World
Can Shostakovich Ever Escape Stalin’s Shadow?
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, one of the mainstays of the twentieth-century orchestral repertory, ends with an unapologetic display of musical bombast. The coda consists of thirty-five triple-forte bars in...
Frank Auerbach’s Raw Truths
The name of Frank Auerbach, the British artist who died on November 11th, at the age of ninety-three, is not especially well known in the United States. MOMA holds...
“Wicked” and “Gladiator II” Offer Nostalgic, Half-Satisfying Showdowns
With a musical return to Oz and a bloody epic of ancient Rome, Hollywood studios double down on blockbuster spectacle. Source link
El Museo del Barrio Offers a Timely Triennial of Latino Art
The second triennial survey at El Museo del Barrio, “Flow States,” is loosely organized around the concept of diasporas and the movements of people across nations, geographies, and cultures....
Why Do We Talk This Way?
Just before the election, I went to see a play. It was staged for a small group, was about ninety minutes long, and was followed by a Q. &...
Javier Mariscal’s “Desk with a View”
Most New Yorkers don’t spend their lives on the waterfront (except, of course, a lucky few), but we are frequently reminded that the city is surrounded by water when...
Eddie Palmieri Says Don’t Call It a Comeback
Latin music is full of directives: “oye cómo va,” “óyelo que te conviene,” “oye bien cómo es.” Listen up and listen well. Many of my first history lessons came...
Documentaries of Dissent
“No Other Land” and “Union” are films that Hollywood and corporate America don’t want you to see. Source link
The Elegiac Art of Robert Frank
In “A Wonderful World,” a jukebox bio-musical about Louis Armstrong, the book writer Aurin Squire crams sixty years into the plot, which, predictably, flattens most interactions into an outline....
The Gorgeous Mumbai Rhapsody of “All We Imagine as Light”
It’s tedious to talk about the weather, but “All We Imagine as Light” compels me to at least attempt an exception. From the moment the movie begins, on a...
