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Musings on the history, shapes, and ubiquity of donuts on the occasion of the holiday. By Sally Levitt Steinberg National Donut Day (the first friday in June) falls under the sign of Gemini, the sign of divided souls, and so it is not surprising that the donut leads its own divided life. We love ‘em,…
And why [are] men bound beneath the heavens in a reptile form/ A worm of sixty winters creeping on the dusky ground? — Tiriel, William Blake Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang. Written by Lang and Thea Von Harbou. With Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Erwin Biswanger, Theodor Loos, Fritz Rasp, and Heinrich…
Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb The Jordan Hall stage was crammed full of 70 players for the season’s final concert by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) on May 28. Under its artistic director Gil Rose, we heard music by five composers, the earliest dating from 1989. For two works the distinguished baritone Sanford Sylvan (b.…
By Bill Marx Summer has never been a time for theaters taking chances and the sluggish economy only encourages the hot weather drift to safety. But there’s some funky activity around the margins as well as encouraging news about Shakespeare & Company’s finances. Also, the Gloucester Stage Company has forsaken last year’s geriatric lineup and…
Walt Whitman is an exuberant poet, and fellow versifier C. K. Williams is exuberant about Whitman in this wonderfully perceptive introduction to his poetry. On Whitman (Writers on Writers) by C. K. Williams. Princeton University Press, 208 pages, $19.95 Reviewed by Anthony Wallace On Whitman is a meditation on the life and work of the…
There are dozens of excellent books about the Alcotts, Emersons, Thoreau, and Hawthorne but reading them can’t beat actually walking through the places where the people actually lived. By Helen Epstein “We are all going to be made perfect,” wrote ten-year-old Louisa May Alcott in June of 1843, “This day we left Concord in the…
Critic Paul Berman’s problem with the arts plays too significant a role in his work to be written off as but the tin ear of an historian and social thinker with weightier matters on his mind; his misreading of the arts is a fulcrum of his social thinking. The Flight of the Intellectuals, by Paul…
Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb The Boston Pops, celebrating its 125th anniversary, is devoting its third week of programs (May 18-22) to “American Heroes”—both living and dead. The most newsworthy feature is a new cantata entitled “The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers.” Pops conductor Keith Lockhart addressed brief remarks to the audience…
I have contributed a piece to The Public Humanist, a Mass Humanities blog posted on The Valley Advocate. It is a review of Martha C. Nussbaum’s new book (Not for Profit) , which argues that the arts and humanities are under threat because educational institutions, frightened by economic hard times, are moving toward a more…
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