"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…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review the Broadway transfer of Freestyle Love Supreme. Here's an excerpt. *Â Â *Â Â * One of the reasons why Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hami…
W.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 …
"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)
"A fault concealed is presumed to be great." Martial, Epigrams
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 by NBC on…
"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 who …
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 f…
From 2009: What makes Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong different from all previous Armstrong biographies?… Read the whole thing here.
"Reality does not discuss, it simply is." Milan Kundera, Life Is Elsewhere (trans. Peter Kussi)
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 …
Solomon 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, Wednesday,…
"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 more p…
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. *Â Â *Â Â…
Bill "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 th…
"And then, the French put things so well"so clearly. They are not afraid of platitude." Maurice Baring, Cat's Cradle
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…
In 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. *  …
"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 do no…
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 on…
"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 Barin…
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 …
"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 delivere…
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-rela…
"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 al…