Review

Classical Album Review: Florence Price’s “Scenes in Tin Can Alley”

August 13, 2022
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Symphonic music wasn’t composer Florence Price’s strong suit. Rather, she was much more at home working in smaller forms or for her own instrument.

Theater Commentary: Maine’s Hackmatack Playhouse — After 50 Years, a Fond Adieu

August 12, 2022
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When Hackmatack Playhouse closes, that will leave, by my count, just one non-equity, professional summer resident theater in Maine: Acadia Rep (founded in 1973) located in Somesville, near Bar Harbor.

Classical Album Review: Conductor Andris Nelsons’s Over-Sweetened “Strauss”

August 12, 2022
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This is a release that showcases many of Andris Nelsons’ strengths, including his strong sensitivity for instrumental colors, blends, and balances. At the same time, it also demonstrates the conductor’s hit-or-miss nature with the core repertoire.

Rock Album Review: “Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson” — A Summery Pleasure

August 11, 2022
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I applaud She & Him’s selection of Brian Wilson tunes while at the same time feeling that some are not well-suited to their loungey, languid pop stylings.

Poetry Review: “Whale Fall” — The Dark at the Bottom of the Ocean

August 11, 2022
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It is dark, so very dark, at the ocean’s bottom. And yet, there is also a disquieting, wonder-filled magic in the child’s moon which hovers over these poems; an incantatory moon echoing like a lullaby, drawing on a time of innocence.

WATCH CLOSELY: “The Sandman” Is Deliriously Beautiful Art

August 10, 2022
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Creator Neil Gaiman has said for years that he didn’t want an adaptation to be made unless the creative team could do the original justice. Well, justice has been done: this is a seismic cultural event.

Poetry Review: “Island Heart” — The Dance of Passion

August 9, 2022
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These poems are of their own time and place — written in Haiti and France early in the twentieth century — yet they remain impressively fresh.

Film Review: “Resurrection” — Turning Words into Weapons

August 8, 2022
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Rebecca Hall gives Resurrection the psychological grounding it needs, as the thriller stretches towards a macabre, fable-like payoff.

Book Review: “Vladimir” — Sex and Realpolitik in American Academe

August 8, 2022
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This is an entertaining comedy of manners, a sophisticated satire told from the point of view of a feminist professor who is not afraid of committing transgressions in our politically correct age.

Book Review: “The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon” — A New Chapter in the American Story?

August 7, 2022
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What a cruel hoax: the middle class suburban lifestyle, a proud achievement of postwar America and the envy of peoples throughout the world (in no small part due to Mad Men glamorization), contains the very seeds of our demise. If demise is where this is heading.

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