I’m too lazy to link to any of the many articles commenting on the culture wars swirling around Mr. European Hegemonist himself, Christopher Columbus. But I would like to complain, a little, about the myth of the Columbus myth. We are taught that we were taught that Christopher Columbus was a great and good man…
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Emanuele Arciuli–Elliott Carter’s “Night Fantasies”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Nz8jTAJlk Last week I posted a video of Spanish pianist Ricardo Descalzo playing “Eine Kleine Mitternacht Musik”, a nine-part suite/“rumination” by George Crumb on Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight”, one of 21 “variations” commissioned by Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli. There are videos of Arciuli himself playing Crumb’s suite, but the sound wasn’t very good and I…
Who influenced our culture more, Hugh Hefner or Anne Jeffreys? The first of a two-part series on the memorable departed
Well, I guess it’s Hef, although I always wondered why people took someone so artificial and synthetic seriously, but I’m going to lead with Anne, shown above with co-star and husband Robert Sterling. I knew Anne and Bob entirely through Topper, as George and Marion Kerby, spirits who haunted the eponymous “Cosmo Topper” (Leo G….
Ricardo Descalzo plays Crumb—“ Eine Kleine Mitternacht Musik”, an homage to Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight”
Spanish pianist Ricardo Descalzo plays “Eine Kleine Mitternacht Musik”, a nine-part suite/“rumination” by George Crumb, giving a nod to both Monk’s title and Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” Crumb is 1 of 21 contemporary composers commissioned by Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli to write variations on “Round Midnight”. The nine parts are titled Nocturnal theme, Charade, Premonition,…
Trollin’ Donald
The President of the United States is getting in a pissing match with the National Football League? And he’s cracking down on, you know, foreigners? Possible subtext: Please ignore the fact that I’m totally screwing up both health care and tax reform and God knows what else, not to mention all that Russia shit. Did…
I cannot keep silent! Part Deux
This not talking shit is hard! Yesterday, I couldn’t/wouldn’t keep silent about some year-old bullshit from David Ignatius. Well, today it’s the National Review’s Rich Lowry, opining about General Trump’s plans to reignite the war in Afghanistan: “At the end of the day, this is Trump concluding that he doesn’t want to lose a war…
The Mooche si, The Mooch no
Some while back, I posted a dismissive note on Facebook regarding the highly welcome departure of Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci, to wit: “The Mooche is mooted and muted. Suck on this, Tony: You’re history.” Well, Tony is history, but I unfortunately misspelled his nickname, as a jazz buff might, because there are two famous “Mooches”…
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk: Too cute!
Okay, we have changed the name of this website to “Snark R Us”, but bear with me. This is snark, but snark with a thesis. Is Dunkirk an extraordinary visual spectacle? Well, duh. Yeah. I saw it at the Lockheed IMAX in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, one of the biggest screens in the…
“We” married him? John, honey, you created him!
John Podhoretz, like me, wishing the hell that Donald Trump wasn’t president, writes the following: “The issue with Trump is that his approach can only be called ‘the politics of unseriousness.’ He engages with no issue, merely offers a hostile and pithy soundbite bromide about it. He yammers. He describes how wonderful things will be…
For the Right, All Roads Lead Through Russia. Unfortunately.
For the “Respectable Right,” I mean—the Wall Street Journal Right, the National Review Right—the “Thoughtful Right”—I guess you could call them, Big Donnie’s recent speech in Poland, which I, uh, didn’t like, made their little hearts beat faster than Max Roach’s Night in Tunisia drum solo from the Jazz at Massey Hall album (which you…