Commentary

Theater Review: Penny Arcade — Provincetown, Puritans, and the Pandemic

September 29, 2020
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I’ve hated enough people,” Penny Arcade confessed, “I can’t hate anyone new until 2022.”

Poetry Remembrance: John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” — Forever Young at 200

September 29, 2020
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Keats is comfortable in that ambiguous space between reality and the imagination, and you will find no finer example of Romantic poetry when he fuses them in the language of an erotic dream.

Jazz Remembrance: Ira Sullivan

September 26, 2020
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In no way was the recognition that Ira Sullivan received commensurate with his skill.

Theater Commentary: Boston Stages — Running from Reality?

September 25, 2020
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Are our theaters indifferent, craven, or complicit? Take your pick.

Arts Commentary: “The Death of the Artist” — Culture Workers Unite!

September 24, 2020
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The shared baseline of these conversations is that there are no good old days to go back to. If the cultural sector in the United States returns to the ways things were organized in February, 2020, with all the inequity and unsustainability that implies, we will have failed.

Jazz Remembrance: The Lasting, Complex Legacy of John Coltrane

September 23, 2020
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Of all the musicians who were harbingers of change, none has had the long-term influence on young musicians that John Coltrane has had.

Arts Commentary: Meditations on Separation

September 20, 2020
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This is what I feel can add: the perspective of a native-born son of the Rochester metro; and a view from the bridge through jazz-colored glasses.

Arts Remembrance: Soul Iconoclast Roy C

September 17, 2020
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Roy C may not have lived to see the current regime toppled or his litigation over past royalties resolved to his satisfaction, but he died knowing that he was — without a doubt — a Black American original.

Visual Arts Commentary: Digital Media — Public Art Is a Bridge to Our New Normal

September 17, 2020
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In a time when everyday seems like Wednesday, creative use of new media is a visual and experiential bridge to our new and hopefully innovative normal.

Arts Remembrance: Fred “Toots” Hibbert — Resiliency in the Face of Struggle

September 14, 2020
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As anyone who is familiar with “Toots” Hibbert’s near sixty-year career could testify, he was an artist who wrote songs that were guaranteed to transcend the contexts of their particular place and moment.

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