Social Media and Literature
The maximum 160 characters for texting and 140 for tweeting, along with other forms of social media, have a concentrating effect on the verbal environment. Examples of that effect are haiku reviews, 6...
View ArticleVive la Différence
They come in all shapes and sizes. They range in age. Their dress can vary from jeans to tuxedoes. The audience for classical music has always been somewhat diverse in appearance and appreciation. I am...
View ArticleBeyond Right and Wrong: How a Film Became a Peaceful Revolution
Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness is a film that needs to be seen, and now, thanks to an inventive distribution method, which promotes the film at the same pace as raising...
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The Narrative of Life Through Tattoos and Art -- a Visit to Scott Campbell's...
When I was on my way to visit contemporary artist Scott Campbell's studio in Brooklyn in the middle of a frigid afternoon, I wondered if he was one of those tough tattoo parlor guys, wearing leather...
View ArticleOur Cocoon -- A Poem
You're still sleeping. And I'm up, trying to work, to focus to not log on to you know what. I catch a moth in the dim hall search every inch of a closed window for the lightening canyon morning beyond....
View ArticleFACE IT: Broadway Is Still a Glass Ceiling
So I went to 42nd St. over the weekend to see Machinal, a play that was new to me, starring Rebecca Hall. I was particularly excited that it was created by a woman playwright and journalist whose name...
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Steamrolling Onto the World Stage
My parents were married in 1980, the year of the Moscow Olympics, and as a result they received a fair number of kitschy, Olympics-related wedding gifts. There was, for instance, the silverware set...
View ArticleGiselle and Titania and more to come: SF Ballet's programming banquet
I've seen the first two programs of San Francisco Ballet's new season--that is, Program One (Giselle) and the visiting Hamburg Ballet's Midsummer Night's Dream--and it strikes me that together they...
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TRAC2014, an Interview With Michael Pearce About the Representational Art...
The Traditional Representational Art Conference, TRAC2014, is set to be a landmark event. Philosopher Roger Scruton, famous for his BBC series Why Beauty Matters, will be there as a keynote speaker and...
View ArticleTheater: Transport Does Not
TRANSPORT ** out of **** THE IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE This ambitious new musical is set on board a ship in 1838. A group of female convicts are being forcibly transported from their homes in Ireland to...
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The Jason Robert Brown Generation
Steven Pasquale and Kelli O'Hara in The Bridges of Madison County on Broadway. If you studied musical theater any time after 2000, chances are you memorized the original cast recording of Jason Robert...
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Stephen Costello Riffs on Two Washington National Opera Debuts in Moby-Dick...
Though he'll sing the role of Greenhorn in WNO's east coast premiere of Moby-Dick this week, Stephen Costello is already an opera veteran. Since opening night of the Met season in 2007, when he debuted...
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System Overload: Mind of a Creative Black Girl Recalibrating
As a creator (someone who conjures up innovative ideas and finds a way to produce them for an audience outside of myself) and a communicator (someone who can absorb and deliver a message and relay the...
View ArticleAwol Erizku on the ImageBlog
Two men walking from the series, ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: THE CITY OF TRUE LOVE
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Open Season on Russian Gays and Lesbians
Gay rights activists are arrested in Moscow's Red Square on February 7, the opening night of the Sochi Olympics. This past Friday, while Russia's extravagantly produced Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony...
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Self-Portrait of an Experimental Songwriter
As a high school student, Burt Bacharach always had trouble getting to school on time: he couldn't sleep at night because he kept hearing music in his head. Throughout his life, Bacharach would never...
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America's Secret Weapon at Sochi: Choreographer Daniel Ezralow
From The Academy Awards to Broadway's Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark to Julie Taymor's Across The Universe, the projects of Emmy Award winning choreographer Daniel Ezralow seem to grow bigger and more...
View Article10 Best Road Trip Songs
Life imitates art, which imitates life... As a young drummer-dude I played in rock bands (still do, as a slightly older drummer-dude) and went on tours in ratty vans overly-packed with sweaty musicians...
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Make Your Own Rules
Click here to watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post. When you're an artist, the options that are before you are staggering. Literally anything under the sun is possible. One would think that this...
View ArticleThe Genesis of Writing
Click here to watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post. When recollecting the origins of my writing, I am reminded of the 16-year-old teenager who wrote her first poem on the eve of her daughter's...
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