Tuesday, October 8, 2019
A friend of mine sent me this color photograph the other day, remarking that he suspected it was the only time that Louis Armstrong and George Bernard Shaw appeared in the same painting. It …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMFrom 2009: Much has been written in recent days, most of it silly and some of it ignorant, about the modern art that Barack and Michelle Obama have borrowed to display in the White House….…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Chris…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, October 7, 2019
The thirty-eighth episode of Three on the Aisle, the (usually) twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on li…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMAn excerpt from Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer, a 1987 documentary directed by Amram Nowak. In this scene, Singer is seen returning to Coney Island and Brighton Beac…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“When a book is boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority. They don’t expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, October 4, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review the Broadway transfer of Freestyle Love Supreme. Here’s an excerpt. * * * One of the reasons why Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hami…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMW.C. Fields performs his vaudeville juggling act in The Old Fashioned Way, directed by William Beaudine and released in 1934: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related vi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“When you’re forty, half of you belongs to the past—and when you’re seventy, nearly all of you.” Jean Anouilh, Time Remembered (trans. Patricia Moyes)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, October 3, 2019
“A fault concealed is presumed to be great.” Martial, Epigrams
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, October 2, 2019
Bing Crosby sings a medley of “Pennies from Heaven,” “The Second Time Around,” and “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” on The Bob Hope Chrysler Special, originally telecast…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person wh…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMTuesday, October 1, 2019
One of my Twitter followers asked over the weekend if I’d post a list of my favorite film scores. This is, needless to say, an impossible task, but I did spend a few minutes drawing up the…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMFrom 2009: What makes Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong different from all previous Armstrong biographies?… Read the whole thing here.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Reality does not discuss, it simply is.” Milan Kundera, Life Is Elsewhere (trans. Peter Kussi)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, September 30, 2019
Heidi Hall, an old friend of mine from Smalltown, U.S.A., died last week. She left behind a self-written obituary that is characteristic in every way and says far more about why I loved her …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMSolomon plays Schubert’s A-Flat Impromptu, D. 899/4, on the BBC in 1956: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesda…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Those few politicians of the last decades who were more intimate with the historical past—like de Gaulle and Churchill—were not protected against blunders; but if their influence was …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, September 27, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review an off-Broadway revival of Caesar and Cleopatra and the Broadway transfer of The Height of the Storm. Here’s an excerpt. * * * …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMBill “Bojangles” Robinson and Shirley Temple dance together in The Little Colonel, directed in 1935 by David Butler: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“And then, the French put things so well—so clearly. They are not afraid of platitude.” Maurice Baring, Cat’s Cradle
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, September 26, 2019
Three years ago this past April, my old friend John Sinclair and the Bach Festival Society Choir and Orchestra of Winter Park, Florida, gave the world premiere of my most recent collaboratio…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:03AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I describe one of my favorite academic pursuits, a choice example of which has lately made it into the news. Here’s an excerpt. * …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:02AM“After luncheon, we played prisoner’s base, and I at once realised that there is a vast difference between games and play. Play is played for fun, but games are deadly serious, and you d…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:00AMWednesday, September 25, 2019
Count Basie’s band, introduced by Steve Allen, performs at New York’s Birdland. This performance is an excerpt from a rare kinescope of The Steve Allen Show, originally telecast by NBC …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary. What is necessary and what is wanted comes mysteriously at the beck and call of the artist.” Maurice B…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, September 24, 2019
From 2005: George Bernard Shaw and Virgil Thomson, the two greatest music critics of modern times, got all sorts of things wrong, but even at their most willful they never failed to be both …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I’m not sure he made a flat-out great film ever—I mean, a film as good as Chinatown, where the story works on its own terms but you know you’ve seen a parable about human nature de…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, September 23, 2019
E.M. Forster talks about himself and his work on Monitor. This interview was originally telecast by the BBC on December 21, 1958: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-relate…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, September 20, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Massachusetts opening of Bedlam’s new revival of The Crucible. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Sixty-six years ago, everyone who saw “The C…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM 
