2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
From 2005: I’ve become Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane, a middle-aged man with a head full of fireflies, perfectly remembered pinpoints of laughter and sorrow, ecstasy and humiliation, t…
"Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were wi…
On December 5 I'll be giving the keynote address at the annual Black Orchid Banquet of the Wolfe Pack, the New York-based society whose members are jointly and severally devoted to the myste…
Since last Tuesday I've seen three shows, one in Boston and two on Broadway, and written the following: ' Two 800-word Wall Street Journal piece that will run on Friday, one of them a review…
Fiona Apple sings "I Walk a Little Faster," by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh. This performance was taped at a Coleman tribute concert given in Los Angeles in 2009: (This is the latest in a se…
"From tragedy it is seldom but a step to memorabilia." Larry McMurtry, "A Return to Waco" (The New Republic, June 7, 1993)
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review the belated Broadway premiere of A.R. Gurney's Sylvia and the U.S. premiere of a new stage version of Thérèse Raquin. Here's an excerpt…
An excerpt from an interview with Arthur Miller originally telecast by the CBC in 1971: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesda…
"To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness." Flannery O'Connor, letter to Cecil Dawkins, Dec. 9, 1958
"Only, well…There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that…
Sviatoslav Richter plays excerpts from Prokofiev's Visions fugitives, Op. 22, in an undated film of a concert performance. He plays Nos. 14, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, and 18: (This is the la…
"When I met Lenin, I had much less impression of a great man than I had expected; my most vivid impressions were of Mongolian cruelty and bigotry. When I put a question to him about socialis…
From 2005: Borge's act resembled a straight piano recital gone wrong. He’d start to play a familiar piece like Clair de lune or the "Moonlight" Sonata, then swerve off in some improbab…
"I’ll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who’s in the entertainment industry does to some extent." Christopher Isherwood (interviewed in the Paris Review, Spring …
A week after bringing home my new MacBook Air, I'm more or less used to it. To be sure, I have yet to explore any of its more recherché capabilities, but now that I've written two Wall Stre…
The Byrds perform Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" on a 1968 episode of Playboy After Dark. Roger McGuinn is the lead singer, accompanied by Clarence White on lead guitar, John York on …
"I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it." Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind
I continue to adjust more or less smoothly to life with my new MacBook Air. Alas, nobody's perfect, and I hit a pothole yesterday with my e-mail program, which proceeded to swallow a half-do…
In today's Wall Street Journal I review two musicals that couldn't be more different, the New York premiere of First Daughter Suite and the Broadway premiere of Dames at Sea. Here's an excer…
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I discuss adaptations of well-known works of art that are better than (or as good as) the originals. Here's an excerpt. * * * If you're the …
The assassination scene from the original 1934 version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, written by Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis. The piece performed at the Royal Al…
"We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries: we are in politics to deal with them." Margaret Thatcher, interview, World in Action (January 27, 1978)
"If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor." Albert Einstein (freely rendered by Arthur Koestler in The Yogi and the Commissar)
Arturo Toscanini leads the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the overture from Verdi's La Forza del Destino. This performance was filmed in 1943 for inclusion in Hymn of the Nations, a World War II …
"There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry Lee (May 15, 1826)
