Wednesday, November 4, 2020
“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“Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.”
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Continue reading Almanac: Edmund Burke on principle a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, November 3, 2020
From 2011:
I just got another wonderful e-mail from the Bulgarian translator of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. Here it is, verbatim and in its entirety….
Read the whole thing here.
Cont…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
Edmund Burke, speech at a County Meeting of Buckinghamshire (1784)
Continue reading Almanac: Edmund Burke on submissio…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, November 2, 2020
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are seen auctioning off War Bonds at a 1944 golf tournament in a newsreel clip. Also seen is Frank Sinatra:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-rel…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Every hero becomes a bore at last.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men
Continue reading Almanac: Emerson on the staying power of heroes at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, October 30, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a webcast of the Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet. Here’s an excerpt.
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How bad can a pla…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMClairemarie Osta dances Fauré’s “Sicilienne” in the Paris Opera Ballet’s 2005 staging of George Balanchine’s “Emeralds,” the first section of Jewels, his full-evening plotles…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Growing old’s like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.”
Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings
Continue reading Almanac: Anthony Powell on growing old at About…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, October 29, 2020
“People think because a novel’s invented, it isn’t true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel’s invented, it is true. Biography and memoires can never be wholly true, sin…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, October 28, 2020
Vladimir Horowitz plays Scriabin’s Vers la flamme in the living room of his Manhattan apartment:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this sp…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“A happy childhood can’t be cured. Mine’ll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that’s all, instead of a noose.”
Hortense Calisher, Queenie
Continue reading Almanac: Hortense Calis…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, October 27, 2020
From 2010:
I, too, once felt the mad desire to own every jazz record ever made, and to have them all shelved in chronological order at arm’s length from my desk. Today I own just two racks…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertable assets, to be passed on only…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, October 26, 2020
It’s just short of seven months since the death of Hilary Teachout, my beloved wife. I was close to despair when I returned from her deathbed to my locked-down apartment, and though I thou…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMJeri Southern sings Frank Loesser’s “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year”:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Every one can master a grief but he that has it.”
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Continue reading Almanac: Shakespeare on grief at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, October 23, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review a webcast of the Mint Theater Company’ 2018 revival of Miles Malleson’s Conflict. Here’s an excerpt.
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The thing I miss most about…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMLangston Hughes reads his poem “The Weary Blues” on the CBC in 1958, accompanied by a jazz combo:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.”
G.K. Chesterton, “The Flying Stars”
Continue reading Almanac: G.K. Chesterton on e…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, October 22, 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 07:01AM“She hasn’t got any intellect to speak of; but you don’t need any intellect to be an intellectual.”
G.K. Chesterton, “The Scandal of Father Brown”
Continue reading Almanac: G.K. …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, October 21, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I take a look at a little-known survey that sheds light on the future of theater in America. Here’s an excerpt.
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As th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMShirley Horn sings “Here’s to Life” with John Williams and the Boston Pops in 1993. The arrangement is by Johnny Mandel:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related v…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England
Continue reading Almanac: G.K. Chesterton on rights at Abou…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, October 20, 2020
From 2016:
I remember quite a lot about my ten-year-old self and the town in which I lived—but not much about the rest of the world. Just the other day I looked up Wikipedia’s timeline o…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To have one’s fortune told gratifies, after all, most of the superficial demands of egotism. There is no mystery about the eternal popularity of divination.”
Anthony Powell, The Acce…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, October 19, 2020
W.B. Yeats reads and talks about three of his poems on the BBC. These recordings were made in 1932, 1934, and 1937:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Anyone can squander money, and anyone can hoard it. But the most difficult thing in the world is to know how to spend it.”
Emlyn Williams, The Corn Is Green
Continue reading Almanac: E…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, October 16, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a production of Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas webcast from Dallas. Here’s an excerpt.
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Prior to the coming of the pandemic, I travel…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMAndré Previn and the Pittsburgh Symphony perform a suite from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho at a 1979 concert:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and h…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM 
