Thirty-one years after its founding, Other Minds, the brainchild of Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman, is still going strong as a presenter of experimental contemporary music with an emphasis on “the most original, eccentric, and underrepresented creative voices.” Here’s a presentation of Linda Bouchard and the Ensemble TriOcular+.
Make of It What You Will
Mashup of Amanda Gorman and Bach at Carnegie Hall
If I had been asked who would be the main attraction of Saturday night’s Carnegie Hall mashup between the poet and the composer, my guess would have been Amanda Gorman. I would not have guessed it would be the cellist Jan Vogler. As it turned out, however, his performance of three of Bach’s cello suites, more or less interrupted by Gorman’s rap-inflected poetry, made him the star of the show.
Nikki Haley Does ‘Patton’
If ever there were a question that political posturing is show biz, Nikki Haley settled it at a rally in South Carolina. She was doing an anemic imitation of a mesmerizing George C. Scott in the opening scene of “Patton.” Missing were the medals and martial music, thank god, which contributed mightily to Scott’s classic performance. Of course Trump has been doing his stale imitation for years.
Age Is No Obstacle: Annie Fischer Plays Like an Angel
She’s also smoking a fag, as a Brit might say. Her touch — feathery and liquid both — is sublime. When I listen to her trills, I hear birds singing.
Monet Pays a Visit by iPhone to the East River
Dancing lights at night as photographed from the window.
Can Books Provide an Agenda for Mass Murder?’
That is a key question posed by Jascha Hannover’s “The Books He Didn’t Burn,” a documentary to be featured in its U.S premiere at the Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 15 at Lincoln Center in New York. Its relevance to the beliefs of today’s white supremacists and rightwing Christian nationalists is stunning.
‘What a Piece of Work Is a Man’
‘… and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?’
The end of the dismal year 2023 brings Hamlet’s soliloquy to mind.
A True Poet’s ‘Great Balls of Doubt’
The world Mark Terrill sees is “essentially forlorn, if not absurd, if not entirely hopeless. But his poetry is far from hopeless.” — Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Walter Isaacson on the Craft of Biography
‘My road to biography began at TIME magazine.’
He titled his lecture ‘Lessons About Living with Geniuses.’ His latest biography is about Elon Musk. His previous biographies were about Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Jennifer Doudna.
A Different Kind of Mushroom Cloud
Recalling the first Trinity nuclear blast, which is being memorialized by the new Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer,” I couldn’t help thinking of the last collage that Norman O. Mustill made and his first using digital tools.
A Proper Obituary for Jay Jeff Jones (1946-2023)
Jay Jeff Jones was born in in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1946. His parents, Nelson and Lila Fay Jones, both hailed from Cherokee ancestry. Raised in and around San Francisco, Jay joined the Hell’s Angels in the early 1960, riding his Harley Davidson around the city. As a teenager, he hung around North Beach, acting with the Mime Troupe, later working as a copy boy for the San Francisco Examiner. Frank Herbert, author of “Dune,” was one of his bosses.
Tugboat Tillie
Straight Up has moved house and is taking a vacation break.
David Erdos: ‘Under Sea and Sky’
Offered in tribute to the crew fighting for their lives in the depths of the Atlantic.
William Cody Maher
‘If you don’t have a present, you always have a past’
‘A man is looking into his past. Let’s see what he finds there.’ — William Cody Maher, poet / writer / performance artist
Homage to Heine (and a Tribute to Martin Amis)
DANG MUSE
Dead silence from that hustler.
Perhaps she’s on a ghost ship
circling the moon.
If ever she lands
back here on earth, I’ll tell you.
Too Funny to Forget
Christopher Hitchens Would Be Chortling
And the staff here hopes, so will you.
At the Château Palettes in Bordeaux
An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Gerard Bellaart and a screening of three films by Fred Worden.