“The unseemly rapidity with which Roman Polanski’s friends lined up to support him is a demonstration of the extent to which Hollywood is isolated from the rest of the world. It’s a company town, a place where the powerful can go for months at a time without hearing anyone disagree with them about anything…”

“Why are deathbed masterpieces so unusual? Mainly, I suspect, because prettified Hollywood-style deaths, in which the sudden disappearance of makeup is the only outward sign that a terminal illness has reached its denouement, are so uncommon…”

“Americans of all ages embraced TV unhesitatingly. They felt no loyalty to network radio, the medium that had entertained and informed them for a quarter-century. When something came along that they deemed superior, they switched off their radios without a second thought. That’s the biggest lesson taught by the new-media crisis of 1949. Nostalgia, like guilt, is a rope that wears thin…”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music. But there’s no sense in pretending that it didn’t happen, or that contemporary jazz is capable of appealing to the same kind of mass audience that thrilled to the big bands of the swing era. And it is precisely because jazz is now widely viewed as a high-culture art form that its makers must start to grapple with the same problems of presentation, marketing and audience development as do symphony orchestras, drama companies and art museums…”

“While a fair number of playwrights and directors have written criticism on the side, very few drama critics have changed directions in midcareer and written for the stage, and fewer still have had any luck at it. I’m trying to beat those odds…”

“To chat with Wolf Kahn in his studio is the purest of pleasures and the easiest of jobs. All you have to do is prompt him with an occasional question, then sit back and enjoy the answers, taking care not to be distracted by the paintings everywhere you look. (That’s the hard part.) I visited him there last February, and this is some of what he said…”

“Merce Cunningham is shutting down his world-famous dance company–after he dies. That may sound like a dog-bites-man story, but in fact it’s the most surprising and significant piece of dance-related news to come along in years. Most choreographers who run dance companies do everything they can to ensure that their companies will survive them. Not Mr. Cunningham…”

“Unlike some highbrow critics, I love musicals–and not just old ones, either. But the new shows that opened in the season just past illustrate my belief that the Broadway musical is suffering from four chronic problems that are growing increasingly pronounced…”