Posts
Trapped in a cluttered set meant to evoke an abandoned nightclub (with old, upside-down flowerpots? why?), the cast of TEN CENTS A DANCE do little but wander about singing strangely uninspired arrangements of some of America’s best-known songs.
Anyone who has sat through a commercial for one pill or another will recognize and acknowledge the satiric thrust of this enjoyable 1920’s French farce.
I have written another commentary for the Mass Humanities blog, The Public Humanist. It is a reaction, admiring but skeptical, to John Armstrong’s recent polemic IN SEARCH OF CIVILIZATION: REMAKING A TARNISHED IDEA.
Philppe Jaccottet is one of Europe’s most prolific and distinguished poets. This tome comprises selections from his later works, the bulk of which are prose poems whose urgency reflect a heightened awareness of death.
Perhaps the novel is not the most original read, but AN ACCIDENT IN AUGUST contributes to the growing number of literary meditations on the evolving pathology of celebrity,
Director David Lynch, “The Czar of the Bizarre,” hasn’t been working on a new, full-length film, but he’s still been busy delivering on his artistic promise to produce that which is Lynchian.
THE FUTURE, director/actor Miranda July’s followup to 2005’s ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is brave, unexpectedly poignant and devastatingly sad.
There is no question that somewhere in this collection poet Daniel Borztuzky is drawing a parallel between bureaucrats and terrorists, between politicians and increasingly dehumanized societies—both in America and abroad—but the connections are like underground cables: I can only guess at where I might dig to uncover them.
Multiple Google searches suggest that no one is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the second of Ben Jonson’s tragedies. I don’t think I will live to see a production of CATILINE, but attention should be paid to this awkward but powerful script. Filled with moral strength, perceptive realpolitik, and rich poetry, it proffers a brilliant serio-comic meditation on political gangsterism.
Originally published in 1963, and today considered by some critics a landmark in twentieth century Italian literature, in English Luigi Meneghello’s memoir feels more like a duty than a delight to read.
Recent Comments