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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Replay: Milton Berle appears on This Is Your Life

July 17, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Milton Berle is the guest on This Is Your Life. This episode, hosted by Ralph Edwards, was originally telecast by NBC on June 6, 1956:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: H.L. Mencken on bureaucracy

July 17, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head.”

H.L. Mencken, “A Time to be Wary”

Almanac: Albert Brooks on fear

July 16, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything—real feelings, true happiness, real joy.”

Albert Brooks, screenplay for Defending Your Life

Snapshot: Mikyung Sung plays Hindemith

July 15, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Mikyung Sung and Jaemin Shin play Hindemith’s Double Bass Sonata:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Ron Shelton on reincarnation and human vanity

July 15, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“How come in former lifetimes everybody’s somebody famous?”

Ron Shelton, screenplay for Bull Durham

Lookback: on incivility and the social media

July 14, 2020 by Terry Teachout

From 2010:

Somebody compared me to a Holocaust denier the other day for having spoken ill of Elie Wiesel. While I wouldn’t dream of dignifying such a remark by responding to it, I was struck by its sheer nastiness. It goes without saying that the world has always contained plenty of people who assume that you’re a contemptible idiot if you disagree with them about anything. To be sure, I doubt that such creatures are significantly more numerous today than they were a century ago, or even a quarter-century, but I incline to think that they now talk quite a bit louder than they used to–especially when they’re sitting alone at their computers….

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Ron Shelton on professionalism

July 14, 2020 by Terry Teachout

NUKE That was great, huh?

CRASH Your fastball’s up, your curveball’s hanging. In the Show, they would’ve ripped you.

NUKE Can’t you even let me enjoy the moment?

CRASH The moment’s over.

Ron Shelton, screenplay for Bull Durham

Just because: Stan Kenton makes his TV debut

July 13, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Stan Kenton and his big band make their TV debut on Toast of the Town (later renamed The Ed Sullivan Show). The trumpet soloist is Maynard Ferguson and the drummer is Shelly Manne. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on December 3, 1950:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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