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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 chief culture critic of Commentary. more

ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS 
Terry's latest book, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, will be published in December by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S. and JR Books in England. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, published last year by 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 Guys and Dolls, go here.

ABOUT TERRY'S OPERA 
Terry collaborated with Paul Moravec on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play that was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 and opened there on July 25. To read his reports on the writing, production, premiere, and reception of The Letter, click on the link. more

TERRY'S TWITTERS 

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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).

DVD 
The Last Days of Disco. The Criterion Collection has finally brought out a DVD of Whit Stillman's darkly witty 1998 film about the messy love lives of a group of young New Yorkers who frequent a club not unlike Studio 54. Yes, it's funny, and yes, it's an unsparing critique of contemporary American culture--one that's all the more effective for having been played for laughs. In light of Stillman's prolonged and inexplicable post-Disco silence, the reappearance on home video of the last and best installment of his indie-flick trilogy about the sexual revolution and its discontents is cause for rejoicing. What I'd really like is for him to make another movie, but since that doesn't seem to be in the cards, I'll settle for revisiting this one (TT).

DVD 
Colorado Territory. In 1949 Raoul Walsh, one of the all-time great action directors, remade High Sierra, the 1941 proto-noir crime film that turned Humphrey Bogart into a star, retrofitting it as a western and replacing Bogart with Joel McCrea. Unlikely as it may sound, Walsh actually managed to improve on the original (which he also directed) the second time around. Like High Sierra, Colorado Territory is a laconic portrait of a lonely, aging gunman at the end of his tether, and the fact that McCrea, the quintessential white-hatted good guy, is playing against type adds to the film's emotional complexity. This near-forgotten classic has just been released on DVD for the first time as part of the Warner Archive reissue series. It's a must (TT).

GALLERY 
Milton Avery (DC Moore Gallery, 724 Fifth Ave., opens Sept. 9, up through Oct. 3). Paintings, watercolors, and drawings by the American Matisse, a witty, lyrical modernist whose deceptively simple style influenced Mark Rothko (who called him "a great poet-inventor") and the color-field artists. Avery never quite passed the approved-by-MoMA test, and it's been years since New Yorkers last had an opportunity to see a large-scale exhibition of his work, so this gallery show is likely to be a must (TT).

BOOK 
Richard Stark, The Seventh/The Handle/The Rare Coin Score (University of Chicago, $14 each). Three more titles in the University of Chicago's uniform edition of the out-of-print Parker novels of Richard Stark (alias the late, lamented Donald E. Westlake) are out this week. All are lean, laconic, tough-minded installments in the endlessly rereadable saga of the ultra--professional burglar you hate to like. Nine down, six to go (TT).

CD 
Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall--The Private Collection: Mussorgsky and Liszt (RCA Red Seal). Stupendously vivid performances of the Liszt B Minor Sonata and Pictures at an Exhibition (the latter in Horowitz's own beefed-up transcription) recorded live at Carnegie Hall in 1948 and 1949 and released here for the first time. Connoisseurs of transcendental virtuosity need not hesitate (TT).

Out of the Past

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

NOVEL 
James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor. This 1948 novel about life on a Florida air base nine months before D-Day won the Pulitzer Prize, then slipped through the cracks and has yet to resurface--yet it's by far the best American novel written by a World War II veteran, the only one that can stand up to direct comparison with Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. Tough-minded and stoic, richly detailed yet tautly controlled, Cozzens' portrait of men and women preparing for war is an unrecognized classic of twentieth-century fiction. Still in print, amazingly enough (TT).

DVD 
Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 1 (Warner Home Video, five discs). Having just written the libretto for an opera noir, I'm struck by how many of the people I met along the way knew little or nothing of the Hollywood film genre on which The Letter was based. If you're one of them, the best way to get up to speed is to acquire this immaculately chosen box set, which contains five classics of film noir, John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy, Edward Dymytryk's Murder, My Sweet (a film version of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely), Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, and Robert Wise's The Set-Up. It's all here: the chumps, the dames, the hard-edged backchat, the shadow-stained cinematography, the fear and hopelessness, enacted by the likes of Jane Greer, Sterling Hayden, Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Dick Powell, Robert Ryan, and Audrey Totter. Treat yourself to a long weekend of despair (TT).

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