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Dance Review: “And Still You Must Swing” — Tap Dance as Exhilaration and Inspiration

September 2, 2020
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This terrific performance was the grand finale from a beloved dance festival doing its best under enormous pressure.

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Television Review: “Class Action Park” — The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

September 1, 2020
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Visitors (of all ages?) were invited to drink copious amounts of liquor and possibly get laid. This was as close to Pinnochio‘s Pleasure Island as they were ever going to get.

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Book Review: “Time of the Magicians” — The Search for the Language of God

August 31, 2020
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In his book, Wolfram Eilenberger has provided an absorbing view of a period in Western intellectual history that was committed to the new.

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Short Fuse Podcast #27 — Felicia Angeja Viator on the very Relevant History of Gangsta Rap

August 31, 2020
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Unpacking Felicia Angeja Viator’s work on the history of Gangsta Rap leads to some trenchant observations about American culture — past, present, and under the pandemic.

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Book Review: “To Live and Defy in LA” — Gangsta Rap and the Creative Politics of Dissent

August 31, 2020
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To Live & Defy in LA sees Gangsta Rap as an important way to understand how systemic racism has worked (and works) in America today.

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Album Review: Molly Tuttle’s “…But I’d Rather Be With You” — Beyond Expectations

August 31, 2020
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This cover album is a pretty wild ride, yes, but Molly Tuttle navigates the course with supreme cool.

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Jazz Commentary: Charlie Parker — The Eternal Radical at 100

August 30, 2020
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I’m still not sure I heard what’s revolutionary about Charlie Parker’s recordings — they’re very old news by now. But I warm to the expressions of unique genius, a beauty that in itself is radical.

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Film Review: At the Fantasia International Film Festival, Part Two

August 30, 2020
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Movies, great or awful, are essential comforts in these nightmarish times. And in my second dispatch of the Fantasia fest, I bring better tidings.

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Book Review: Up Close and Personal? — “The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us”

August 30, 2020
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With journalistic flair, The Years That Matter Most brilliantly shows how, in terms of college opportunities, the scales of justice tilt in favor of the wealthy.

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Arts Commentary: Family-Friendly Pandemic Entertainment?

August 29, 2020
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Will attendees of Jurassic Quest “have a dino-mite time!”? Who knows? But the event will look mighty attractive to parents who havee been stuck in the house with kids who are driving them to distraction.

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