Jasper County’s historic courthouse is a frequent stop for tourists traveling Route 66.

Now, Route 66 history is a part of the courthouse, in a display that mimics Carthage’s former Boots Drive-In.

Workers with the Joplin Museum Complex have installed the exhibit, and more elements will be added later, said Chris Wiseman, museum curator.

At 18 feet wide and 13 feet tall, the display is a representation of the front of the former drive-in that will have artifacts from the Mother Road. Members of the Jasper County Commission and the county’s courthouse preservation committee selected the design, which Wiseman developed and built.

Money for the exhibit comes from a federal highway grant, administered by the Missouri Department of Transportation.

County commissioners sought money for the project to help promote Carthage and the historic courthouse as a tourist destination.

Many visitors come to Carthage because of its...

TEL AVIV — The exhibit space is set up for only one viewer, who sits with headphones in a rotating chair and watches a video that alternates between the tony Tel Aviv space outside and the gritty, honking chaos of a military checkpoint in the West Bank.

Between the harsh juxtaposition and the rotating chair, only one reaction is common: nausea. And that is the clear aim of the artist, Miri Segal, whose “Place de la Bonne Heure” is a highlight of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Biennial, a new show timed to coincide with the centennial of this capital of Israeli culture.

It is no surprise that Tel Aviv is marking its 100th birthday by inviting artists to raise uncomfortable questions about its history and identity — the first Hebrew city, the one that arose out of the emptiness of the sand dunes as an escape from the cramped and tension-filled alleyways of the next-door Arab port of Jaffa... ... While Tel Aviv today is a thrumming metropolitan area of 1.5 million with tapas...

Gauguin (1848-1903) is one of the most influential and celebrated artists of the late nineteenth century. Remarkably, this is the first major exhibition in London to be devoted to his work in over half a century. Opening at Tate Modern on 30 September 2010, Gauguin: Maker of Myth will trace the artist’s unique approach to storytelling. Bringing together over 100 works from public and private collections from around the world, the exhibition will take a fresh and compelling look at this master of modern art.

A Post-Impressionist and a pioneer of modernism, Gauguin’s powerful and bold images were seen as radical as he distanced himself from the influence of Impressionism. Gauguin’s life has for generations epitomised the idea of the artist as romantic bohemian, looming as large as his art in the public imagination. This exhibition will challenge commonly held assumptions about the artist and his practice. It will reveal to a twenty-first century audience the complexity and...

I spoke last week with Melanie Adams, managing director at the Missouri History Museum, about an exhibit the museum is bringing in January called “Race: Are We So Different.” I asked her to write a little something about the exhibit. I have more information after the item.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” -James Baldwin, author

This quote by James Baldwin is an apt description of race relations in St. Louis. Every day the country gets more racially diverse, and people in St. Louis continue to ignore this simple fact of life. The racial diversity of any city should be seen as an asset and a way of enriching lives. Instead, many people use race as a means of separation and divisiveness and so prevent any positive change.

The Missouri History Museum is proud to bring the exhibit Race: Are We So Different? to the St. Louis community starting on Jan. 16. This exhibit, designed...

“Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” will arrive in New York City in April 2010, marking the first time a collection of treasures from King Tut’s tomb has visited the city since the groundbreaking 1979 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art launched “Tutmania” and attracted 1.8 million visitors. Following the New York showing of this National Geographic exhibition, the treasures are scheduled to return to Egypt to eventually be housed in a new Grand Museum in Cairo, which is in part being funded with proceeds from this exhibition, along with other antiquities preservation and conservation efforts.

The exhibition will be on display from late April through December 2010 at the new Discovery Times Square Exposition facility, which opened this spring in the former location of The New York Times printing presses in the heart of Times Square . Beginning today, ticket pre-registration is open at www.kingtutnyc.com. Anyone...

"We'll Meet Again" seems like one of those songs forever frozen in a time and a place: Britain in World War II. It was sung by Vera Lynn, who came to be called the "Forces Sweetheart."

Now 92-years-old, Lynn has a good reason to raise a glass.

The re-released recording of her songs on the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the war has shot to No. 1 on the U.K. charts with a bullet. It's even eclipsed the re-release of the Beatles discography.

"Personally I just can't believe it and I question. I wonder why. Nostalgia perhaps," said Lynn.

Nostalgia may explain why Lynn fan Marion Grey has joined the grey stampede to the record stores. "Well, I like her singing and my age, of course," Grey explained.

But it takes more than people of a certain age to push an album to the top.

What's going on here is Britain is at war again - now in Afghanistan. More soldiers are going...

On the evening of September 7 (Labor Day) HBO broadcast "The Last Truck:Closing of a GM Plant [in Ohio]", a documentary by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. The film interviews workers about their years at the plant, and counts down to the last day and the last truck, I found it powerful, both emotionally and aesthetically.

Immediately afterwards. I wrote to H-Labor, the labor historians discussion list:

“Shown this evening … on HBO. Let's hope it stays around in one form or another. Powerful, poignant, sad beyond belief, brilliantly done. Says much about the strengths (and some of the weaknesses) of the American working class. I hope there will be discussion here.”

Nelson Lichtenstein (University of California, Santa Barbara) responded:

“I did see it and was very impressed with personal stories and production values, but you know, I think Americans of all classes crave an analysis as well which points of fingers and charts a...

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy a year ago, Neha Jain was among the 4,500 British employees at the investment bank who found themselves with no source of income and shrinking career prospects in a recession-hit industry.

So Ms Jain, 25, who had marketed credit derivatives for the American bank, decided to, along with two other Lehman colleagues, set up a theatre group with hundreds of pounds of their own savings. It has just returned a profit less than a year after being set up. The three bankers, who had regularly worked 18-hour days for Lehman's, set up Aks Performing Arts with two others who had worked in finance. Another five came on board later, most of whom had also suffered in the financial crash, but who were willing to work for free to get their first production on to a London stage.

The troupe has just finished two sell-out shows of 30 Days in September, a play staged at Rudolf Steiner House near Baker Street, London. The play, an intense...

Millions of plant and animal specimens will go on display in giant eight-storey cocoon tomorrow as the Natural History Museum's new £78m Darwin Centre opens its doors to the public.

Up to 2,500 people a day will also be able to see the museum's scientists in action, working in once-concealed hi-tech laboratories and among 3.3 kilometres of cabinets.

Some of the glass-fronted laboratories will be linked by intercom so visitors can quiz the experts about what they are doing.

The opening celebrations were attended Prince William and Sir David Attenborough. "The Natural History Museum and the dedicated people who work here are at the very forefront of research, seeking out through study of the natural world the answers to the great questions of our age," the prince said.

"Its collections, and what it achieves in the areas of research and education make it – quite simply – the envy of the world. This magnificent new wing will...