To his credit, Boston Ballet’s artistic director Mikko Nissinen is looking far and wide for ways to expand the company’s repertory.
Alessandro Baricco’s novella Silk, filled with inchoate erotic longings for which there is no explanation, became an international bestseller. Emmaus, his latest book in translation, also contains mysteries.
Between songs Touré and Raichel conferred inaudibly with one another, deciding which tune they would play next. There was very little chatting up the audience, until before the fourth song. Raichel said “Hello, Boston.” Touré asked, “How you doing?” and the audience roared.
Author Margo Livesey has pulled off a considerable literary trick: a page-turner that is also a moving, realistic, subtle, and eminently wise coming-of-age novel.
Apr 162012
In D. A. Powell’s latest volume, the dominant landscape is that of the wasting body, which is crisscrossed, investigated, confronted, and made useful again as a map in the hands of raw youth.
“Fairness and Freedom” is a cultural/political/social history of the United States and New Zealand in one volume. To the general reader’s likely question, “Why would anyone put the two in one book?”, author’s answer and binding theme is that both former British colonies are open societies with liberal democratic systems, but with a difference.
Apr 082012
The core claim of the book is that the contemporary culture is nihilistic in outlook, but unnecessarily so. The authors believe there to be a remedy to our debilitating amnesia —- to integrate our lives, in some ways, into the world as perceived by our cultural forefathers.
Apr 082012
For the reader who is not already a William Carlos Williams enthusiast, the biography provides a good corrective to the Norton Anthology picture of Williams as the poet of tiny images, of plums and red wheelbarrows and fire engines with big gold letters.
Apr 072012
This CD marks a turning point: a solo effort by Basya Schechter with outstanding back-up by a wide range of musicians that features music based on the Yiddish poetry of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
The strength of the poetry is the ambiance it creates. Narrative is almost totally submerged in imagery, which may seem natural enough in verse but often is not the case.
Although there is room for improvement, the singers engage each other, as well as the orchestra, with vigor and skill, making for a satisfying “Snegurochka” in Russian.
The Dropkick Murphys shipped up to Lowell for their 2012 St. Patrick’s Day concert, and the Arts Fuse was there.
This handsome edition of Yves Bonnefoy’s recent poetry and prose in English translation is a stunning presentation of a major poet.
Mar 112012
An unusual and powerful historical drama that looks at the troubled relationship between Jews and freed slaves at the end of The Civil War.
Mar 092012
While sound is certainly important, and language in the proper hands has its own music, syllabic harmonies need not be trumpeted as though they were the foundation of good prose.
Jonathan I. Israel has written a monumental three-volume history of the Enlightenment, approximately 2500 pages long, not including three lengthy bibliographies. His erudition is fabulous; his range is dizzying.
“So There!” comes off as a poetic species of chick lit, its female characters desperate to break deadly dull routines, longing for more (not even sure what), but generally expecting the doorway to redemption —- a passage figuratively filled with light in their imaginations -— to be a man.
A meditation on the art of Mark Rothko, ranging from memories of a mystical encounter with his art to thoughts on the recent SpeakEasy Stage production of “Red,” which is based on the life of the painter.
In light of the many translations of Cyprian Norwid’s verse into English, Danuta Borchardt thought carefully about what she was going to focus on.
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