Arthur Rubinstein plays an abridged version of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, accompanied by a studio orchestra conducted by Alfred Wallenstein. The performance was o…
"It is madness to expect anything of anyone. The sooner you expect anything of anyone life becomes a wilderness of disappointment." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
From 2005: These postings put me in mind of H.L. Mencken's saying that criticism is "prejudice made plausible." He had a point, but some prejudices don't lend themselves to such treatment, o…
"The disagreeable aspect of so many people is not so much their doing unpleasant things, as wanting to justify them." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
' It hasn't happened often, or recently, but from time to time I've been told things about good friends that I really, really didn't want to know. None of them, fortunately, was bad enough t…
Liza with a "Z": A Concert for Television, an hour-long TV concert by Liza Minnelli, produced by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, staged by Fosse, and conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. The concert, filme…
"One of the basic human rights is to make fun of people. It is now threatened." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I commence my summer travels with a trip to the suburbs of Philadelphia, where I saw a rare and excellent professional revival of Neil Simon's Bil…
In today's "Sightings" column I write in praise of George Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody. Here's an excerpt. * * * Life's hardest lessons are often learned most easily when taught with a smil…
"Love of power in people is often associated with hatred of authority." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
"One of the great points about people who have an eye to the main chance is that their interest in one cannot fail to be acceptable, because it is of necessity flattering." Anthony Powell, A…
Buddy Rich and his big band play "Love for Sale" on Danish TV in 1968: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
"An artist is almost always something of an embarrassment to his work." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
Courtesy of Hannah Gersen by way of Karigee, this literary list. One or two questions failed to ring my bell, but for the most part I found them stimulating and, on occasion, provocative: PA…
From 2005: I left the theater and stood for a long time on the steps leading down to the street, taking deep breaths of the cold night air, filled with a warmth that seemed to buoy me up. Th…
"One of the most difficult things to realize when one is young is that all the awful odds and ends taking place around one are, in fact, the process of living." Anthony Powell, A Writer's No…
On Friday afternoon I taped an episode of Theater Talk with Ben Brantley of the New York Times, Peter Marks of the Washington Post, and John Simon, who is about to turn ninety. It was fun, b…
Nobody practices everything they preach, and in the cases of certain people, the practice-preach ratio is quite spectacularly out of whack. While I think my ratio is reasonably healthy, one …
Robertson Davies talks about critics on the CBC in 1973: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
"One of the very few realistic advances that can be achieved in life is to realize that one has been an ass regarding a given subject." Anthony Powell, A Writer's Notebook
The Broadway season ended last week, and today's Wall Street Journal drama column, in which I review the off-Broadway premiere of Grounded, reflects that fact. Here's an excerpt. * * * No di…
"Very few plays are any good and no first plays are any good." George Abbott (quoted in Maurice Zolotow, "Broadway's Most Successful Penny Pincher," Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 29, 1955)
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wal…
"He was a great original, but he was not a one-off, like Katharine Hepburn, or Michael Caine, whom it is possible to imitate, but from whom it is not possible to learn." Simon Callow, prefac…
David Letterman is about to retire after thirty-three years as a late-night TV host, and he's marked the occasion by giving a genuinely revealing interview to the New York Times: I'm awash i…