Month: December 2011
No doubt too much can be made out of Steve Jobs’s tripped-out youth, but also, too little. Jobs himself said: “Definitely, taking LSD is one of the most important things in my life.” He never recanted when it came to psychedelics, or disowned their influence.
Read MoreIs it true that if I love my neighbor I can, or will, like myself? This question cuts to the heart of the poems in Heni Cole’s volume “Touch,” and the answer is yes.
Read MoreBen Jonson is one of the great unknown geniuses of the English theater and of western literature. Ian Donaldson’s new biography of the playwright/poet successfully makes the case that he deserves to be better known.
Read MoreFor all of his claims to being a subversive termite, Jonathan Lethem the puffy white elephant appears more often in this collection, trudging down a much safer, much happier road — leave the negativity to the snotty aristocrats.
Read MoreMahmoud Darwish, who died in 2008 at the age of sixty-seven, was best and heroically known for his complex perspective on political and spiritual borders — as both a poet and a spokesman for his Palestinian people.
Read MoreAs the Occupy and Tea Party movements attest, this is a time in America of social action and political upheaval -– not to the degree that we see in “Battleship Potemkin,” but significant nonetheless –- and this classic silent film has resonance today in that regard.
Read MoreAs nicely played as the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky were, I left feeling that there was something distinctly anticlimactic about the Aviv Quartet’s programming choices. I would much rather have heard the Erwin Schulhoff close the evening –- or at least heard it sandwiched between the Romantic selections.
Read MoreThe play does not address Hannah Arendt’s rationalizations or the reasons for her dedication to Martin Heidegger, though the dramatist’s title hints that it is the banal truth of the irrationality of love.
Read MoreWhat the few of us in Jordan Hall heard that night was a richly conceived and beautifully performed song cycle, mostly serious, but with some great wit in exactly the right places. It made for a fascinating and enlightening contrast to the CD version of “Vespers,” which Steve Lacy recorded in 1993.
Read MoreThe superb Harvard University Choir, which is arguably one of the best ensembles of its kind in the country, was in fine form throughout the evening.
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Music Commentary: A Deepdive into The Mothers of Invention’s “Plastic People”