Monday, May 18, 2020
Vladimir Horowitz plays Scriabin’s D-Sharp Minor Etude, Op. 8, No. 12, at Carnegie Hall in 1968. The video is from a concert telecast by CBS. The audio has been synchronized from a high-qu…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”
Winston Churchill,…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, May 15, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Repertory Theatre’s online webcast version of Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
I’ve been eagerly waitin…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMA BBC “Arena” TV documentary about Paul Scofield, produced and directed by David Thompson and originally telecast on December 24, 2008:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and hist…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very p…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, May 14, 2020
“It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy.”
Cary Grant, interviewed by Sheilah Graham (Motion Picture, June 1964)
Continue r…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, May 13, 2020
Count Basie and His Orchestra play Freddie Green’s “Corner Pocket” live in Sweden in 1962:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this spac…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through and see those whom one loves come through.”
E.M…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, May 12, 2020
From 2004:
“I watched the tail end of Master and Commander after I got home from a dinner party in Washington Heights last night, then read myself to sleep with the last chapter of David…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.”
Epicurus, Principal Doctrines (trans. Robert Drew Hick…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, May 11, 2020
It’s no secret, since I haven’t made it one here or elsewhere, that I’ve been having a rocky time of it for the past month. Grief maintains its own inexorable schedule without referenc…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 09:44AMA rare 1953 promotional film for the Hollywood String Quartet, a group led by Felix Slatkin (Leonard Slatkin’s father) and comprised of the first-chair string players of Hollywood’s film…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To have been happy, madame, leads to calamity.”
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Fair Maid of the Inn
Continue reading Almanac: Beaumont and Fletcher on happiness at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, May 8, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a webcast of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis’ “TourCo” production of Cymbeline. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Earlier this season, Shakespea…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMJackie Gleason, Art Carney, and Marian Seldes appear in “The Laugh Maker,” a drama by A.J. Russell, directed by Paul Nickell and originally telecast live by CBS on Studio One in 1953:
(…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.”
James Russell Lowell, “Dryden”
Continue reading Almanac: James Russell Lowell on solitude at Ab…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, May 7, 2020
Until I truly loved, I was alone.
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, “The Lady of La Garaye”
Continue reading Almanac: Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton on love and loneliness at About Last …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, May 6, 2020
“Diary of a Sergeant,” a 1945 U.S. Signal Corps documentary short about Harold Russell, a paratroop sergeant who lost his hands in a World War II demolition accident. (In the film, Alfre…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMYour absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
W.S. Merwin, “Separation” (courtesy of Emily Gordon)
Continue reading Almanac: …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, May 5, 2020
From 2004:
My friends all take vacations, and swear by them. I don’t, and after due consideration I’ve decided to blame this idiosyncrasy on my late father, who planned the family vacati…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Best thing to do with memories is—forget ’em.”
Dudley Nichols, screenplay for The Long Voyage Home (based on the plays of Eugene O’Neill)
Continue reading Almanac: Dudley Nichols…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, May 4, 2020
A new episode of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or d…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMEubie Blake, the great ragtime and jazz pianist and composer, talks about his life and work, endorses Dr Pepper, and sings and plays the Dr Pepper jingle in a recording session for a 1974 TV…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (trans. George L…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, May 1, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I review a webcast production of The Diary of Anne Frank from St. Paul, Minnesota. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Why can’t theater compani…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:03AMMy beloved Hilary died a month ago tonight. I returned home from the hospital to the enforced solitude of life in latter-day Manhattan—she was the last person whom I have touched—and I�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:02AMNat King Cole and His Trio perform “Little Girl.” Cole is accompanied by Irving Ashby on guitar, Joe Comfort on bass, and Jack Costanzo on bongo drums. This performance, which dates from…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:01AM“There are no heroes of action—only heroes of renunciation and suffering. Of these there are plenty. But few of them are known, and even they not to the crowd, but to the few.”
Albert …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:00AMThursday, April 30, 2020
“So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.”
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Continue reading Almanac: John Bunyan on death at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, April 29, 2020
Jack Mangan interviews Tennessee Williams on board the S.S. Queen Mary. This clip was originally telecast in 1950 by WJZ-TV as part of Ship’s Reporter, a TV series in which Mangan interv…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMTo live in hearts we leave behind
is not to die.
Thomas Campbell, “Hallowed Ground”
Continue reading Almanac: Thomas Campbell on death and remembrance at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM 
