Review

Book Review: Richard Powers’s Urgent “Orfeo” — Can Art Save Us?

January 27, 2014
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As with any Richard Powers novel, when you finish “Orfeo” you will have no doubt you are alive, awake, and likely ready to start over at page one.

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Concert Review: At the BSO — Andris Poga conducts Wagner, Lutoslawski, and Shostakovich

January 26, 2014
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Saturday’s reading of Lutoslawski’s Piano Concerto greatly benefited from pianist Garrick Ohlsson’s steely yet sensitive account of the solo part.

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Theater Review: Bread & Puppet Theater’s “Shatterer of Worlds” — Apocalyptic Art

January 26, 2014
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Those willing to accept that powerful political theater can be as much about depicting pain as providing hope will find much to admire in this visually striking, dramatically compelling piece.

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Fuse Book Review: “My Life in Middlemarch” — Expanding the Boundaries of Memoir

January 24, 2014
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I don’t share Rebecca Mead’s awe for “Middlemarch,” but I share her enthusiasm for stretching the envelope of memoir.

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Book Review: The Unwavering Gaze — Fabritius and Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”

January 23, 2014
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In Donna Tartt’s much-lauded third novel, Fabritius’ painting “The Goldfinch” and the fleeting nature of, well, everything comes together for a brief and shining moment.

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TV Review: HBO’s “Looking” — Gay Life as Sweet and Sincerely Humanist

January 22, 2014
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Without being preachy, HBO’s “Looking” offers a fine lesson that being totally out of the closet, as are all the many characters, can lead to a cool cool (and also hot hot) existence.

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Film Review: “The Genius of Marian” — A Deeply Moving Look at the Devastation of Alzheimer’s Disease

January 21, 2014
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“The Genius of Marian,” the new documentary from directors Banker White and Anita Fitch, depicts the bitter process of absorbing disaster, with White’s mother as the subject.

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Book Review: Art Historian Bernard Berenson — Reinvention as the American Dream

January 19, 2014
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Cohen devotes little space to Bernard Berenson’s art historical methodology, now largely superseded by modern approaches. She relates Berenson’s less admirable qualities without judging them.

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Concert Review: The Pixies at the Orpheum

January 19, 2014
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The past weekend’s Orpheum show — sold out for weeks beforehand, and drawing an impressive range of multi-generational hipsters — wasn’t the same old thing for The Pixies.

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Film Review: “The Invisible Woman” — The Elusive Story of Boz’s Babe

January 17, 2014
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We do feel Charles Dickens’s heart tenderly beating, swept away by Nelly Ternan’s poised beauty, and it’s touching in an almost Chekhovian way, his being smitten by a love which can only bring sorrow.

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