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Book Review: Niccolò Ammaniti’s “Me and You” — a lightly charming, digestible morsel

January 27, 2012
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Italian writer Niccolò Ammaniti usually writes with an unadorned style about moral predicaments of the young in small-town Italy. “Me and You,” a slender effort in all respects, covers this ground as well, with the difference that fourteen-year-old protagonist Lorenzo Cumi is from an affluent Roman family.

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Book Interview: S.T. Joshi on Ambrose Bierce — The Underappreciated Genius of Being Grim

January 24, 2012
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Bierce proffers a satiric temperament gone wild and woolly, partly propelled by a revulsion at the criminal vulgarity of the Gilded Age. Given the current triumph of the 1%, his fury at power mad corporations is worth an admiring look.

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Stage Interview: Antonio Ocampo-Guzman on Directing a Tragicomic “Art”

January 23, 2012
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In “Art,” playwright Yasmina Reza uses theater to explore how powerfully we defend our fears and rationalizations.

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Classical Concert Review: The BSO Handles a Last Minute Cancellation with Aplomb

January 22, 2012
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Guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, music director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, is a big man who conducts with big gestures. In the first half of “The Rite of Spring” I wasn’t quite sure if his podium mannerisms (which culminated in jumping jacks during the concluding “Dance of the Earth”) were helpful or distracting.

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Film Review: The Hilarious Hells of Reza and Polanski

January 21, 2012
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As in the plays of Harold Pinter, Reza realizes that violence seethes underneath our words; our language betrays our better nature.

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Poetry Review: Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer’s Divided Self

January 20, 2012
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Certainly part of the power of Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry resides in how, having established a jagged consciousness, he leaves us in between—in a world full of questions that are not easily resolved.

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Jazz Preview / Commentary: Jason Moran’s Monk Project

January 19, 2012
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So Jason Moran has decided to re-create something that is already a pinnacle of a master’s work –- something that could hardly be improved on. You could be expected to ask Why? and How?

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Book Review: “The Secret in Their Eyes” — An Impressive Work of Art

January 19, 2012
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The novel is a brilliant psychological thriller, and several other things as well — a very quiet love story, a narrative of a remarkable friendship between two men, and an exploration of the corruption rampant in Argentine politics in the late 60s and 70s.

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Theater Review: A Visual Artist Looks at “Red”

January 18, 2012
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Arts Fuse Critic (and visual artist) Franklin Einspruch reviews “Red,” a drama about Mark Rothko, and doesn’t like what he sees.

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Coming Attractions in Underground Music: January 2012

January 18, 2012
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The latter half of January brings several outstanding underground music shows to Boston.

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