Anyway, there’s a nice account here (in chapter 15) of Fischer looking for an apartment in Reykjavik in his last years, complaining and kvetching all the while. (Brady writes that, ‘Before he made a move, everything had to be perfect.’ Just as with his chess.) Read in a certain light, it’s hilarious and you could very well imagine it as a Woody Allen sketch. Now what does that tell you?
A review of Camera Obscura by Rosanne Dingli
Through careful layering of mystery and character development, Rosanne Dingli has created another deeply engaging and powerful novel in Camera Obscura. As is always the case with Dingli’s work, the research is impeccable, enlivened by art, by a deep love of travel and exploration, and above all, by the conjunction of personal and global, art related, history.
Notes on an African-American Canon in Cinema: On Sidewalk Stories, Daughters of the Dust, Eve’s Bayou and other films
African-Americans have wanted to claim and define their own public images in every art—literature, paintings, sculpture, dance, music, film, videos, television. The presentation of African-Americans in the legendary moving picture Birth of a Nation—which presented blacks as both culturally ambitious and personally barbarous—was a continuation of old stereotypes that led to actual violence against blacks. People—blacks and whites—protested the film, inspiring its director D. W. Griffith to make Intolerance, an anti-prejudice reaction to his own film. The African-American image has yet to cease to be controversial.
Different Voices, Different Eras, and the Way to Soulville: The Very Best of Aretha Franklin
Franklin’s voice is less pretty and pristine than ever in the soft hip-hop funk of “A Rose Is Still A Rose,” in which the narrator offers an older woman’s advice to a younger woman after a hurtful affair, affirming esteem and sense, but it is a sign of genius that Franklin’s performance is quite potent.
Human Beings, Hoping Machines: Note of Hope, Woody Guthrie’s words, given music by bassist Rob Wasserman, with Van Dyke Parks, Madeleine Peyroux, Tom Morello, Michael Franti, Nellie McKay, Chris Whitley, and Jackson Browne
Michael Franti’s jazzy, sensual interpretation of “Union Love Juice” makes Guthrie sound like a blend of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and LL Cool J. Michael Franti’s voice is confident, low, masculine, and suggestive. “I am the meat and the flower of sex,” sings Franti, confidently, coolly.
A review of Cocoa Almond Darling by Jeffra Hays
Hays pulls no punches in telling this tender love story with intense emotion. The characters can be frustrating and you’ll find yourself wanting to shake them. Master is in just as torn and confused a state as Millie and you want to slap him at times. It is a very well written book and although it ended absolutely perfectly, I hated to see it end.
A review of Curses and Wishes by Carl Adamshick
Regardless of topic, from war, oyster bars, junk yards, to fluency, the reader never finds a word out of place, over frilly phrases or rigid format. Instead, the poet offers clear language, with specificity of detail and style that meets the needs of the poem.
Voice, Piano, and More: Roberta Flack’s Let It Be, a tribute to the Beatles
Intimate, with advice to young love and what sounds like acoustic guitar, the durable quality of “Hey Jude” is proven, and durability has made it and other songs by the Beatles nearly public property (yet, they remain too lucrative to become public property). Flack performs the song “Hey Jude” with a confiding, childlike simplicity, and it is sweet, possibly too sweet. Flack told journalist Mike Ragogna of Huffington Post, posted February 6, 2012, that she approached the song as if it were a hymn; and she also said, “It’s about coming back to basics and simplicity.
Beauty, Pain, and Strength: Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich perform a Fantasy, Rondo, and Sonata by Franz Schubert
Widmann, born in Munich, studied in Cologne, Boston, and London, and has performed with orchestras in several of the world’s great cities, such as Paris, Rome, and Vienna; and with Alexander Lonquich, who was born in Trier, a prodigy who has become an international performer and conductor, Widmann has chosen to explore Schubert music of beauty, emotion, technique, and thought. The “Rondo h-Moll” has an exalted, even extreme beauty, and the “Sonate A-Dur” (or “Sonata”) creates in the listener an alternative consciousness.
A Young Woman Reflects, Sorrow as Treasured Gold: Adele at 21
There are few artists with the skill or substance to bring people together; and Adele is one of the special ones. Her album 21 is full of good songs, particularly “Rolling in the Deep,” “Rumour Has It,” “Don’t You Remember,” “Set Fire to the Rain,” and “He Won’t Go.” May time and grace be on her side.