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Jazz Album Reviews: Matthew Shipp and Whit Dickey — Unrepentant Proponents of Free Jazz

June 2, 2020
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Decades on, Matthew Shipp and Whit Dickey have grown into mature models of how to keep the faith when following an idiosyncratic muse.

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Book Review: “The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien” — Ignoring the Poetry

June 1, 2020
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This is a beautifully produced book, replete with illustrations. Full-page photos of evocative landscapes are supplemented by both maps and smaller shots detailing architectural features.

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Theater Commentary: The Boston Theater Critics Association — Finally Reached a Conclusion?

June 1, 2020
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The Boston Theater Critics Association should take action in support of #MeToo. But this will probably be the last year I request that Israel Horovitz’s Elliot Norton Prize be withdrawn.

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Film Review: Want More Movies to Watch While Sheltering in Place? Stir-Crazy 5

June 1, 2020
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Five more feature films of great interest and their links, carefully chosen to get you through the travails of the coronavirus..

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Jazz EP Review: Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch: Live at the Village Vanguard — A Divine Duo

May 31, 2020
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Yes, purchasing this EP will help out a good cause, but the musical value of this fabulous duo’s performance is priceless.

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Pop Album Review: “how i’m feeling now” by Charli XCX — What Life is Like, Sheltering in Place

May 29, 2020
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Charli has successfully dramatized her impatiently jagged state of mind, supplying an emotionally honest stream of consciousness that suggests what she (and no doubt many others of her generation) is feeling and thinking in quarantine.

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Book Review: “Immigrant Architect — Rafael Guastavino and the American Dream,” a Splendid Book about Design for all Ages

May 29, 2020
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A book to cheer you in these challenging times, providing destinations to explore when this pandemic is over, and a story to inspire the more inventive young among us.

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Film Review: “The High Note” — Too Many False Notes

May 28, 2020
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This is a feminist battle where all participants wear marshmallow boxing gloves.

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Television Commentary: Unreeling the Newsreels in “The Plot Against America”

May 28, 2020
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Was this alternate history lesson too much of a downer for viewers weighed down by the burdens of their own unexpected rendezvous with history?

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Book Interview: Zena Hitz on the Pleasures and Values of the Intellectual Life

May 28, 2020
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“We’re at the end, or toward the end, of an extended collapse of the institutions that made it possible for many of us to make a living through intellectual or creative activity. We’ll have to find another way.”

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