Tom Verlaine will be most remembered for Marquee Moon, both the album and title track, which alone would be enough to seal any legacy.
Sundance Film Festival 2023 Dispatch #2: Retreating
My second crop of Sundance screenings features three films that are all about women who, on some level, retreat from certain aspects of their lives: their pasts, their trauma, their public persona.
Sundance Film Festival Review: “Kim’s Video” — Lost and Found?
Kim’s Video is quixotic in a nutty way — in an old Indie style — that is more refreshing than it is nostalgic.
Music Perspective: The Context of Wadada Leo Smith’s 12 String Quartets
Wadada Leo Smith is among the most prolific composers of string quartets in the modern era, the only Black composer to have written so many, and one of the most adventurous writers of quartets in terms of his notation system and the distinctiveness of his musical language.
Coming Attractions: January 29 Through February 14 — What Will Light Your Fire
As the age of Covid-19 more or less wanes, Arts Fuse critics supply a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.
Theater Review: “The Art of Burning” — Bonfire of the Vanities
The domestic demolition in Kate Snodgrass’s script is served au flambé.
Film Review: “Infinity Pool” — Consumers Consuming Themselves
In Infinity Pool, people who are dead inside essentially play with their own corpses as shiny, new toys. The savagery of that idea is, simply, delicious.
Sundance Film Festival 2023 Dispatch #1 — Girls Just Wanna
The three films I selected to start my 2023 Sundance journey were very different from one another, but they shared one common theme: girlhood.
Concert Review: Boston Symphony Orchestra Plays Shostakovich, Brahms, and Mackey
Under the baton of Andris Nelsons, a listless Boston Symphony Orchestra delivered flat renditions of works by Shostakovich and Brahms.
Book Review: Two Powerful Books from Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa — A Liberal Citizen of the World
Engagingly written by a limpid stylist, The Call of the Tribe marshals a corps of sparkling intellectuals who have in common first-hand experience of dictatorship, a commitment to individual freedom, a belief in reasonably regulated free-market economies, and a rejection of the political zealotry of religion or the doctrinaire left and right.