2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
From 2006: I "owned" dozens of books, some of them confiscated from my parents' shelves and others bought with my allowance. A few can still be found on the shelves of my old bedroom, includ…
"When two people today engage in an argument, each tends to spend half of his time and energy not in producing evidence to support his point of view but in looking for the hidden motives whi…
I was nosing around Facebook the other day when I stumbled across a reproduction of a picture postcard that bore on its face an ancient black-and-white photograph of the first church that I …
Boris Karloff is the guest on an episode of This Is Your Life, hosted by Ralph Edwards. This episode was originally telecast by NBC on November 20, 1957: (This is the latest in a series of a…
"The difference between major and minor poetry has nothing to do with the difference between better and worse poetry. Indeed it is frequently the case that a minor poet produces more single …
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review two important revivals, the Public Theater's Plenty and Lincoln Center Theater's Falsettos. Here's an excerpt. * * * Big news for serious…
Hot Tuna performs "Hesitation Blues" on Laura Webber's Folklore Guitar, originally telecast on San Francisco's KQED-TV in 1970. Jorma Kaukonen is the singer and guitarist, Jack Casady the ba…
"A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative,' is asking you not to believe him. So don't." Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey
"The first effect of modernism was to make high culture difficult: to surround beauty with a wall of erudition." Roger Scruton, Modern Culture
Arthur Rubinstein plays Chopin's B-Flat Minor Scherzo, Op. 31, in an undated telecast: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday…
a href=”http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/INK-BOTTLE.jpeg”>"Yes, I am very lucky, but I have a little theory about this. I have noticed thro…
The Wall Street Journal has given me an extra column this week in which to report on the opening of the new Broadway revival of The Front Page. Here's an excerpt from my review, which appear…
From 2006: It’s quiet in Smalltown, so much so that half-audible, half-remembered sounds are constantly catching my ear: ' The hollow, rattly clunk of the back door of my mother’…
"What we have here is a story of profound instability and impermanence. This is what you learn at the beginning in show business; then it gets planted in you forever." Steven Hill (quoted in…
David Oistrakh, Heinz Fricke, and the Berlin State Opera Orchestra perform Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto on German TV in 1967: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos t…
"I have no answer to the great civic questions raised by the behavior of Furtwängler or the other artists I have named. Splendid artists all, they compromised their civic virtue in order to…
In today's Wall Street Journal I review two Roundabout Theatre Company productions, the U.S. premiere of Mike Bartlett's Love, Love, Love and a Broadway revival of The Cherry Orchard. Here's…
The main titles and prologue of Laurence Olivier's 1944 film version of Shakespeare's Henry V. The score is by William Walton: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that app…
"Skepticism as a philosophy is not merely doubt, but what may be called dogmatic doubt. The man of science says 'I think it is so-and-so, but I am not sure.' The man of intellectual curiosit…
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I look at the current rash of symphony-orchestra strikes, and offer a historical perspective. Here's an excerpt. * * * Two American orchestr…
"Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination." Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
Alfred Cortot plays Chopin's A Flat Waltz, Op. 69/1, in Paris in 1943: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
"I always thought that one secret of a good western, with the exception maybe of High Noon, is that the story's problem is not the leading man's problem. The leading man should be able to wa…
From 2006: Love-hungry bachelors of the Fifties and early Sixties were notorious for using jazz and romantic ballads to grease the skids. Frank Sinatra, I'm told, was their artist of choice,…
"My theory has always been to write a real small story against a big background." Burt Kennedy (quoted in The Guardian, February 16, 2001)
