Year: 2007

Fuse Flash: New York Times Breaks Long Silence on Matter Controversies

November 29, 2007
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The New York Times broke nearly eight months of silence in its Nov. 29 issue to report on a symposium, “Are They Pollocks? What Science Tells Us About the Matter Paintings,” presented the previous night under the sponsorship of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock doing his thing

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Fuse Flash: Pollock Research Fractured?

November 27, 2007
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According to a report in ScienceDaily, more surprises may be in store for those following the Pollock-Matter controversies. The award-winning website, which specializes in breaking developments in scientific research, has announced that Case Western Reserve University physicist Lawrence Krauss will be among the invited guests to a New York symposium this week on scientific studies…

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Music Review: Berlin Philharmonic

November 22, 2007
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By Caldwell Titcomb There are many who claim that the Berlin Philharmonic is the greatest symphony orchestra in the world. Whether true or not, this formidable institution visited Boston’s Symphony Hall this week, led by Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955). From 1980 to 1998 Rattle raised the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to the top…

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Fuse Flash: Another Shoe off the Pollock Matters Centipede?

November 18, 2007
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For those still perusing the shopping mall of controversies built around the Pollock Matter Affair (see past Fuse Flash and Anonymous Sources posts) another well-polished shoe (or more) may drop later this month at an International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) symposium in New York City.

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Visual Arts: The Cotswolds Rembrandt

November 17, 2007
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em>The initial reactions by Rembrandt specialists to the Cotswolds painting were nearly all marked by caution.

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Norman Mailer: Tough Fights

November 11, 2007
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By Bill Marx and Harvey Blume I was asked by National Public Radio’s Morning Edition to write an appreciation of the late Norman Mailer. I have posted an unabridged version of this necessarily short piece. After that, I have placed an interview Harvey Blume had with Mailer after the publication of his 1995 book Oswald’s…

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Music Review: Dazzling Dudamel & His Kids

November 10, 2007
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By Caldwell Titcomb Boston now knows what the international shouting has been about this year. In the field of classical music, the greatest buzz has focused on the frizzy-haired young conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (SBYO), which came to town for a November 7 concert in Symphony Hall.

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Book Commentary: Young Stalin — Dynamite and Dialectics

November 6, 2007
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By Harvey Blume If you want to get a glimpse of a Joseph Stalin you likely had never conceived of before, just turn to the mug shot taken of him by Tsarist police in 1912 or some of the other photos in Sebag Montefiore fascinating, radically revisionist new biography Young Stalin. This Stalin is no…

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Theater Review: “Brendan” — Ghost Mom to the Rescue

October 31, 2007
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Brazenly predictable, fearlessly anachronistic, Ronan Noone’s Brendan, which is receiving its world premiere production from the Huntington Theatre Company, is the kind of inspirational tearjerker comedy that is pleasant enough to sit through but damned depressing to think about.

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Theater Review: “West Side Story” at 50

October 28, 2007
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By Caldwell Titcomb It was something of a scandal a half century ago when West Side Story lost the best -musical Tony award to the mediocre and formulaic The Music Man. But time has a way of righting major mistakes. And the pervading verdict now places West Side Story at the pinnacle of the American…

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