Tuesday, January 7, 2020
“Leisure is a form of that stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still, cannot hear.” Josef Pieper,…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, January 6, 2020
“Behind the Tunes: A Conversation with Tex Avery,” an undated interview with the animator-director who created the prototypes for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig: (This…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Comedy is the salt of civilization, its critical voice.” Guy Davenport, “That Faire Field of Enna” (courtesy of Anecdotal Evidence)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, January 3, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Lincoln Center Theater’s off-Broadway production of Samuel D. Hunter’s Greater Clements. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Now that Horton Foote …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:02AMIda Lupino appears as the guest on This Is Your Life. The host is Ralph Edwards. This episode was originally telecast live by NBC on March 3, 1958: (This is the latest in a series of arts- …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM“Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other’s good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.” W.H. Auden, “Th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMThursday, January 2, 2020
“Those who do not doubt do not believe. Faith is maintained by resolving doubts, and again resolving those further doubts which are suggested by the resolution of previous doubts.” Migue…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMWednesday, January 1, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I write about the different ways in which playwrights make stage dialogue sound “realistic.” Here’s an excerpt. * * * St…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:02AMGeorge Balanchine’s version of The Nutcracker, performed by the New York City Ballet and originally telecast by CBS in 1958 as an episode of Playhouse 90. The score is by Tchaikovsky. Th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM“When there is no hope, there can be no endeavour.” Samuel Johnson, The Rambler (November 6, 1750)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMTuesday, December 31, 2019
Mrs. T and I were in truly dire straits a year ago today, enough so that I tremble now to remember what we were going through. Alas, things have been just as bad for us in recent weeks, but …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMFrom 2004: The last sound I heard before I got in my rental car this morning and headed for the Smalltown city limits was a train whistle. My brother tells me that more freight trains have b…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.” Clive James, “Exploring the Medium”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, December 30, 2019
“With Lawrence in Arabia,” a 1927 silent film featurette about T.E. Lawrence. This newsreel-style film, which Lowell Thomas showed to audiences as part of a lecture about Lawrence’s ex…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“She was too haughty to deny herself that luxury of the proud-minded—a sense of justice.” Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show (courtesy of Levi Stahl)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, December 27, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway revival of Dion Bouciault’s London Assurance. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Here’s the good news…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:04AMA new episode of Three on the Aisle, the bimonthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downl…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:03AMDave Frishberg’s “The Difficult Season,” sung and played by Frishberg at Lincoln Center in 2002: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:02AM“The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.” W.H. Auden, foreword to The V…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:00AMThursday, December 26, 2019
“If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?” Graham Greene, The Comedia…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 25, 2019
Peter Warlock’s “Bethlehem Down,” performed by Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in 2016: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related vide…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result com…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMTuesday, December 24, 2019
Two years ago, Mrs. T and I made plans to spend Christmas on Florida’s Sanibel Island, our beloved home away from home, for the first time ever—but then her doctors told her in no uncert…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:02AMLouis Armstrong recites Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.” This was Armstrong’s last commercial recording. He made it at his home in Queens on February 26, 1971, five mont…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:01AM“Others, one suspects, are afraid that the crossing of space, and above all contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith. They may be r…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:00AMMonday, December 23, 2019
Lennox Berkeley’s “I sing of a maiden,” performed by Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in 2016: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-relate…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:01AM“Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.” Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:00AMFriday, December 20, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the off-Broadway premiere of Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ new play. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Stephen Adly …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMShirley Temple is interviewed by Michael Parkinson on Parkinson. This episode was originally telecast by the BBC on July 22, 1972: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-relat…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, December 19, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I recall the career of Boris Karloff, who was as fine a stage actor as he was a movie star. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Chuck Jo…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM 
