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Coming Attractions: January 9 Through 25 — What Will Light Your Fire

January 9, 2022
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As the age of Covid-19 wanes (or waxes?), Arts Fuse critics supply a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, and music. Please check with venues about whether the event is available by streaming or is in person. More offerings will be added as they come in.

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January Short Fuses – Materia Critica

January 8, 2022
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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

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Classical Album Review: The “Spectre Bridegroom” Flies Again — Accompanied by Powerful Music

January 7, 2022
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Newly recorded in the original German, Anton Reicha’s Lenore offers a vivid response to Bürger’s famous “Gothic” ballad from 1774.

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Jazz Album Review: Art Pepper and Zoot Sims — A Sweetly Swinging “Jam Session”

January 7, 2022
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Whether playing together or apart, on this 1981 recording the two saxophonists couldn’t sound more gracefully inspired or more compatible.

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Film Review: “The Matrix Resurrections” – A Glitch in the Reboot

January 6, 2022
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Director Lana Wachowski seems less interested in telling a coherent story with fleshed out characters than she is in aggressively commenting on how we’re trapped in a cycle of reboots and remakes with no end in sight.

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Jazz Album Reviews: Spirited Quests from Pianist Fred Hersch and Saxophonist Tony Malaby

January 5, 2022
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The Cave of Winds and Breath By Breath amply confirm that, regardless of the stress of COVID, jazz’s life-force remains strong as we venture into a brave new year.

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Theater Review: “Kimberly Akimbo” Is Heart-Rending and Life-Affirming  

January 5, 2022
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The new musical by Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire is a show that everyone who believes in the artistic future and emotional power of the American musical will want to see.

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Film Review: “Don’t Look Up” — A Pitch-Dark Satire that Dares to be Impudently Pessimistic

January 4, 2022
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The knee-jerk, hateful reviews of Don’t Look Up possess comments so outsized, and so beside the point, that they bear a resemblance to the oblivious thinking of the movie’s anti-science ostriches.

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Book Review: “Drawing the Line” — How to Respond to “Immoral” Artists

January 4, 2022
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Drawing the Line is grounded in the work of ethicists and psychologists. Its prose is clear and its arguments systematic. But every avenue of investigation only opens up another pathway that ends as a cul-de-sac or doubles back on itself.

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Book Review: #ClassicalMusicSoWhite? — How It Got That Way and What to Do About It

January 3, 2022
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Joseph Horowitz’s short, punchy, well-sourced, and compulsively readable book argues for bringing back the forgotten works of important Black composers.

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