How an Irish famine footnote inspired Emma Donoghue's new musical
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CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Why Josh Homme wanted to film a concert inside the Paris Catacombs
Last summer, Queens of the Stone Age became the first-ever band to perform inside the Paris Catacombs, where the remains of more than six million people are held. That performance was captured in a new concert film and five-song EP, Alive in the Catacombs. In an interview with Q 's Tom Power, frontman Josh Homme says the concert is something he's been trying to make happen for 20 years, but he's been fascinated by the Catacombs since he was a kid. WATCH | Official trailer for Alive in the Catacombs: "When you're young, you never think you're going to die," he says. "It all seems so far away. And people never talk about things like that unless it happens, and it's terrible. So I just think the taboo nature drew me in close. And I think the art of it — the way these bones were so lovingly, respectfully stacked — it just caught my eye. I just couldn't believe that that was OK." The first time Homme had ever been in the Catacombs was to perform with his band, though he had tried to see them before. "For the better part of 20 years, it was just something that every time we would go to Europe, I would say, 'Hey, let's try to play the Catacombs again,'" he says. "It was almost a joke to myself because it had not happened." But after finally getting permission to hold a concert there, Homme got incredibly sick. Immediately after his performance in the Catacombs, he had to fly back to the U.S. to get emergency surgery. "What are the chances that I myself would be in a very dire situation at the same time, after all those years of waiting?" he says. "They're so small that it felt meant to be. And again, you know, there's some that would say, 'It's just a pile of bones and nothing is meant to be, everything's chaos.' And that's OK, too. I'm fine with someone saying that. I don't care about that. I'm saying it feels meant to be for me."
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
Someone has eaten artist Maurizio Cattelan's US$6 million banana
"Comedian" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan is pictured. Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's artwork featuring a fresh banana taped to a wall has been eaten by a visitor to a museum in France. (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource) Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's artwork featuring a fresh banana taped to a wall has been eaten by a visitor to a museum in France. The piece, titled 'Comedian,' was eaten by a gallery-goer at the Centre-Pompidou Metz in eastern France on July 12, according to a statement from the museum, published Monday. 'The security team acted quickly and calmly, according to internal procedures,' the gallery said in the statement. 'The artwork was reinstalled a few minutes later,' it said, adding that the banana is 'only a perishable element' that is replaced on a regular basis according to Cattelan's instructions. Centre-Pompidou Metz said the artist was disappointed that the visitor had considered the fruit itself to be the artwork, instead of eating the skin and the tape that held it in place as well. The gallery has not filed a police report. 'Comedian' is intended to demonstrate the 'absurdity of financial speculation and the fragility of knowledge systems that underpin the art market,' it said. This is not the first time the artwork has been eaten. In 2019, when Cattelan unveiled 'Comedian' at the Art Basel Miami art fair in Florida, performance artist David Datuna grabbed the banana from the wall, before peeling and eating it in front of hundreds of stunned fair attendees. This became one of the art world's biggest viral moments and the work sold — with replacement banana — for US$120,000 at the fair. Then, in 2023, an art student took the banana from a wall at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, and ate it. And in November 2024, Justin Sun, a Chinese collector and founder of a cryptocurrency platform, acquired 'Comedian' for US$6.24 million at auction — before eating the banana. 'For now, it is perhaps the 'most-eaten' artwork of the last 30 years,' Centre-Pompidou Metz said in the statement.
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
What is a Jet2 holiday? Explaining the viral meme
The soundtrack to the meme originally came from a 2022 commercial A new meme is taking off on TikTok and it's coming straight from the airport. It goes like this: in an animated British accent, a woman declares that 'nothing beats a Jet2 holiday,' while comically bad, dangerous or silly vacation fails fill the screen. The voiceover comes from a commercial for Jet2, a U.K.-based discount travel company. The videos are garnering millions upon millions of views, as more and more people on TikTok join in on the fun. But the commercial and sound aren't actually new. What's a 'Jet2 holiday,' anyway? Jet2 first aired its commercial back in December 2022, according to a news release. The voiceover describes Jet2's travel deals while music plays in the background. The song is Hold My Hand by Jess Glynne, which came out in 2015. Jet2 later uploaded the commercial to YouTube in January 2024, and someone posted it to TikTok that August. According to the website Know Your Meme, which tracks online trends, the Jet2 Holiday meme began to take off in late 2024. WATCH — Meet the 11-year-old behind the aura-farming boat meme It started with a November 2024 post that shows an angry camel chasing a person in the desert. A gif of the original Jet2 holiday meme on TikTok. A camel chases someone on holiday, as they nervously yell. (Image credit: alfred_m08/TikTok) As the person screams and the camel continues running, we hear a voice say: 'Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday.' The video received more than 3.7 million likes in less than a year. Some other examples of videos using the Jet2 holiday sound. Left, a girl appears to run and eventually roll down a sandy hill. Right, a boy on vacation opens a large set of curtains in his hotel room, only to reveal a very, very tiny window. (notchloeexx/TikTok, bben9450/TikTok) Jet2's official TikTok jumped on the audio trend in April 2025 by posting its own video. It received 12 million views. But the meme didn't really go viral until this summer. Trending now As of July 18, more than 1.3 million videos have been posted using the sound. And Google Trends, which keeps track of popular search terms, shows a big jump in the number of people searching for terms like 'Jet2holiday' in recent weeks. A Google Trends search of Jet2holiday, reveals spikes of interest, or searches for the term lately. (Image credit: Google Trends) Tell us what you think! Have more questions? Want to tell us how we're doing? Use the 'send us feedback' link below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
