Monday, November 23, 2020
“When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.”
Ambrose Bierce, Epigrams
Continue reading Alm…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 20, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Rep’s webcast revival of Bill Irwin’s On Beckett/In Screen. Here’s an excerpt.
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It’s a puzzle to me why we have yet to…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMElla Fitzgerald appears as a guest on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. This episode was originally telecast by NBC on March 8, 1959:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I don’t know how a man can describe his wife to somebody else unless he dislikes her—there is nothing like dislike to make a character appear vivid—but the very things in a woman th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, November 19, 2020
“What baffles me is the comfort people find in the idea that somebody dealt this mess. Blind and meaningless chance seems to me so much more congenial—or at least less horrible. Prove to…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, November 18, 2020
Walter Brennan is the guest on “This Is Your Life.” This episode was originally telecast by NBC on March 30, 1955:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“But that’s medicine, the art of prolonging disease.”
“Jesus,” I said, with a laugh. “Why would anybody want to prolong it?”
“In order to postpone grief.”
Peter De Vries, …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, November 17, 2020
A new episode of Three on the Aisle, the podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.
He…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:10AMFrom 2004:
All of which leads me to ask: is the performance of classical music an intellectual activity? Did the breadth of Glenn Gould’s culture make him a better interpreter of Bach? I w…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM“We all have to climb out of the pit of desolation, or what is more likely, have to live in it, planting our flowers among the ashes and squirting them with our gaiety.”
Peter De Vries, …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, November 16, 2020
Bing Crosby appears as the guest on Person to Person, hosted by Edward R. Murrow. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on December 3, 1954:
(This is the latest in a series of a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.”
Rebecca West, The Meaning of Treason
Continue reading Alman…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 13, 2020
Ben Webster plays Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge” in an undated telecast from the Sixties:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this s…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think—in fact th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, November 12, 2020
I reviewed Syracuse Stage’s webcast of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt.
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Full-length plays for two actors are in greate…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 09:35PM“There’s enough sorrow in the world, isn’t there, without trying to invent it.”
E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
Continue reading Almanac: E.M. Forster on sorrow at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, November 11, 2020
On Friday night I taped a two-hour-long Zoom video interview with Bill Hayes, the artistic director of Palm Beach Dramaworks, in which the two of us talked about my life, my work as a critic…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMLouis Armstrong and the All Stars perform “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” “What a Wonderful World,” and “Hello, Dolly!” at Fort Hood in 1967. They are introduced by Dick Ca…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Solitude is the mother of anxieties.”
Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings
Continue reading Almanac: Publilius Syrus on solitude at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, November 10, 2020
A Terry Teachout Reader, my self-anthology, came out sixteen years ago. I’ve published hundreds of pieces on various subjects since then, and I have no plans to put together a sequel to th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMFrom 2005:
If you can write like Mencken or Shaw or Thomson, and if you have a personality as interesting as theirs, you don’t have to be “right” in order to be taken seriously as a …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMO sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, P…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, November 9, 2020
Constant Lambert leads the London Philharmonic in an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. This is a clip from Battle for Music, a 1943 documentary about the orchestra:
(This is …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMIt’s no good escaping your doom
By taking a ticket to Spain;
The bulging portmanteaux of gloom
Will arrive by a later train.
Constant Lambert, occasional verse quoted by friends
Continue r…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 6, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review West Coast webcasts of Art and Same Time, Next Year. Here’s an excerpt.
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How effective can a stage comedy be when performed without an …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMA Terry Teachout Reader, my self-anthology, came out sixteen years ago. I’ve published hundreds of pieces on various subjects since then, and I have no plans to put together a sequel to th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMAn excerpt from “Le Mystère Picasso,” directed in 1955 by Henri-Georges Clouzot:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Mond…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source, they work from within.�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, November 5, 2020
Men tighten the knot of confusion
Into perfect misunderstanding.
T.S. Eliot, The Family Reunion
Continue reading Almanac: T.S. Eliot on misunderstanding at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, November 4, 2020
A Terry Teachout Reader, my self-anthology, came out sixteen years ago. I’ve published hundreds of pieces on various subjects since then, and I have no plans to put together a sequel to th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM“Tuesday in November,” a 1945 documentary featurette about elections in America made by the Office of War Information for overseas distribution. It was directed by John Houseman and scor…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM 
