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ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS 
This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout, Laura Demanski (otherwise known as Our Girl in Chicago, or "OGIC" for short), and Carrie Frye (who signs her postings "CAAF"). Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the music critic of Commentary. more

ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS 
Terry's latest book, Pops: The Life of Louis Armstrong, will be published by Harcourt in the fall of 2009. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, just out from Pantheon. He contributed an essay to Coudal Partners' Field-Tested Books (as did OGIC) and wrote the introductions to William Bailey on Canvas and the paperback edition of Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. more

SEE TERRY TALK 
To watch Terry's wsj.com review of Shrek the Musical, go here.

ABOUT TERRY'S OPERA 
Terry is collaborating with Paul Moravec on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play. It was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and will open there on July 25, 2009. Here is an ongoing series of progress reports on the writing and production of The Letter.
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Lend me your ears (and eyes)
Men at work
Men at work (II)
Men at work (III)
Men at work (IV)
For better and worse
Men at work (V)
Men (and women) at work (VI)
Notes from an unkept diary
The case for lower-case opera
The envelope, please
Right turn at Albuquerque
Moment's notice
Men at work (VII)
Scene stealing (I)
Scene stealing (II)
Becoming an artist
In one piece
Among the brethren
By the clock
Size matters
No, but I heard the movie
The Doctor is in
A doll's house
Free at last
Looking for trouble
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TERRY'S TWITTERS 

Archive  5572 entries and counting

CONTACT
tteachout@artsjournal.com
ogic@artsjournal.com
caaf@artsjournal.com

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TOP FIVE

A list of new things we've liked (subject to unexpected and wildly capricious updating).

BOOK 
Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life (Little, Brown, $30, out Feb. 25). The first full-length biography of Flannery O'Connor is now available for pre-ordering. Flannery is lucidly written, sympathetic yet detached, thorough but not overly detailed. Among Gooch's more startling revelations: "Good Country People" is autobiographical, more or less. Don't expect too, many shockers, but don't worry about it, either. Surprising or not, this is the book O'Connor's admirers have been waiting for, and it does her justice (TT).

CD 
Jim Hall and Bill Frisell, Hemispheres (ArtistShare, two CDs). An unprecedented collaboration between two guitarists whose sharply contrasting styles have more in common than you might suppose. The first disc is devoted to duets, the second to quartet performances featuring Scott Colley on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The fare varies from pop and jazz standards to challenging free improvisations in which Frisell lays down avant-garde "sonic landscapes" (his phrase) on top of which Hall soliloquizes with arresting eloquence. Rich, complex, involving (TT).

PLAY 
The Cripple of Inishmaan (Atlantic, 336 W. 20, extended through March 1). Galway's Druid Theatre Company brings its letter-perfect revival of Martin McDonagh's 1997 comedy to New York. What would you be waiting for? This soot-black portrayal of Irish village life at its most claustrophobic is immaculately cast and exquisitely staged by Garry Hynes. Yes, it's a comedy, and a touching one--but be careful where you touch it or you're liable to come away with burnt fingers. Anyone who's allergic to stage-Irish clichés will revel in the wildly funny savagery with which McDonagh skewers them through and through (TT).

BOOK 
Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (Yale, $35). New from the author of Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, the first book-length study of how France's culturati coped with the German occupation. The answer is in the title. Virtually all French artists played ball with the Nazis in one way or another, and some of the greatest (including the incomparable pianist Alfred Cortot) did their bidding with foul alacrity. Spotts' book is insufficiently detailed and lacks full source notes, but the story it tells is both true and compelling--as well as depressing. Anyone naïve enough to think of artists as a nobler breed should read it and weep (TT).

CD 
Schubert Piano Trios (ArtistLed). Magnificently played performances of Schubert's resplendent B Flat and E Flat Trios by Philip Setzer, David Finckel and Wu Han. It's all in the family: Setzer and Finckel play violin and cello in the Emerson String Quartet, while Wu Han, the brilliant pianist, is Finckel's wife. As for the record label, it's a mom-and-pop Web-based operation run out of the Finckels' New York apartment--but rest assured that there's nothing remotely amateurish about the playing or production on this must-have album (TT).

Out of the Past

Not new, but still worth a look or listen (and no less subject to change without notice).

DVD 
The King and I. Now that TV screens are growing bigger and brighter, it's becoming possible--just--to appreciate the glories of wide-screen musicals without seeing them in a theater. Even if you don't much care for Rodgers and Hammerstein, the 1956 CinemaScope film of their musical version of Anna and the King of Siam is of the first importance because of Jerome Robbins' dances--especially since Robbins personally supervised their filming. "The Small House of Uncle Thomas," his Asian-flavored retelling of Uncle Tom's Cabin, looks cramped and illegible on a conventional TV, but to watch it on a HDTV-friendly screen is to be astonished anew by the endless ingenuity and unaffected freshness of Robbins' choreographic storytelling (TT).

BOOK 
Walker Percy, The Moviegoer. Percy's first novel, published in 1961, is a startlingly rich and unsettling portrait of anomie under the aspect of modernity, seen through the eyes of a young man from New Orleans who flees from his fear of the meaninglessness of life by going to the movies and chasing his secretaries. Alienation is to American literature what love is to Italian opera, but The Moviegoer makes something enduringly new and relevant out of the old, old story (TT).

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