Thursday, 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“Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.” William James, “Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 18, 2019
Many of you will likely have seen the update on Mrs. T that I posted in this space on Monday. It was, as is our custom, a cheery, reasonably optimistic description of what happened to her ov…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:04AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I offer a brief summary of key trends in American theater during the past decade, part of an ongoing series of reports by the paper’s arts critics. Here�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:03AMThe forty-third 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 liste…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:02AMBobby Short and Mabel Mercer perform on PBS in 1972: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:01AM“The most violent revolutions in an individual’s beliefs leave most of his old order standing.” William James, “What Pragmatism Means”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:00AMTuesday, December 17, 2019
From 2003: I try not to fly at night, but this time I decided to give it a go, and at the end of 45 anxious minutes spent pushing through a cold front, our smaller-than-usual jet popped out …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” William James, The Principles of Psychology
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMMonday, December 16, 2019
As those of you who follow me in the social media may already know, Mrs. T spent Saturday night in the emergency room of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, her transplant center. Our original p…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 08:13AMBecause of Mrs. T’s illness, I didn’t post quite as much in this space in 2019 as I have in previous years. Nevertheless, I’ve been a reasonably active blogger, and I thought you might…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:02AMJulie Andrews sings “I Could Have Danced All Night,” from My Fair Lady, on an episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show originally telecast by NBC on January 12, 1958. Andrews was then app…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:01AM“Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:00AMFriday, December 13, 2019
Buddy Rich and the Tonight Show orchestra play Horace Silver’s “Nutville” in 1974, introduced by Johnny Carson. The members of the band include Conte Candoli on trumpet, Lew Tabackin o…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:01AM“I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.” Anton Chekhov, letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:00AMThursday, December 12, 2019
“People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about.” Anton Chekhov, “About Love”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:00AMWednesday, December 11, 2019
Bruno Walter leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in a 1946 rehearsal of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this sp…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.” Anton Chekhov, “The Teacher of Literature”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, December 10, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I write about the best theater of 2019: On Broadway and across America, it’s the same old story: Large-scale musicals are in a long-term slump. I saw onl…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMFrom 2010: Apropos of the front cover of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, James Breig, a reader of this blog, writes with a query: “Impertinent question: Is the cover photo reversed (Arms…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I saw all of my mother’s people, her sisters and brothers and their children that are left, that live here, crowding into the living room around Aunt Inez and her boys…and I thought o…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, December 9, 2019
Richard Burton and John Gielgud in a scene from Hamlet. This production, staged by Gielgud, was filmed in 1964 at a Broadway performance: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and histor…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“First of all, dismiss ideas, and social background, and train the freshman to shiver, to get drunk on the poetry of Hamlet or Lear, to read with his spine and not with his skull.” Vladi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, December 6, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway transfer of Jagged Little Pill. Here’s an excerpt. * * * How good can a jukebox musical hope to be? Only modestly, in my experi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMIn an excerpt from Stravinsky, a 1965 documentary by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor, Igor Stravinsky and Nicholas Nabokov have a drink together in Hamburg in 1965, then attend a recording se…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts.” Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opini…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, December 5, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I take note of the death of John Simon. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who had various kinds of …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM“No free man needs a God; but was I free?” Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 4, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway premiere of a new stage version of A Christmas Carol and an off-Broadway revival of A Bright Room Called Day. Here’s an excerpt. * �…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMRalph Ellison talks about his never-completed second novel in an interview originally telecast on public TV in 1966: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.” Vladimir Nabokov, “Problems of Translation: ‘Onegin’ in English”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM 
