Thursday, October 6, 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I speak out in support of shorter theatrical performances—and cutting the classics. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The Metropolitan Oper…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AM“I get outa that bed every day, see? I make a good salary and my horn still sounds good. And I feel good. So I don’t think nobody in the world any richer than I am. Musicians don’t ret…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, October 5, 2016
Joni Mitchell sings “California” on The Johnny Cash Show. This episode was originally telecast by ABC in 1969: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Ah! the books that one will never read again. They gave delight, perchance something more; they left a perfume in the memory; but life has passed them by for ever. I have but to muse, and…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, October 4, 2016
Mrs. T and I opted last Monday to watch a William Powell comedy, My Man Godfrey, instead of subjecting ourselves to the first presidential debate. When I tweeted about our decision, these re…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMFrom 2004: If you’re going to make a stage or screen adaptation of a familiar work of art, you really only have two viable alternatives: try to reproduce the original as closely as possibl…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Important writing, strange to say, rarely gives the exact flavor of its period; if it is successful it presents you with the soul of man, undated.” George Dangerfield, The Strange Death…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, October 3, 2016
Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) is the mystery guest on To Tell the Truth. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on April 29, 1958. The host is Bud Collyer: (This is the latest in a series…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AMThe Mosaic Theatre Company’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf closed yesterday afternoon in Washington, D.C. It’s always bittersweet when a show comes to the end of its run, but this…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“There’s nothing sadder than an old hipster.” Lenny Bruce, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, September 30, 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Chicago Shakespeare’s Tug of War: Civil Strife and the Broadway premiere of Simon McBurney’s The Encounter. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The most …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMOrson Welles takes questions from a panel of British reporters on Press Conference, originally telecast by the BBC on January 14, 1955: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“‘I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I’ve ever written. By the time you read this I’ll be dead.’—Clive Barnes” David Mamet (originally p…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, September 29, 2016
“One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, September 28, 2016
The Kinks perform Ray Davies’ “Sunny Afternoon” in a 1966 promotional video: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, an…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.” Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, September 27, 2016
From 2006: The first item is a picture of me taken at ten-fifteen on the evening of February 6, 1956, thirty minutes after I was born. I weighed eight pounds and one-and-a-half ounces, and h…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is f…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, September 26, 2016
Oscar Levant appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? (Levant’s segment starts 21:52 into the video.) This episode was originally telecast by CBS on October 17, 1965. The panelist…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Snobs are always insufferable, even when they’re right, though holding strong opinions is not the same as snobbery. Some ideas and tastes are worthy only of contempt.” Patrick Kurp, �…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, September 23, 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review an important off-Broadway revival of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Shelagh Delaney wrote her first play, “A Tas…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMA Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, a 1979 TV version of the 1977 revival of their two-person 1958 Broadway revue. Paul Trueblood is the pianist: originally telecast in 1979: (This i…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“‘I never know why self-sacrifice is noble,’ said Miss Burke. ‘Why is it better to sacrifice oneself than someone else?’ “‘It is no better,’ said Hester, ‘and it is not rea…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, September 22, 2016
Mrs. T and I just watched Conquest, a delicious 1937 movie in which Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo played Napoleon Bonaparte and the Countess Marie Walewska. Seeing Conquest reminded me that …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:28PM“It is no good to think that other people are out to serve our interests.” Ivy Compton-Burnett, Elders and Betters
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, September 21, 2016
Chuck Berry sings and plays “Maybelline” in an undated, unidentified telecast: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, an…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“People don’t resent having nothing nearly as much as too little.” Ivy Compton-Burnett, A Family and a Fortune
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, September 20, 2016
My “Sightings” column for this week’s Wall Street Journal, which appeared on the paper’s website over the weekend, took note of the death on Friday of Edward Albee. It is running in …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:30AMFrom 2006: As I was soaring through the skies of Pennsylvania the other day, my iPod served up Leopold Stokowski’s 1937 recording of Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (not currently ava…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:15AM“The people sinned against are not always the best.” Ivy Compton-Burnett, The Mighty and their Fall
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMMonday, September 19, 2016
I recently read an article about the Washington production of Satchmo at the Waldorf that contained this observation: A soulful, nuanced snapshot of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong’s lat…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AM 
