Arts Fuse Editor
Reviews of the cogent and well-crafted The Big Payback, the comprehensive if conventional Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, and No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics, which expertly balances whimsy and gravity, though the version of the film shown by PBS has been heavily censored.
The Big Payback doesn’t exhibit a clear slant either way: it simply tells the tale of how a bill asking for reparations came to be, along the way highlighting how past injustice shapes present inequities.
I’m going to try out a new format in 2023. Along with posting longer reviews of single series, I will also be experimenting with a new (weekly!) format where I include several features in one column.
This trio of beautifully-illustrated children’s books offer journeys into science that rival science fiction.
George Takei’s musical, Allegiance, projects American democracy as it might have become.
Many of the entries in Symbionts do not question scientific worldviews as much as attempt to validate art in a world ruled unquestionably by science.
Justin Dello Joio’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written especially for pianist Garrick Ohlsson, creates an emotionally satisfying canvas out of thorny harmonies and astringent lyricism.
MJQ pianist John Lewis would have loved to have had an orchestra this well rehearsed and recorded so beautifully.
The animation itself is akin to what you will see in familiar domestic cartoons, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers. So it’s the quirky humor that makes Koala Man uniquely Australian.
Arts Commentary: We Will Have to Eat Our Spinach — And Like It
Given that the Climate Emergency will grow more challenging over time, we (including literary novelists) shouldn’t be so cavalier about not eating our spinach.
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