his coolly scheming wife Wendy (Laura Linney) have their casino licence and are laundering money for the vicious Navarro drug cartel. Theyre in so deep, the only way to survive is to go deeper. That cartel will punish with ferocity, a fact made clear by the cartels frosty and frightening lawyer Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer).

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Its summer, the Ozarks area is teeming with tourists and Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) is running the casino floor with her characteristic guile. Garner, who won an Emmy for this role and won acclaim for her starring role in the recent movie The Assistant, is the shows anchor figure. Shes superb as a cunning crook who still retains a slice of naivet.

In fact, this season Ozark improves largely because of the platform given to its female characters. Wendy Byrde, for all her coolness, is at the end of her tether and she and Marty go into couples counselling. How that plays out is both dramatically sound and an illustration of the moral slime that now covers this family.

There are new characters who dont have much to do except engage in stupidity that puts the Byrde operation in jeopardy. The cartel gets angry, of course, and Marty faces retribution. At times the plotting still seems too calculated, as though aimed at exhausting a binge-watch audience. Still, it has improved and is recommended. But if youre going to binge the 10-part series, take it two episodes at a time.

Garth Brooks: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Concert (Sunday, PBS, 9 p.m.) is a fun, all-star-tribute concert to celebrate Brooks getting the Gershwin Prize. At 58, Brooks is the youngest artist to receive it. There are performances by Keith Urban, Ricky Skaggs, Chris Stapleton, Keb Mo, Lee Brice, the Howard University Choir, and by Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood. The host is Jay Leno, in case youve been wondering whatever happened to him.

The Chaperone (Sunday, most PBS stations 11 p.m. on Masterpiece Classic) is a one-off movie thats a pleasant, odd little creation. Written by the ubiquitous Julian Fellowes, its about silent-screen star Louise Brooks in that period where she was about to become a sensation on the screen. Brooks (played with oomph by Haley Lu Richardson) is about to go to New York to study with a leading dance troupe. Her mom insists there be a chaperone. One Norma Carlisle (Elizabeth McGovern) steps forward to volunteer. An uptight woman recovering from a broken marriage, Norma is baffled by Louises hedonism and appeal to men. The movie gives you some sense of the formidable erotic charge of Brooks as performer, but gets a bit lost when Norma uses her time in NYC to research her own family background.

Finally, at the suggestion of many readers, this column continues with a Stay-at-home-period daily-streaming pick for the next while. Todays pick is On Becoming a God in Central Florida (Crave). It has an emphatically tough, rounded woman in the central role, with Kirsten Dunst astounding as Krystal Stubbs, a struggling mother, former pageant queen and wife to insurance salesman Travis (Alexander Skarsgard, unrecognizable from his role in Big Little Lies). The couple are at the bottom, barely making ends meet. Then things get worse. Its about many things, but the Showtime-made, piquantly sour comedy is mainly about American dreams, fallacies and deceit, both personal and societal. It is also terrifically entertaining, twisted and, at times, moving.

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Ozark, back on Netflix, is better but still messy and addictive - The Globe and Mail

Abel Tesfaye of Toronto, known to many as Grammy-award-winning artist, The Weeknd, released his fourth album, After Hours, on Friday, almost four years since his last full-length album, Starboy.

In the four years since Starboy, he released a small EP titled My Dear Melancholy, and was featured on many high-profile projects including the Kendrick Lamar-curated Black Panther soundtrack album. The Weeknd also made his acting debut, playing a fictional version of himself in the critically-acclaimed film Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler in late 2019.

The Weeknd began teasing the album with the two singles, Heartless and Blinding Lights, in Nov. 2019. Finally, in February The Weeknd announced the album and released the title track After Hours.

A bulk of the production was handled by some of The Weeknds usual partners: Illangelo, Metro Boomin and renowned pop music producer Max Martin, who worked with The Weeknd previously on the chart-topping song, Cant Feel My Face, in 2015.

The album does not boast any features, but there are two notable guests appearing as producers and writers: Kevin Parker, known as Tame Impala, and Daniel Lopatin, known as Oneohtrix Point Never, who also composed the score for Uncut Gems.

The album flirts with The Weeknds usual subjects of drug use, hedonism and lust; similarly, the album continues to explore his dark, mysterious style of alternative pop/R&B. In After Hours, The Weeknd added elements to his repertoire, specifically the 1980s influence that controls the album.

These 80s tropes come in the way of retro synths and glamorous build-ups. For example, In Your Eyes, features a horn section with trumpets and saxophones thats begging to be the theme of an 80s film. Even songs that do not directly feature these elements feel like they come from the Blade Runner soundtrack because of the dark, atmospheric and warped synths that add a new mysteriousness to The Weeknds vocals.

The album is paced beautifully, and with the added context one might discover a newfound love for the singles released previously. After Hours, parallels his diminishing mental state after a breakup, where The Weeknd originally seems apologetic then quickly becomes arrogant with his own self-pity.

One of the album highlights, Scared to Live, a smooth ballad in which Tesfaye encourages his ex-lover to move on, does a marvelous job of capturing the guilt of ending a relationship.

On Faith, The Weeknd faces his actions and spirals further into trouble while using drugs to artificially fill a void that the relationship left. The song ends with the line, I ended up in the back of a flashing car.

The ideas and concepts are capped off by the penultimate and title track, After Hours: a progressive track that bounces between an R&B ballad and a garage-house apology where The Weeknds love for the fast-life fades away to reveal sadness and vulnerability.

Fans of The Weeknd that are looking for songs about wild nights and toxic relationships no longer have to wait. Despite the lack of diverse content in Tesfayes catalog, fans should appreciate that After Hours is a complete and thorough project that satisfies from start to end, and puts some of his past writing to shame.

You can find love, fear, friends, enemies, violence, dancing, sex, demons, angels, loneliness and togetherness all in the After Hours of the night, said The Weeknd to Apple Music.

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The Weeknd's 'After Hours' lands at No.1 on Billboard 200 - The Connection

Sitcoms dont come much gentler than Friday Night Dinner (Channel 4), Robert Poppers slight send-up of the Jewish weekly family meal. Now in its sixth series, it is a sweet thing, starring Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal as Adam and Jonny Goodman, the two sons of Jackie (Tamsin Greig) and Martin (Paul Ritter). In each half-hour edition, the family assemble in the suburbs and something happens to derail the meal. Sometimes its a relative, often its their creepy neighbour Jim (Mark Heap). It is an old-fashioned kind of programme, with jokes stuffed in cheek by jowl at the expense of detailed characterisation. This isnt meant to be a diss. Or not purely a diss. At its best Friday Night Dinner fits in the great British tradition of light entertainment. Not everything has to be True Detective.

In fact, in light of current news, the series feels remarkably close to the bone. The series central joke is that the whole family attends this dinner faithfully every week, regardless of how little they want to be there. Tradition and a sense of familial duty trumps Friday night hedonism. Viewers trapped at home in self-isolation, unable to see their families, might find this vision melancholic. Those trapped at home with their families might find it so triggering that it sends them reaching for the gin bottle, as Jackie does at the start of the first episode. Just as aeroplane disaster films were a sensitive subject after 9/11, perhaps the coronavirus will make viewers jumpy about one-room domestic dramas.

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For the first time, Adam and Jonny both have girlfriends at the same time, but they cant tell their mother for fear of how happy it will make her. Her joy, expressed as smothering, would be hell for them. They arrive to find their father in his caravan in the front garden. It is new, but only to him: it is falling apart, with a grim overflowing chemical toilet and cupboards falling off the walls. Martin wants to have family dinner in there, Jackie refuses to step foot inside. Meanwhile, the drains are overflowing. Jim turns up to announce he has named his new dog Milson, rather than Wilson, and then later to complain that his house has been flooded with human excrement, and he needs somewhere to go.

A predictable mix of slapstick, Dad jokes and literal toilet humour ensues, but the weakest link in Friday Night Dinner is Adam and Jonnys relationship. Birds punctilious nerd shtick was perfect for Will in The Inbetweeners, but his limitations as a performer are stark opposite Greig and Ritter, proper actors who deserve better scripts. He and Rosenthal are unconvincing as brothers, which wouldnt be as much of a problem were not so many of the gags constructed around their fraternal banter. Perhaps thats meant to be part of the joke, but if so, like many of the others, it falls flat. Friday Night Dinner has had an improbably good run but its time for everyone to grow up.

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Friday Night Dinner returns with a predictable mix of slapstick, Dad jokes and literal toilet humour review - The Independent

In these times of social distancing, Calcutta Nights, a recently translated crisp vintage work from 1923, beams up from the past the whole human mess of city life as we may fail to experience for a long time now enticing , contagious with its mirth, sorrow and decadence, yet ultimately safe. Calcutta-ness is both a cult and a code.

That Calcutta, totem pole of cult, is a distilled city, a Xanadu rich with local detail yet universal, contemporary yet not belonging to any particular period, a continuum of experience. No wonder then, that this wondrous city, simultaneous epicentre of renaissance, nationalism, reform movements and debauchery, should inspire city sketches, first made popular in the mid and late 19th century by the inimitable Hutum Pyachar Naksha. Decades later Hemendra Kumar Roy, prolific and popular author of detective fiction, adopted a nom de guerre to have a go at chronicling the scintillating night life of Calcutta in the 1920s.

If books were bordello windows, their sepia light beckoning, Calcutta Nights would be one such, quite literally. A salacious account of what the night unravels, the book takes you behind the scenes, reports on the microcosm of hedonism, the power plays, symbiotic relations, the intimacies of a prostitute with her regular customer, the paanwali bartering and trading with the police, the beggar, the opium-smoker. What sets this book apart is the flawed and reluctant author.

A prolific writer of detective fiction, primarily for children and young adults, Roy probably stumbled upon this diverse and rich material probably while researching for his more innocuous detective novels armed with a stout stick, he says, and at great personal risk. Against his better judgment, he writes about city la nuit, worried and embarrassed about the task at hand, the adirasa or eroticism that he has failed to avoid while raising the curtains of hell.

In his introduction, he rushes to reassure his readers that none of them will find Calcutta Nights obscene. It is, rather, written with the noble intention of sounding a warning to fathers of young girls and boys. Our Meghnad Gupta, author in hiding, is no Samuel Pepys, the veritable diarist of 17th century London who wrote himself into his salacious scenes, boasting about his own ardour and peccadilloes.

The city Roy writes about is a city of men, consumed by men. In the authors own words this book is written for an adult male audience, a sweeping exclusion that predictably rankles this reviewers entitled, liberal, feminist bourgeoise self. Said outrage is difficult to cull at first. Then, as the book shines with its vivid portrayals, the puritan author becomes part of the setting and it is possible to turn the judging gaze right back at him, to see him in all his troubled light.

Here was an author writing about hedonism at a time when the wave of nationalism was peaking, his puritan acuity often criss-crossing with an awakening of socialism. His feelings about the women he writes about swing from condescension and humble misogyny (empathetic and damning at the same time a tone often taken when writing about giants by the best of Bengali literary stars, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee included) to genuine insight.

A pacy read, the depiction is vivid and colourful. Despite his protestations the author is clearly an insider therein lies the strength and authenticity of this sketch. The description is atmospheric. Roy bring alive, with cinematic realism, the night in which owls flutter awayand gradually the swarthy ugly faces begin to peep and snoop.

And slowly Chitpur Road transforms itself weary clerks disappear, the streets are filled with the scented babus, their faces aglow with Hazeline snow seeking verandthe a belles. Kapure babus, hothat-babus, ingo- bingos, the rich, the white, the Marwari, Chinese, European women of loose morals, courtesans of Chitpur, lustful ladies of Kalighat, the poor prostitute, the wanton widow each scene, as the chapters are aptly called, presents to us a glossary of social categories.

One of the most striking sketches is that of the Bhikiripara or beggars quarters. There are fabulously sensational bits, revealing the authors Roy had translated Bam Stokers Dracula penchant for the supernatural and the fantastic. Particularly recommended are scenes from the Nimtala Crematorium and the one featuring a prostitute who beckons men into her room where a dead man lies, his throat slit open.

Translator Rajat Chaudhuri craftily balances archaic words with new ones, never upsetting the tonal authenticity of a period piece. Ultimately he strikes the right cadence the voice often changing as it travels from Chitpur bordellos to the jazzy evenings in the Anglo quarters or the dim Chinese taverns.

For its depiction of the crowded and dense interplay of lives in the Calcutta of those days, this book is a perfect curl-up for these epic-dammed solitary afternoons. A treasure trove for every city addict has been discovered.

Calcutta Nights, Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated from the Bengali by Rajat Chaudhuri, Niyogi Books

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An acclaimed Bengali pulp fiction writer turns a voyeuristic eye on the secrets of Calcutta by night - Scroll.in

Cooped Up Indoors? These Songs Will Transport You to a Better Place

If youre like most people, these last few weeks of social distancing have taken a serious toll on your mental and physical health.

Your old routine going to the gym, seeing friends, even commuting to work every morning has been totally disrupted, replaced by a quasi house arrest in which youre not even supposed to entertain friends.

RELATED: How to Stay Sane When Youre Cooped Up Indoors

Unless you preferred to never leave your home before this crisis, chances are youre going a bit crazy. After all, there are only so many hours you can spend playing video games, streaming the latest movies and television shows, or doing home workouts in your underwear. At a certain point, you need something to look forward to, something exciting on the horizon to make the lonely present that much more bearable.

Thankfully, a group of hotels across the world (think Jamaica, Italy, Guatemala to Iceland) have curated playlists to help transport you, imaginatively, to their beautiful locales.

Playlist: Hedo Hustle(r) - Nude Edition

After weeks and weeks of social distancing, youre going to want to release all that pent up energy, and what better way to do it than with these high-energy, highly sensuous tunes. Youve heard of music you can dance to? This is music you can twerk to.

Playlist: Hedo Hustle(r) - Prude Edition

If you love pleasure but arent about pure hedonism, thats OK, too. This list of songs is still sensuous without all that sexuality.

Playlist: Grace Bay Beach Vibes

The Turks & Caicos boast some of the worlds best beaches and bluest waters, and this playlist will have you feeling the sun while hearing the sounds of those crystal clear lapping waves.

Playlist: The Land of Eternal Spring

If you think relaxation requires salt water beaches and ocean views, you havent visited Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Give this playlist a listen to get a sense of the sumptuousness resort vibe and the pristine beauty of its location.

Playlist: Tuscan Vibes by Il Salviatino

Tuscany is famous for its scenic beauty, but the guests of Il Salviatino, tasked with curating this playlist, didnt just evoke its majestic hills; they also captured the upbeat rhythms of nearby Firenze (Florence, for us English-speakers).

Playlist: Aruba Marriott Island Vibes

The temperature inside your apartment might rise when you bump these island jams, evocative of Arubas blue waters and golden sands. If paradise exists on earth, its probably a beach on Aruba just sayin.

Playlist: Barnsley Boot-Scootin Boogie

The South is famous for comfort food, but these tunes prove the cooking isnt the only warm and reassuring thing about Southern living. If youve never been to Georgia, youll still feel the heat with these feel-good country jams.

Playlist: Icelandic Eclectic

If sun and sand isnt your preference, you might prefer the crisp snow and endless skies of Iceland. This playlist, curated by musician and Hotel Ranga Social Media Marketing Manager Ingibjrg Fririksdttir, evokes Icelands ethereal beauty and the utter strangeness of its remote location. Enjoy!

Playlist: Caliente Caribe

The most underappreciated part of America isnt actually part of the mainland its beautiful Puerto Rico, where island beauty, Latin music and the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan have been beguiling visitors for decades. You might not be able to fly there tomorrow, but this playlist will transport you there all the same.

Whether your dream vacation destination involves sunny beaches, mountains, sand, snow or the finest wines and liquors, these playlists will evoke the best of each place, offering you a little respite from the dreariness of the quarantine and an imaginative escape to paradise.

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Playlists Curated by Hotels and Resorts That Make You Feel a World Away - AskMen

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

It is the present we must reckon with, observes Thomas Cromwell in the final part of Mantels trilogy. You can say that again, mate. At 900 pages, The Mirror and the Light has arrived eerily perfectly formed for the present we are reckoning with and I dont just mean that the hardback version is the perfect size for putting under your laptop to avoid double chin on Zoom calls. Cromwell is a master of optics and power dressing five centuries ahead of his time: he sees the visual messaging in every embroidered cloak and the symbolism in every jewellery love gift. Also, the square necklines are very this-season Rixo.Jess Cartner-Morley

Even if you have yet to surrender to a full day in sweatpants, life probably feels less than glamorous at the moment. What better world to get lost in, then, than one described by F Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is the obvious choice, but if you pine after a cancelled holiday to, say, the south of France, the authors last novel is a good way to get your Riviera fashion fix. From bathing suits and corsages to the notion of dressing for dinner, there is plenty of style inspiration to stockpile.Leah Harper

If you have ever felt sheepish about having an interest in style, I urge you to read this book. It argues that clothes are far from a trivial or superficial pursuit, through potted fashion history and reflection from luminaries such as Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford. Most memorable, though, are the stories of women in horrific circumstances who have used clothing as balm; the image of a seamstress customising her fellow prisoners uniforms in Ravensbrck concentration camp during the second world war has stayed with me since I read it a decade ago. The book is a great read for where were at now joyful, hopeful and free of judgment. It seems to say: whatever makes you feel better, whatever you enjoy when life is otherwise bewildering, you should absolutely go for it. Hannah Marriott

Looking at the intergalactic fashions created by designer Larry LeGaspi is wonderfully escapist. Rick Owens, who curated this coffee table book after realising there was a LeGaspi-shaped hole in the internet, credits the designer as a big influence on his own otherworldly fashion aesthetic. Stage looks for Kiss, Labelle and Divine are just some of the treasures in this warm, magical scrapbook of 70s album covers, interviews, design sketches and backstage photos. Think Close Encounters of the Studio 54 kind.Priya Elan

If you havent read this fashion classic, now is the time, if only for the genesis chapter of the LBD: It was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, and a pearl choker. For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks. The book that invented the Little Black Dress is full of sage style advice. Its tacky to wear diamonds before youre 40, and even thats risky. They only look right on the really old girls.Jess Cartner-Morley

If its a complete change of mood you want, look no further than Alexa Chungs 2013 memoir-cum-picture-book. This scrapbook-style collection of the kinds of images beloved by fashion Instagram Annie Hall, Anna Karina, Twiggy and, of course, Alexa herself is ideal to fill the void between Zoom dates and online yoga. A pleasant, if surface-level, dip into the world of the not-yet-designer, filled with fun soundbites such as: I am obsessed with moisturising. I am also obsessed with cigarettes so I like to think the two balance each other out. It feels surprisingly dated at times but thats not necessarily a bad thing right now. Leah Harper

I wanted to see Kim Kardashian dressed up as Big Ben. I hoped Katy Perry would use a sundial as a fascinator. But this years Met Gala, which was to take place on 4 May, has been postponed. Luckily, the set text on which red carpet outfits were to be based is still ripe for enjoyment. Orlando is a funny, surreal, exuberant novel about a poet who lives from Elizabethan times until the early 20th century. It questions the very nature of time, which feels great right now. It is also brilliant on clothes as a symbol of something hid deep beneath The man has his hand free to seize his sword, the woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. More than simply keeping us warm, Woolf argues, clothes change our view of the world and the worlds view of us, which makes me think I should raise my Google Hangouts game at some point. Hannah Marriott

Set in the frock department of an upscale Sydney department store in 1959, this book was described as a deceptively smart comic gem by The New York Times Book Review when it was first published in 1993. Hilary Mantel has said it is the book I most give as a gift to cheer people up. The sassy attitude and jazzy aesthetic will appeal to fans of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, while its thoughtful comedy of manners delivers just the right degree of escapism.Jess Cartner-Morley

If youre after a chilling insight into modern society, look no further than Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho. Not for the faint-hearted, this bitter black comedy depicts stomach-wrenching brutality, although its main focus is the yuppie Wall Street mentality of the sharply dressed protagonist Patrick Bateman. The narrative jumps suddenly from his thrill at purchasing a new pair of A Testoni loafers to scenes of extreme violence. Bateman is obsessed with his image; from the finest clothes, as instructed in GQ, to the wealthy friends he hates, to being seen in the hottest clubs with the most attractive hardbodies he can find. Its a portrayal of dissatisfaction that arises from presenting a perfect exterior but being hollow beneath, something more apt in todays Instagram culture than ever. Not an easy read, but an engrossing one, and you will know what type of suit you can wear with cashmere socks once you are done.Peter Bevan

Audrey Withers, wartime editor of British Vogue, earned herself the nickname Austerity Withers for her gung-ho, can-do spirit. Beginning her editorship the day the blitz began in London, she achieved no mean feat in keeping the print magazine on shelves throughout the war. Vogue, she liked to say, was put to bed in a bunker like everyone else in London. This recent biography features jolly cameos from Cecil Beaton and Elizabeth David, but it is the stories of how her Vogue adapted its lifestyle to the zeitgeist, with features on growing your own vegetables and cutting your own hair, that make it perfect for today.Jess Cartner-Morley

When The Beautiful Fall came out in 2006, Karl Lagerfeld took author Alicia Drake to court for invasion of privacy. This fact should be enough to make anyone want to read the tale of Lagerfeld of fellow designer and frenemy Yves Saint Laurent from the 50s onwards. A mixture of gossip, hedonism, glamorous muses and fashion history, you will finish this with more knowledge of Parisian fashion over a key 40-year period, yes, but also an unmistakable desire to go disco dancing till the sun comes up, once quarantine is lifted. Lauren Cochrane

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Shelf isolation: stylish reads to keep your spirits up - The Guardian

Every week, Micah Peters surveys the world of musicfrom new releases to bubbling trends to anniversaries both big and obscureand gives a few recommendations.

On March 7, which now belongs to an entirely different era of human life, Daniel Craig hosted Saturday Night Live.

He seemed to have the time of his life doing itCraig wasnt too cool to wear a wig, pass up a single histrionic make out, and leaned into whichever excessive accent the joke in question required. His dutiful commitment to all the bits reminded me of his Benoit Blanc, the Southern-fried private eye in Knives Out, and Joe Bang, the hillbilly munitions expert from Logan Luckyboth characters that you get the sense Craig got to make choices about, unlike the role that made him the most money, James Bond. No Time to Die will be Craigs final Bond movie, whenever it comes out, and once again his action suit will be tastefully dotted with soot as he whips an Aston Martin through the cobblestone streets of some exotic locale, glowering and being emotionally distant. SNL poked fun at the self-conscious grimness that defined Craigs Bond films for, wow, 14 years, with a sketch in which the showy MI6 agent spends a little too much time at the craps table. The Weeknd was the musical guest.

I bring up Craig and Bond and SNL because Ive been thinking about how the phrases after hoursthe title of the Weeknds new album, out last Fridayand no time to die evoke a similarly hammy self-consciousness. James Bond is a ridiculous concept in the main, being the worlds loudest and most obvious secret agent, but functionally, hes an empty vessel for your average males basest desireshaving sex, driving fast, and blowing shit up. No Time to Die then, as a title for a movie that will probably start with a car chase and end with a coup de grce, almost seems A.I. generated. Ditto for After Hours: Since his introduction in 2011, the Weeknd has grown from faceless alternative R&B enigma to cover star, successfully scaling his wee-hours, sullen, sexy, Ill kill us both vibe for mainstream audiences. The Weeknd is also kind of a ridiculous concept: a sexy, vengeful ghost with commitment and impulse-control issues. Even if it werent called After Hours, you could guess that cocaine and nontheism were involved. Like Bond, the Weeknd fucks, drives fast, and blows shit up (relationships). Here is his explanation of the album title, in his own words:

You can find love, fear, friends, enemies, violence, dancing, sex, demons, angels, loneliness, and togetherness all in the After Hours of the night.

Scared To Live probably speaks to the angels portion of thatthe song, made in tandem with Max Martin and Oscar Holter, is a soaring ballad in which the Weeknd expresses joy and pain where once there was crushing melancholy. Vulnerability, or at least the suggestion that others practice it, is a new trick for the Weeknd. His idea of love still looks the same though: On Faith, which sounds lifted from Kavinskys Nightcall sessions and shows up just after the albums halfway point, The Weeknd says, with a straight face, If I OD I want you to OD right beside me.

After Hours is the Weeknds most accomplished and coherent project to date: Beauty Behind the Madness struggled to make his House of Balloonsera hedonism and lofty pop ambitions jell, Starboy was more of a playlist of 18 expensive-sounding songs than an album, and we dont need to talk about Kiss Land. After Hours is his most intentional project yet, from the leisure suits and tortoise aviators he wore in all the videos and promo shoots to the 80s synth pop the best songs on Hours are indebted to: Save Your Tears, In Your Eyes, and Blinding Lights.

I cant say that the Weeknds writing has improved leaps and boundssee Snowchild, on which he says hes dropping off Philip K. dick, or Heartless, which begins never need a bitch, Im what a bitch needand the self-conscious twistedness he traffics in can still come off as hacky. (The heavy-eyed Escape From LA leaps to mind; you can only have so much sex in the studio.) And yet, After Hours is The Weeknds best work so far, and indicates the reconciliation, once and for all, of his R&B pathos and desire for mainstream viability. Of the 14 songs, Blinding Lights, which has been out for months, is still the most emblematic of that. It comes already assembled and radio friendly, so that everyone, not just your average male, can project their wildest, sexiest desires onto it. The drug is a lover, and withdrawal leads you to dance. And once the songs over, you want to go back for another hit. Which seems, to me, like the platonic ideal of a song from the Weeknd.

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The Skepta feature to grab the most blog headlines last week would have been Papi Chulo, the new Octavian single. Its a union of two of the most culturally relevant rappers in the U.K., but also between the new and old guard: Skepta, the seasoned veteran, and Octavian, the ascendant star. Less newsworthy was his appearance on U.K.-by-way-of-L.A. rappers Jaxxon D. Silvas Lalaland, a two-minute song on which Skepta steals the spotlight, obviously. About halfway through Skeptas verse, theres this amazing, honest-to-god passage:

Australian ting, and she blowin on me like a digeridoo My jeans by my ankles, and I keep my t-shirt on like Winnie the Pooh

Producer Jennifer Lees roots are in the Los Angeles beat scene but, more and more, on each new project, she opens space in her intricate arrangements for vocalists. Often, on Oasis Nocturno those vocalists can outshine her production, because thats what vocalists doyou might miss the subtle strings in Fried For the Night because EARTHGANG is rapping. Some of Oasiss best songs, by contrast, are purely instrumental. To be Remote flies off the handle at about the 2:30 mark, when a vocal sample is stretched thin and spooled around a bridge before being layered into the remainder of the song. Its every bit as confounding as it sounds.

Last week, in what Im sure was an honest attempt to quell our mounting and variegated anxieties due to a global pandemic, Gal Gadot enlisted the help of a bunch of celebrities you know, and a handful you dont, for a cover of John Lennons Imagine. The video was lambasted because it was a dumb thing to do in the first place; on the order of things rich people can do for the public good in a time of crisis, singing isnt high up. Others pointed out that Gadots cover was in the spirit of the original: Lennon penned the words imagine no possessions while being worth an estimated $800 million.

Comedian Zach Fox decided to get a different group of (internet) famous people to do his own cover. Of Slob On My Knob. Stay safe out there this week.

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After Hours Is the Weeknds Most Accomplished Work Yet - The Ringer