Culture

Long the stepchild of a Eurocentric art world, American art is finding new favor at home as a growing number of institutions showcase work from Colonial times to World War II. Today, the Huntington in San Marino will join the Metropolitan Museum of Art and museums around the country when it unveils a renovated and expanded gallery devoted to American art.

The group was discussing Britney Spears and everyone wanted to know the same thing: How do you say "paparazzi" in Gujarati? They settled on the term phota levavara, or photo takers. "I figured that to bring Gujarati into my everyday life, it would have to fit the things that I do," like discussing pop culture with friends, said Chitavan Patel, who founded the Gujarati language group two years ago on meetup.com.

One is the face of despair; the other, of hope. Zeinab, 22, believed only death could provide an escape from her husband's merciless beatings. So she set herself on fire, leaving one-third of her body covered with oozing, blistering burns. She faces a lifetime of disfigurement and the likely loss of her two children unless she returns to her abusive marriage. Twelve-year-old Nazira's classroom is a sweltering tent, and her desk is a plastic mat on the ground. But her teachers say she is one of their brightest pupils, encouraged by a mother and father who want her to get as much education as she can. Her eyes sparkle when she describes her ambition: to become a doctor.

The words are what woo us. The words written about Edward M. Kennedy and the rest of the Kennedy family, and the words spoken and written by the family members themselves. The words that come from historians and hangers-on, from admirers and skeptics, from novelists and songwriters, from cousins and pundits and pals. The Kennedys are as much a literary phenomenon as a political one, a fact that President Obama seemed to acknowledge with his statement in the wake of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death at 77 from brain cancer on Tuesday: "An important chapter in our history has come to an end."

In his role as editor of the online magazine Lapis, Ralph White is scholarly and staid, offering literary explorations of myths, traditions, symbols and lore that have swayed thought for centuries. But once a year, White, 60, leads a number of adventurous souls on quests for the deeper mysteries of spiritual experience in castles, cathedrals, temples, tombs and ancient ruins around the world. Last week, White and 65 others have been on "An Esoteric Quest for Inner America" in Rip Van Winkle country, or upstate New York, which is the birthplace of such homegrown spiritual and cultural movements as the 19th century utopian Oneida Community and the 1969 Woodstock festival.

Go ahead, hit me with all the Tipper Gore jokes you want, but I'm beginning to think that U.S. political news, like rap music, needs a parental warning notification. Every few years or so, we have a collective paroxysm over the bad behavior of this or that group of public figures. We fret over what the antics of sports stars or celebrities teach our children. Whether they're taking illegal steroids or partying without their knickers, we hope and pray that the kids won't mimic them.

Ved Pal Maun, 27, was something of a catch in this small farm community northwest of New Delhi. But his family members rejected several marriage offers; they said he just wasn't ready. Truth was he was holding out for a particular woman, 18-year-old Sonia Banwal of the neighboring village of Singhwal. Falling in love with the girl next door would be cause for joy and celebration in many countries. But in parts of rural India, ancient traditions are rooted more deeply than the tall corn and lush green rice plants.

Will China dominate the cultural world in the 21st century? That's the prediction of Dean Corey, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, which is presenting Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. "The Olympics in China really woke us all up," Corey said. "The Chinese are a long way from being imitators; they are creators. This festival will make people aware of what will be happening in the future.

For decades, Uni Histayanti has performed the enigmatic movements of her country's traditional pendet pendet dance. She learned the rhythms as an infant and years ago opened a dinner theater here in the Indonesian capital where, dressed in native costume, she performs nightly. As she flutters her arms bird-like, darts her eyes and tilts her head at exotic angles, she invokes the welcoming spirit of the Hindu-majority Bali island where it originated centuries ago. That's why it floored her to hear that neighboring Malaysia had reportedly tried to seize the pendet as its own. It's pure cultural piracy, Histayanti insists.