Tony Judt in Ukraine, Richard Blanco in Cuba, Jean-Michel Basquiat in Brooklyn, Patti Smith on Showtime: Cultural Digest, August 13

Basquiat at the Brooklyn Museum 

• A medieval sword contains a mysterious engraving that has been stumping experts and historians for years. 
• Reading Tony Judt in war-torn Ukraine. Tony Judt was one of our most important thinkers and when he died in 2010, it was a major loss for contemporary thinking, particularly on Europe and history.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat died on this day 27 years ago. The Brooklyn Museum is currently exhibiting some of his notebooks until August 23.
• Showtime will adapt Patti Smith's 2010 memoir, Just Kids, into a mini-series. 
• Cuba Through the Eyes of American poet Richard Blanco. Blanco reads a poem on the occasion of the opening of the US Embassy there, a first for an openly gay poet of Cuban dissent.