Pair of portraits by Dutch master Frans Hals return to the Netherlands
'Boy Playing the Violin' and 'Girl Singing,' were bought Monday at auction for $7.8 million by the Frans Hals Museum and the Mauritshuis museum, with financial support from the Dutch government and a group of foundations.
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Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Ketamine Queen' accused of selling fatal dose to Matthew Perry agrees to plead guilty
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman known as the 'Ketamine Queen,' charged with selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, agreed to plead guilty Monday. Jasveen Sangha becomes the fifth and final defendant charged in the overdose death of the 'Friends' star to strike a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Having initially pleaded not guilty, her change of plea means she'll avoid a trial that had been planned for August. Prosecutors had cast Sangha as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the 'Ketamine Queen,' using the term often in press releases and court documents and even including it in the official name of the case. A federal indictment charged Sangha with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine and five counts of distribution of ketamine. She and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal June 16, had been the primary targets of the investigation. Three other defendants — Dr. Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa and Erik Fleming — agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia. Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant, on Oct. 28, 2023. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death. The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal, but off-label, treatment for depression, which has become increasingly common. Perry, 54, sought more ketamine than his doctor would give him. He began getting it from Plasencia about a month before his death, then started getting still more from Sangha about two weeks before his death, prosecutors said. Perry and Iwamasa found Sangha through Perry's friend Fleming. In their plea agreements, both men described the subsequent deals in detail. Fleming messaged Iwamasa saying Sangha's ketamine was 'unmarked but it's amazing,' according to court documents. Fleming texted Iwamasa that she only deals 'with high end and celebs. If it were not great stuff she'd lose her business.' With the two men acting as middlemen, Perry bought large amounts of ketamine from Sangha, including 25 vials for $6,000 in cash four days before his death. That purchase included the doses that killed Perry, prosecutors said. On the day of Perry's death, Sangha told Fleming they should delete all the messages they had sent each other, according to her indictment. Her home in North Hollywood, California, was raided in March 2024 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents who found large amounts of methamphetamines and ketamine, according to an affidavit from an agent. She was indicted that June, arrested that August and has been held in jail since. None of the defendants has yet been sentenced. Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on 'Friends,' when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC's megahit series.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book Review: A gang of hatchet-wielding women try to take over the meth business in rural Texas
A poor country woman and her kids are being terrorized by Porky, a rampaging hog that keeps breaking out of a neighbor's pen. For help, she turns to Hap Collins and Leonard Pine in Joel R. Lansdale's 14th darkly comic novel about the duo, 'The Hatchet Girls.' Hap and Leonard aren't animal control experts. They, along with Hap's wife, Brett, are private detectives. But the woman is so distraught that they take pity on her and agree to subdue the enormous creature. It does not go well. The hog chases the two pals around the yard, crashes into the woman's house when they seek refuge inside, and trashes the place. The result is perhaps the funniest man vs. beast scene since Mark Wahlberg brawled with his teddy bear in the 2012 movie 'Ted.' Once they manage to get Porky under control, they examine the neighbors' outbuildings and discover why the animal had been so aggressive. The neighbors were meth cookers, and Porky had been sampling the merchandise. Hap and Leonard are still poking around the place when the neighbors, the Planter family, show up, take exception, and make themselves the target of our heroes' wisecracks and sarcasm. Since Hap and Leonard are also capable of extreme violence when provoked, the reader is apt to anticipate a showdown. But it is not to be. Instead the Planters later turn up dead, their bodies chopped to pieces by The Hatchet Girls, a cultish gang of women who hate men and are determined to take over the meth business in this corner of rural Texas. When more meth cookers get hacked to bits, both the region's drug kingpin and the local sheriff enlist the P.I. partners to put an end to The Hatchet Girls. Hap and Leonard take on the task somewhat half-heartedly, distracted by life changes. Leonard, who is gay, is planning to get married. Hap and Beth are moving into a new home. And both of the men contemplate getting out of the violence business to run a gym. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'The Hatchet Girls' is a bit of a letdown, neither as suspenseful nor as funny as last summer's 'Sugar on the Bones,' but fans of Hap and Leonard may find it entertaining enough to hope for another installment. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.' ___ AP book reviews:
Winnipeg Free Press
7 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Devo's misunderstood art-rock legacy explored in new documentary
NEW YORK (AP) — You know the band Devo, right? The guys with the funny red plastic hats and jumpsuits? The New Wave musicians behind the silly 'Whip It' video? They had that odd, spiky '80s vibe? Well, it turns out you may not know as much as you think. The new Netflix documentary 'Devo' is an eye-opening examination of an Ohio-born art-rock band that argues they were perhaps the most misunderstood band on the face of the planet. It debuts on the streaming service Tuesday. 'We were trivialized and pigeonholed,' co-founder Gerald Casale tells The Associated Press. 'This documentary allows us to talk about what we were thinking and what we are motivated by to create what we created.' Directed by Chris Smith, 'Devo' uses archival footage and interviews to trace the band's beginnings, rise and fall, with cameos from fans like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Neil Young. 'What we saw was regression' Devo introduced themselves to the world in 1977 by making a frenetic version of the Rolling Stones' 'I Can't Get No) Satisfaction,' which earned them a crucial slot on 'Saturday Night Live.' On stages, they would wriggle like worms or dress like the guys from 'Ghostbusters.' They released their Brian Eno-produced debut, 'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!,' in 1978 and reached platinum status with 1980's 'Freedom of Choice,' which featured 'Whip It,' a hit just as their label was getting ready to drop them. But behind the odd neck braces and knee pads were powerful art and literary ideas about where the country was going. They named themselves after the idea that modern society was entering a process of 'devolution.' 'We were seeing a world that was the antitheses of the idealized, promised future ginned up in the '50s and '60s.' Casale says in the movie. 'What we saw was regression.' The nucleus of the band was formed from tragedy: Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh met at Kent State University, where they lived through the 1970 killing of four unarmed anti-war student protesters by the National Guard. That tragedy forged in the pair an antiestablishment, anti-capitalist protest, mixing lofty art history with pop culture. They admired Dadaism and Andy Warhol. The factories of Akron inspired their gray overalls and clear plastic face masks — portraying cogs in a machine like in the art movie 'Metropolis.' 'We had a meta-approach,' Casale tells the AP. 'It was a multimedia, big idea approach. Music was an element, a layer, a dimension, but it was connected to this big worldview.' 'Whip It' video Part of Devo's strength was its visual component and their videos were drenched with political commentary. The upbeat 'Beautiful World' featured footage of police violence, the KKK and bombings, while 'Freedom of Choice' warned against the dangers of conformity. The song 'Whip It' was written after reading Thomas Pynchon's 760-page postmodern sci-fi tome 'Gravity's Rainbow.' The video — featuring cowboys drinking beer, dangerous gunplay and assault — was actually mocking President Ronald Reagan and his macho brand of conservatism. Members of Devo — which also included Mark's brother, Bob, Gerald's brother, Bob, and Alan Myers — performed on TV and chatted with talk show hosts like David Letterman but their satire never seemed never to break through. 'Nobody wanted to hear us talking about the duality of human nature and the dangers of groupthink and the atrophication of people being able to think logically and think critically,' Casale says. 'It was like, 'That's a bummer. Just tell us about drugs and sex.'' A counterculture legacy Rock has always needed bands like Devo, a corrective to the corporate machine. You can see an echo of Devo when M.I.A. raised her middle finger during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2012. The members of Devo cite such bands as Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down as keeping the flame alive. 'The only thing you can hope is that it will create an awareness and get rid of complacency, but it doesn't seem to have done that in the past,' Mothersbaugh tells the AP. 'I always tried to be optimistic that devolution was something that was going to be corrected and that our message would be not necessary at this point, but unfortunately it's more real than ever.' After Devo, Casale directed music videos and commercials, while Mothersbaugh scored movies and TV shows such as 'Pee-Wee's Playhouse,' 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,' 'Rugrats' and 'Hello Tomorrow!' There are signs of optimism when members of Devo play live these days. Mothersbaugh says he sees a lot of young people, who have used their smartphones to bypass media gatekeepers. 'We see a lot of people that look like us, with gray hair out there in the audience. But there's also, there's also a lot kids, which is kind of surprising to me, but I think it's only because they have this thing in their hand that they sometimes use to their advantage.' Devo are set to hit the road later this year in a co-headlining tour with the B-52's. The Cosmic De-Evolution Tour will kick off Sept. 24 in Toronto and wraps Nov. 2 in Houston. You may think of Devo as New Wave or early electronica or synth-pop. but they see themselves differently: 'We were true punk, meaning we questioned illegitimate authority and we stayed in our own lane and did our thing, remaining true to our vision,' says Casale. 'That's punk.'
