Mission: Impossible Photography
Click here to watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post. A co-worker recently asked me for a favor: to photograph her entire team for a memento that would be presented to a soon-to-be retiring member...
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Arab Love Arab Freedom: One Woman Muses
Is it possible that art is more than personal experience? If you recognize that your voice contains all the voices that came before you, then you will realize that when you speak you do not speak...
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'Mr. Show' with Bob and David Inspires LA Artists
Ask any comedian and the response is basically universal: Mr. Show with Bob and David is hands down one of the best, and underrated, sketch comedy shows ever to air on television. Having originally...
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Cartoons, Chaos and Commedia, Oh My!
The mind works in mysterious ways. During one week I had some bizarre experiences in dreamland that covered sights and sounds quite different from past adventures. In several of these dreams I found...
View ArticleModernism Gallery and the Late Mark Stock: Art, Friendship, and Feeling
Martin Muller, who owns and runs San Francisco's esteemed Modernism art gallery, was preparing for a new show of work by one of his longtime artists. Barnaby Conrad III, who wrote the artist's...
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The Cannes Diaries: Divorce Orthodox Style, the Next Arab Superstar and Hugs...
Ronit Elkabetz in Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem The Festival de Cannes continues to be both astounding and demanding. While the meetings and human contact is unequaled for me -- it feels like a...
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2 States (Hindi and Tamil, English Subtitles), Directed by Abhishek Varam
In matters of romance, we say that opposites attract. That's not always the case with the parents. Such is the intrigue of "2 States," written and directed by Abhishek Varman, based on the novel by...
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Oakland-esque: Oakland Ballet's love letter to a city
Ballet companies everywhere are trying to stay relevant, agonizing over how to build audiences and attract a younger demographic to the opera house. Oakland Ballet's straightforward strategy is to...
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Challat of Tunis at ACID in Cannes: Urban Legend or True Lunatic?
Kaouther Ben Hania's film Challat of Tunis screened in front of an overpacked, sold-out audience this year in Cannes, part of the ACID program. ACID is a French film directors association that helps...
View ArticleOn the Culture Front: Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, The Few and more
Broadway is having a banner year, and for the first time in a while, new American plays are a significant part of the lineup. Will Eno's The Realistic Joneses is a great example. Following in the...
View ArticleDouble Vision
Over the past 30 years I have written or evaluated more strategic plans than I can count. In every one, appropriately, there is a statement of mission and objectives, or a vision statement or both. Yet...
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Carl Andre Retrospective at Dia Art Foundation in Beacon (VIDEO)
Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958-2010 at Dia Beacon is the first retrospective to consider the full spectrum of Carl Andre's art. The exhibition is grouped into three parts: sculpture, poetry, and...
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Memory Postcard: What It Was Like to Be a First Generation Italian-American...
Glimpses into the lives of ordinary Americans. GREETINGS FROM MY MOTHER'S KITCHEN, PITTSBURGH, 1920 One day my mother was summoned to my grammar school to meet with one of my teachers. My mother's...
View ArticleXaviera Simmons on the ImageBlog
Index Six, Composition One 2013 Color photograph 50 x 62 1/2 inches Edition of 3
View ArticlePrimavera Sound 2014: Music Criticism, Riding a Dead Horse Back to Life
Yesterday at Primavera Sound Music festival in Barcelona, I spoke on a panel entitled Music Criticism: Resurrection Man or the Walking Dead? The panel was moderated by the Guardian's Luke Bainbridge,...
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To Be Strong
Over the past few years, the artistic talent and creative drive has been on the rise in North Jersey. Young filmmakers are producing high quality content with nothing more than a few pieces of...
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We Are the Best! Lukas Moodysson's Love Song to Youth
There has never been a movie that has so impeccably captured the feeling of being 13 years old. Frame by frame, Lukas Moodyson immerses his audience in the ocean of naïve rage that pulsates in the...
View ArticleFirst Nighter: Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Poe's The Raven Take Flight
Guess it's blowin' in the zeitgeist, but two adaptations involving rhymed classics are available in Manhattan this weekend only and worth any theatergoer's precious time: Alexander Pushkin's Eugene...
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La Bayadère at the Met: The Russians Invade
The glittering La Bayadère - conceived by French ballet master extraordinaire Marius Petipa and set in an improbable Indian kingdom - premiered in St. Petersburg in 1877, at a time of official Russian...
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Comedy, Tonight!
A popular show business axiom insists that "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." While any performer who has bombed onstage will quickly acknowledge this bitter truth, the bottom line is that comedy depends...
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