Childish Gambino is hamstrung by ambition, but 3.15.20 still contains a bevy of enjoyable songs, including one or two tracks that brush against brilliance.
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Book Review: “August” — A Rewarding Curiosity in the Ordinary
August is funny in a way — over time its small scale rhythms and monosyllabic reactions generate a comforting beauty that settles in.
Television Review: “The Virtues” — The Twisted Path to Redemption
The pace of this superb mini-series is keyed to generating intimacy with the characters and their struggles.
Arts Remembrance: The Three Funkiest Handclaps in Music History — An Appreciation of Bill Withers
When I think of Bill Withers I think of just three handclaps. It’s my favorite example in his music, or just about anyone else’s, of the power of restraint — not slamming and flailing about to shift a groove into overdrive.
Short Fuse Podcast #26 — Live Music and Talk with Student Musicians Aaron Halford and Matty Michna
Musicians Aaron Halford and Matty Michna describe their journeys to Boston and ponders their futures beyond The Hub.
Television Review: “Tiger King” — King of the American Jungle
What’s so appealing about Tiger King? Perhaps it is that the lurid goings-on are so distinctively American.
Music Review: Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul”
Bob Dylan’s new song not only articulates the madness that undermines the American experience, but supplies a certain kind of corrective, a tonic, for that kind of insanity.
Book Review: “The Art of Classic Planning” — How to Build Beautiful and Enduring Communities
By so memorably reestablishing the fundamentals of urban design and planning, The Art of Classic Planning will be a strategic addition to any architecture or urban planning library.
Arts Commentary: Pestilence on Stage, Part One — Karel Čapek’s”The White Plague”
The White Plague uses dread to shock us into empathy for ourselves, to be alarmed by the fragility of our bodies as well as the resources and ethics of the medical system.
Opera CD Review: A Tenor as a Villain? Donizetti’s Unusual Two-Tenor Opera Gets a First — and Fine — Recording
An 1829 opera about Elizabeth I and her supposed lover — enlivened by underhanded threats, virtuous resistance, remorse, and an attempted poisoning — proves well worth reviving.