2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
"The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some polit…
From 2006: I especially appreciated the irony of seeing Rhett and Scarlett galloping toward Tara to the accompaniment of Miles Davis, whose opinion of Gone With the Wind is unrecorded but mu…
"The winds of gossip blow from the chests of people ventilating their opinions." Augustine, Confessions (trans. Henry Chadwick, courtesy of Richard Zuelch)
While renting a tux the other day, I got to chatting with the young woman behind the counter, a smiling beauty who had the most gorgeous set of dreadlocks I've ever seen. I happened to menti…
Edward R. Murrow interviews Noël Coward on Person to Person. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on April 27, 1956: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that app…
"One cannot have everything the way he would like it. A man has no business to be depressed by a disappointment, anyway; he ought to make up his mind to get even." Mark Twain, A Connecticut …
In today's Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Repertory Theatre's production of a newly revised version of Finian's Rainbow. Here's an excerpt. * * * "Finian's Rainbow" is one of Broadwa…
I posted this for the first time on November 11, 2008. It’s still relevant, and (I suspect) always will be. * * * On October 9, 1918, an HMV sound engineer named Will Gaisberg set up a…
With the Marines at Tarawa, a 1944 Marine Corps documentary film directed by Louis Hayward. It won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject: (This is the latest in a series …
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear"not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the w…
"The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public servic…
The Bill Evans Trio plays Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight" on Swedish TV in 1970. Eddie Gomez is the bassist, Marty Morell the drummer: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related vide…
"But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and ch…
From 2006: The reception rooms are elegant, serene, and immaculately kept, and the windows are so thick that you can't hear any sounds from outside. The walls are covered with paintings, mos…
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the ques…
Luciana Souza and I go back a long time. The first posting on this blog was about her. We'd met a year before that, in the summer of 2002. A friend told me that she'd heard a Brazilian singe…
Rudolf Serkin, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic perform the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto at New York's Avery Fisher Hall in 1978: (This is the latest in a ser…
"It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive." Mark Twain, Following the Equator
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review two New York openings, the Public Theater transfer of Lynn Nottage's Sweat and a Broadway revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Here's an …
Marian Anderson sings "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," accompanied by Franz Rupp and introduced by Mary Martin. This performance was originally seen on The Ford 50th Anniversary Show…
"One drawback, and not the least, of practicing any art is that it becomes very difficult to enjoy the works of one's fellow artists, living or dead, simply for their own sakes. "When a poet…
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I discuss the controversial departure of Emma Rice, the outgoing artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe. Here's an excerpt. * * * Shakespe…
"Does a man feel prouder of what he achieves himself or of the effect he has on the achievements of posterity? Which epitaph upon a poet's grave would please him more: 'I wrote some of the m…
Marvin Gaye sings "Got to Give It Up" on Soui Train in 1977: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
"Yeats, like us, was faced with the modern problem, i.e., of living in a society in which men are no longer supported by tradition without being aware of it, and in which, therefore, every i…
