Deadpan sarcasm perfectly pitched, absurdity of target (and publisher) punctured with a minimum of muss and fuss.
May 172013
May 142013
Any American arts critic worth his or her salt is part of a bohemian fringe, is aware of the political resonance of reviews, and is dedicated to sparking serious dialogue about arts and culture.
May 132013
Boston Does Boston acknowledges our bands by having local musicians from all over town, as well as JP, cover songs by their fav Boston rockers and dance musicians.
May 112013
The Zeitgeist Stage Company provocatively lives up to its name by taking audiences into the netherworld of horrific violence via a powerful production of Simon Stephens’ drama “Punk Rock.”
May 092013
Something emotional (perhaps even passionate) whirls underneath the well-worn modernist pieties of “Old-Fashioned Prostitutes,” though not to the point of disrupting the daffy routine.
May 032013
Criticism is vital to our time because it is a form of witnessing, testimony to the possibility that the richness and joy of the arts can be articulated in ways that invite intellectual contentiousness in the midst of community.
Apr 302013
Susanne M. Sklar’s study is the best exploration of William Blake’s miraculously bewildering masterpiece that I know of — thoughtful, scholarly, imaginative, and supremely sympathetic to the poet’s ornery complexity as well as his capacity to inspire wonder.
Apr 272013
A system in which no one takes responsibility for editorial decisions works out great for the inside gamers, like Nathaniel Rich.
Apr 242013
Nowhere do I say in the piece that The Arts Fuse is all good and everyone else is all bad.
Apr 222013
According to our docile mainstream media, Boston enjoys a perpetual Renaissance — the merchandise in the cultural window is always worth buying. And that predictability makes for very boring journalism.
Apr 172013
Ballet program administrators in Cuba will be happy I’m telling the true story in “Secundaria,” the one they’re not allowed to tell themselves.
Apr 152013
Recent changes in Boston’s media landscape do not bode well for substantial coverage of the arts. What do those in the arts world think about what is happening?
Apr 152013
Mr. Selfridge drives me nuts because the storyline, the rise of a mercantile empire, calls for edgy Darwinian conflict rather than paternal benevolence sprinkled with layers of powered soap opera.
Apr 012013
If we are not diligent in maintaining high editorial standards, arts coverage will morph into misshapen forms of infotainment and advertising. Once those monstrosities are set in profitable stone, quality arts criticism and the arts will face a problematic future.
Mar 312013
All is not well with the classical music scene in Boston. Boston’s Church of St. John the Evangelist has pulled funding from its Wednesday Concert Series.
Mar 292013
“There is a difference between blood and guts, as celebrated in the current vogue of horror-slasher flicks, and the capacity of the darkest of the Grimms’ tales to pierce the thin skin of civility and mainline the dark caverns of the collective unconscious.”
Mar 252013
With your help, The Arts Fuse will launch its first-ever advertising campaign atop taxi cabs this spring. We want to encourage Greater Boston’s arts and cultural communities to see the artsfuse.org as an indispensable resource.
Mar 102013
“Clybourne Park” was expressly written to be in conversation with Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” The former gives us a new perspective — actually new perspectives — on the latter.