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Culture Commentary: Homemade and Despicable

July 2, 2025
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So now, along with hand-made candles, jewelry, and home goods, Etsy customers can sport tees, caps and download stickers with Alligator Alcatraz names and images.

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Concert Review: Singer/Composer Jon Batiste — Raising Spirits

July 2, 2025
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Jon Batiste’s performance resonated with what musician Zachary Richard calls the “holy trinity” of Louisiana music: Cajun, zydeco, and “old-fashioned” rock and roll.

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Classical Music Album Reviews: Violinist Lea Birringer Performs Sibelius & Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays Shostakovich

July 2, 2025
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Violinist Lea Birringer does dazzlingly right by Sibelius and Szymanowski concertos and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason finds life and defiance in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2.

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July Short Fuses — Materia Critica

July 1, 2025
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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

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Concert Review: Pianist Jonathan Biss — Masterful Performances of Schubert

July 1, 2025
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Rockport Chamber Music Festival is in the midst of a stellar season. Saturday evening, the brilliant pianist (and writer) Jonathan Biss gave a sensational recital of two late Schubert sonatas—a music lover’s dream.

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Arts Commentary: Essential Inquiries — “40 Questions About a Political Play”

July 1, 2025
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“A play is political if its subject is taboo and its story mirrors, exposes, and critiques the suppression and repression that interferes with the treatment of a cultural disease. A political play is a problem that is ignored, denied, maligned. A political play is, by definition, unpopular.”

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Theater Interview: Hip-Hopper Baba Israel on “I Spy an Adventure!”

July 1, 2025
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“When you collaborate with an audience and other artists, and you let hip hop flow and intertwine, anything goes.”

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Book Review: “Via Ápia” — Life in Brazil’s Lower Depths

July 1, 2025
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Hearing the novel’s poignant voices, we can’t help but think that in many respects the plight of poor young men in the ’hood is everywhere alike.

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Jazz Commentary: John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” Turns 60 — A Homage

June 29, 2025
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This year marks the 60th anniversary of the release of John Coltrane’s magisterial album “A Love Supreme,” which has meant so much to so many.

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Film Reviews: Movies on Art at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival

June 28, 2025
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“Art is anything you can get away with,” said Marshall McLuhan. Three films that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival suggest that he was right.

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