2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
"Though a sense of humor was generally spoken of with approval, and a man was pitied for lacking one, Abner supposed that he must lack one himself. When he saw a sense of humor in action, it…
Miami City Ballet performs George Balanchine's Square Dance, choreographed in 1957 to the music of Corelli and Vivaldi. This performance was originally telecast on PBS in 2012: (This is the …
"Altogether without malice, indeed with the kindliest anxiety, older people often seemed to feel that, just so long as they implied that you were today improved, you would not mind hearing, …
Barry Shabaka Henley, the star of the Court Theatre's upcoming Chicago production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, talks about why he decided to appear in my play: Performances start on Thursday. …
From 2006: I’m a childless singleton who spends most of his nights on the town and hasn’t held a nine-to-five job for years. You might mistake me for a wastrel if I didn’t …
"'When you get to be my age,' he said, 'you have a feeling, and the vainest feeling in the world, that you'd give a lot to have known some of the things you know now when you were young. You…
Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) describes his upcoming fight with Sonny Liston, accompanied on the piano by Liberace, as seen on a 1964 episode of The Jack Paar Program: (This is t…
"Bailey might not have great intelligence or abilities, but his whole aim, thought and study was that of the born leader"to look out for himself; and he did it with that born-leader's confid…
Merle Travis sings "Nine Pound Hammer" on TV in 1951: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
"Life"how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere." V.S. Pritchett, Midnight Oil
Duke Ellington plays "Auld Lang Syne" in 1962:
"The details of happiness do not stay in the memory, and the rest of the day is a tapestry of sunlight and summer sounds." Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography
A complete archival multi-camera sound film of the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, starring Mary Martin. The production, directed by Joshua Logan, was …
"Racine is the most adult of authors, with a classic simplicity bound to deceive the most precocious student by his look of poverty: to the immature eye, the exquisitely right can look like …
From 2005: I'm full of good intentions"how could I not be? But this is the most important one of all: I promise not to fall back into my old ways the first time I slip up. Because I will, re…
"Nothing can ever irk again as badly as the boredoms of childhood." Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography
A year ago this week, Mrs. T and I were headed south to Florida via Amtrak, an experience that we found…well, interesting. Come Wednesday we'll be flying there, and if all goes well, we sh…
On Sunday I took Mrs. T, who likes science fiction, to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It's the first Star Wars film that I've seen since 1980. I saw the original Star Wars (which I found char…
George Balanchine's Ballo della Regina, choreographed in 1978 and danced by Merrill Ashley, Robert Weiss, and New York City Ballet. The score is Verdi's ballet music for Don Carlos. This per…
"Grief stabs in the back, unawares." Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography
An excerpt from City Limits: Memories of a Small-Town Boy, my first book, published in 1991. * * * Not long after Thanksgiving, my mother would spend the better part of a Saturday afternoon …
Jordan de Souza and the CBC/McGill Youth Choir perform Benjamin Britten's "There Is No Rose" (from A Ceremony of Carols), accompanied by Valérie Milot on harp: (This is the latest in a seri…
"There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his." Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Louis Armstrong recites Clement Moore’s "The Night Before Christmas." This was Armstrong’s last commercial recording. He made it at his home in Queens on February 26, 1971, five …
"He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses." Ralph Wa…
