Month: December 2011

Short Fuse Review/Commentary: Steve Jobs and the Digital Acid Trip

December 19, 2011
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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.

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Poetry Review: Henri Cole’s “Touch” — Love Thy Neighbor, Like Thyself

December 18, 2011
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Is 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.

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Theater/Book Interview: Ben, We Hardly Know Ye — Donaldson on Jonson

December 17, 2011
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Ben 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.

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Book Commentary: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Jonathan Lethem’s Influences

December 16, 2011
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For 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.

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Book Review: Mahmoud Darwish — Palestinian Poet of Heritage and Exile

December 14, 2011
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Mahmoud 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.

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Silent Film Feature: Soviet Masterpiece “Battleship Potemkin” Steams into Town with a New Score

December 14, 2011
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As 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.

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Concert Review: An Uneven Aviv Quartet at Houghton Chapel, Wellesley College

December 13, 2011
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As 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.

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Theater Commentary: An Anything-But-Banal Love Story

December 13, 2011
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The 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.

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Music Review/Commentary: Awake Between Two Dreams — Steve Lacy’s “Vespers,” Live and Recorded

December 13, 2011
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What 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.

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Concert Review: 102nd Annual Christmas Carol Services at Memorial Church, Harvard University

December 12, 2011
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The 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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