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As the year nears its end, time is running out to write at length about some of the new books that gave me pleasure. Thus this quick list of favorites. As usual, my taste runs to prose that’s off-the-beaten-path.
Read MoreMost importantly, there were the amazing, booming acoustics of St. Paul’s, which favored the soaring soprano voices that were, for me, the reason to see this excellent ensemble.
Read MoreThere is no way that The Arts Fuse was going to miss celebrating the 100th birthday of one of the greatest satirists of the 20th century — Irish genius Flann O’Brien.
Read MoreNo doubt too much can be made out of Steve Jobs’s tripped-out youth, but also, too little. Jobs himself said: “Definitely, taking LSD is one of the most important things in my life.” He never recanted when it came to psychedelics, or disowned their influence.
Read MoreIs it true that if I love my neighbor I can, or will, like myself? This question cuts to the heart of the poems in Heni Cole’s volume “Touch,” and the answer is yes.
Read MoreBen Jonson is one of the great unknown geniuses of the English theater and of western literature. Ian Donaldson’s new biography of the playwright/poet successfully makes the case that he deserves to be better known.
Read MoreFor all of his claims to being a subversive termite, Jonathan Lethem the puffy white elephant appears more often in this collection, trudging down a much safer, much happier road — leave the negativity to the snotty aristocrats.
Read MoreMahmoud Darwish, who died in 2008 at the age of sixty-seven, was best and heroically known for his complex perspective on political and spiritual borders — as both a poet and a spokesman for his Palestinian people.
Read MoreAs the Occupy and Tea Party movements attest, this is a time in America of social action and political upheaval -– not to the degree that we see in “Battleship Potemkin,” but significant nonetheless –- and this classic silent film has resonance today in that regard.
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