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Book Review: “The Melancholy Art” — Art History and Depression

April 21, 2013
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If I suffered half as much from the thought that most art has been lost as I suffer every day from the recollection of departed family and friends, I would be in a mental hospital. In this sense, I found myself resisting the message of “The Melancholy Art,” to the point that I felt that the book was laying a guilt trip on me.

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Book Review: “The Dream Merchant” — Gambling with Power and Possibility

April 20, 2013
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Part of what made “The Dream Merchant” so compelling, and at times, harrowing, a read for me are its themes: love, loss, rags and riches, to be sure, but also the theme of aging, and associated loss of power and possibility.

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Book Review: “The Virtues of Poetry” — Fascinating But Frustrating

April 20, 2013
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James Longenbach’s ear for the nuances of diction, tone, stress, and the material aspects of poetry is so good, and his grasp of context and biography so assured, one wonders why the essays so often tie themselves into semantic and logical knots.

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Book Review: Females on the Frontier of Medicine — Healers in Early Modern Germany

April 19, 2013
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In her groundbreaking study, Tufts University professor Alisha Rankin essentially revises the history of medicine by showing that women, presumed to be marginal in the development early modern medicine, were actually major players.

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Theater Review: “She Kills Monsters” — A Delightful Celebration of Geekery

April 18, 2013
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“She Kills Monsters” provides a constant stream of creative, amusing, and outrageous moments.

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Jazz News: Thoughts on Wadada Leo Smith’s “Ten Freedom Summers” — Pulitzer Finalist in Composition

April 18, 2013
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Ten Freedom Summers is a masterful, supple series of compositions that has the gravitas of a major work that also, from time to time, it swings dramatically.

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Fuse News: NEC Celebrates a Legendary Partnership

April 18, 2013
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Pianist Randy Weston and arranger Melba Liston will be honored in a celebratory concert at the New England Conservatory.

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Fuse News Film Review: “Blancanieves” — Silent Film Redux

April 18, 2013
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“Blancanieves” is not quite as charming as “The Artist,” but it’s less of a parlor trick, more sincerely a work of true silent cinema, 85 years after the dawn of sound.

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Film Review: A Not So “Fierce Green Fire”

April 18, 2013
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This documentary plays like a didactic high school civics lesson. I agree totally with its politics while abhorring its unimaginative political correctness.

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Book Review: A House of Many Doors — Gish Jen’s Tiger Writing

April 17, 2013
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Moving restlessly between independence and interdependence in style and content, the lecture captures the changeling quality that Gish Jen associates with those who must creatively manage multiple cultural influences.

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