Review

Book Review: “Cleanness” — Eroticism as a State of Being

May 22, 2020
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The embrace of existential uncertainty in Cleanness enhances the reading experience because it helps us to understand what’s vitally important to the narrator.

Pop Album Review: Hayley Williams’s “Petals for Armour” — A Compelling Solo Adventure

May 21, 2020
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On her solo debut, the former Paramore lead singer undergoes a startling transformation.

Jazz Commentary: Sinatra — Myth, Reality, and a Critic Standing in Line at Arby’s

May 21, 2020
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A review of the 60th anniversary reissue of Frank Sinatra’s album Nice ‘n’ Easy. Though not without a few rounds with the Sinatra mythology — not the complicated man, but his music.

Television Review: “Circus of Books” — The Cultural Importance of Adult Bookstores

May 21, 2020
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Circus of Books is a hilarious film about a gay porn book store and its owners, “heartwarming” even, and it’s all true.

Jazz CD Review: “The Jerry Granelli Trio Plays Vince Guaraldi and Mose Allison” — Paying Exciting Homage

May 21, 2020
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The interpretations of the covers in this beautifully realized tribute album will bring back memories of the originals in a way that is enlivening rather than nostalgic.

Television Review: Hulu’s “The Great” — Russian Tyranny for Laughs

May 20, 2020
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In The Great, Tony McNamara proves that period pieces that pit conniving yet sympathetic women against tyrannical men can make for a kind of refreshingly cathartic entertainment.

Poetry Review: “The Mother House” — Poems with the Demeanor of Nuns

May 19, 2020
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In these poems, contemplation, serenity, and service are the order of the day.

Music Documentary Review: “Up From the Streets” — New Orleans’ History of Oppression and Creativity

May 18, 2020
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Up From the Streets is no New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival — but it tries.

Book Review: “Vanishing Monuments” — An Unforgettable Memory Palace

May 18, 2020
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Vanishing Monuments is painstaking, in the literal sense of that compound word: it took enormous pain to make this book. It’s a novel that, for all its organizational strategies, reads with the immediacy of a memoir.

Music Appreciation: Two American Musical Geniuses Named Steve, on Their Birthdays — Sondheim and Wonder

May 18, 2020
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Musical theater giant Stephen Sondheim turned 90 on March 22, and Stevie Wonder—for my money, the greatest popular music composer of the last 60 years—turned 70 on May 13.

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