Month: December 2008
By Bill Marx On this week’s podcast I talk to Peter Filkins, an award-winning translator who walked into a Harvard Square bookstore, picked up an obscure novel written in German and, after reading a few pages, recognized that he had stumbled onto literary gold. Written in 1950, published in 1962, the book was one of…
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb Who stands at the top of the American musical theatre? Many people will at once cite Rodgers & Hammerstein. They were indeed illustrious collaborators, and produced eleven works for the stage starting in 1943. But only four of these are top-notch: “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” and “The King and I.” The master…
Read More“White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War Was Fought on the Chess Board” By Daniel Johnson. Houghton Miffilin, 384 pages, $26 Reviewed by Harvey Blume The book’s thesis about the Cold War is that chess was nothing less than sublimated war between the US and the USSR. For something that is neither war,…
Read MoreNorman R. Shapiro took on the Herculean task of translating the 17th century French poet’s work—some 240 poems in all—in increments of fifties. He has performed the difficult task with wit and panache.
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Jazz Perspective: Zev Feldman – A Sherlock of a Producer with an Impressive Portfolio