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Short Fuse Podcast #51: Desmond Tutu — Then and Now

March 29, 2022
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Host Elizabeth Howard talks to South African photojournalists Sumaya Hisham and Eric Miller about how their work documents the life and ideals of the late Archbishop and Noble Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu.

Book Review: “What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language” — Finding Multitudes of Meaning

March 29, 2022
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To always be listening more and to therefore always be listening differently is of course the very nature of fandom, and to call What’s Good the work of a fan is not a putdown.

Arts Commentary: The Oscars 2022 — No Longer So White, But Still Not So Hot

March 29, 2022
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It was soon clear what Oscar was after: two separate younger demographics — one with plebeian cinematic tastes, the other with hip politics.

Arts Commentary: The 2022 Academy Awards — “Timmy, Don’t Hit Your Sister”

March 28, 2022
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Aside from the multiple awards Dune won for technological brilliance, the 94th Academy Awards was a very different sort of “Hooray for Hollywood.”

Pop Album Review: Beach House’s “Once Twice Melody” — Plenty of the Same Old Good Thing

March 28, 2022
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Once Twice Melody goes about refining rather than changing Beach House’s vision of dream pop.

Concert Review/Interview: America at Lowell Memorial Auditorium

March 28, 2022
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In Lowell, America played to a packed, enthusiastic, Centrum Silver-popping crowd who sang along with the band’s impressively deep roster of hits.

Music Commentary: Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto — The Universal Concerto?

March 27, 2022
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Sibelius’s Violin Concerto is almost something of a phenomenon now: in just eight months, I’ve heard it played by three different fiddlers — Baiba Skride, Lisa Batiashvili, and Inmo Yang.

Opera Album Review: Saint-Saëns’s Delightful Skewering of the West’s Fantasies of Japan

March 27, 2022
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A major contribution to the recorded repertory, making clear just how effective Saint-Saëns’s The Yellow Princess could be on stage, its nowadays objectionable title repudiated by its varied and nuanced approach to the evocation of the exotic.

Book Review: “Mecca” — A Wonder of an American Canvas

March 27, 2022
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This is an immensely complex, deeply atmospheric story of the working class, of immigrants with global origins, many who are descendants of early settlers.

Jazz Album Review: Jean-Michel Pilc’s “Alive: Live at Dièse Onze, Montreal” — Flurries of Fascinating Ideas

March 25, 2022
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Jean-Michel Pilc is a talented pianist who expresses his happiness at just being alive via performances that treat the most revered standards in a manner that is wholly personal, even idiosyncratic — yet memorable.

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