Pico Iyer on Kurosawa & Japan, Harriet Tubman Madame $20, Mario Bellatin and his publisher, Orson Welles new release: last 2015 links

• Harriet Tubman wins informal poll to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Doesn't seem like the US government is involved in any way so too earlier to tell if this will actually result in Tubman making the bill. Still, with all the odd pressures from online petitions and the like, it may actually turn into something.
• Pico Iyer wrote a really moving piece about Akira Kurosawa's film, Ikiru, but that's really just the starting point. The piece is part of the series that NYRB is doing about life-changing films and Iyer explores his relationship with Japan by viewing the film and then his relationship with the film via his life in Japan. It's a gorgeous movie, one of Kurosawa's best, but also a really lovely piece about what it means to really live.
• The New Yorker looks at Mexican writer Mario Bellatin's war with his publisher and how the publishing world in Mexico operates on a totally different kind of scale. Bellatin, some might remember, was on our list for our 2015 but had to cancel last minute because he couldn't get a visa to enter Canada. His book Beauty Salon is one of my favorite reads of the last several years.
• Criterion Collection will be releasing Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight, one of his most under-appreciated (and often not widely seen) films, one of the films Welles himself called his favorite. The film is a dark Shakespearean romp though in classic Welles style that challenges, entertains and makes one laugh.