arts

Short Film Reviews: A Focus on The Boston Jewish Film Festival [2x Updated]

November 10, 2010
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And so I go, Jewish and glad to be, theatre director—maybe between gigs, old enough to believe that movies are best on the big screen among other (quiet) viewers and that you don’t have to be Jewish to love good Jewish movies. By Joann Green Breuer The danger of speaking critically of any ethnic art…

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Fuse Flash: Newport Folk Festival 2010 review

August 18, 2010
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The 51st Newport Folk Festival ended on Sunday with 35 acts over 3 days. When all is said and done, you could argue that this is no longer a festival about folk music, but two of the elder statesman that appeared this year—Richie Havens and Levon Helm (of The Band fame)—served as an inspiring bridge…

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Book Review: The Need to Expand the Mind

May 20, 2010
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I have contributed a piece to The Public Humanist, a Mass Humanities blog posted on The Valley Advocate. It is a review of Martha C. Nussbaum’s new book (Not for Profit) , which argues that the arts and humanities are under threat because educational institutions, frightened by economic hard times, are moving toward a more…

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Food Muse: Pictures At An Exhibition, Exhibitionist Food–Luis Melendez At The MFA and Tapas At Toro

April 4, 2010
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What is the food that Luis Melendez paints? Is it food? More than food? Less than perfect food? Food stand-ins for something else? What is this stuff called “every species of food produced by the Spanish climate”? Is it about the food or something beyond, beyond the canvas? by Sally Levitt Steinberg What fruits! What…

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Culture Vulture: See ‘The Dwarf’

March 12, 2010
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Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) by Alexander Zemlinsky. Libretto by George Klaren, based on Oscar Wilde’s “The Birthday of the Infanta.” Staged by OperaHub at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through March 13. Free Reviewed by Helen Epstein For a truly worthwhile evening of music drama—free admission no less—get yourselves to the Boston…

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Theater Criticism: The Happy End of Business as Usual

August 17, 2009
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By Bill Marx Veteran “Village Voice” theater critic Michael Feingold has written a good column on the tragic news, for some, that the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the organizations that jointly manage Broadway’s annual Tony Awards, have decided to remove the first-night theater press from the ranks of Tony voters. Some hand-wringers…

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Culture Vulture at the Fitchburg Art Museum

July 25, 2009
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By Helen Epstein The extraordinary Eleanor Norcross: educator, collector, painter and daughter of Fitchburg’s first mayor. Have you ever been to Fitchburg? It’s off the beaten path and although I’d heard of its state college, and seen the signs — about five miles north of Route 2 — I’d never ventured into the once-properous, now…

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The Collective Stupidity: Reverse Curve for the Arts

March 15, 2009
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By Peter Walsh “There’s a gude time coming.” —Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy (1817) Americans, always attuned to the prices and classes of commodity, assume that the arts fall into the expensive luxury category: an ornament to good times but destined to wilt, like a hot house orchid, under the cold wind of recession. History…

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Book Review: Edmund Wilson — Prophet of the Blogosphere, Part 2

October 27, 2007
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Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (Paperback) By Lewis M. Dabney. Johns Hopkins University Press, 672 pages, $25. Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s (Library of America #176) By Edmund Wilson. Edited by Lewis M. Dabney. 1026 pages, $40. Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1930s & 40s (Library of America #177)…

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Boston Culture Series Wrap-Up

July 20, 2006
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This final ArtsCast features the conclusion of our series examining Boston at the cultural crossroads. Bill Marx speaks with Maureen Dezell who has written for the arts in various publications including the Boston Globe and the Phoenix and you have heard on the podcast interview various cultural movers and shakers about Boston lagging in cultural…

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