I was thrilled to read in the NYT a few minutes ago that Philip Levine, the 83-year old Detroit native who held blue collar jobs as a young man, has been chosen by librarian of Congress James Billington as the…
Category: Arts & Culture
Edgar Allen Poe house in Baltimore possibly closing: budget cuts can cut us off from history
An interesting piece on Sunday in the NYT: Poe Museum Is Threatened With ‘Nevermore’. (Since I started this draft, the title has changed: Fiscal Woe Haunting Baltimore Poe House). From the piece: For a second year city leaders have chosen…
Lucian Freud: giving more life to the living
Sometimes I can’t believe that I’ve missed some news, but I didn’t find out until today that painter Lucian Freud died a couple of weeks ago in London at age 88. He died — and all the attendant press coverage…
Regretting the end of Borders
In spring 1993, when I was living just outside Philadelphia, I quit a fulltime teaching job even though I had no clear plan what I would do next. I had saved a little money, so the next step really didn’t…
Zombies in Cuba
Well this is absolutely delightful (and not for those scared of zombies). Not much on the Juan de los Muertos IMDB page, but here’s the trailer for Juan of the Dead: Exclusive: Debut Trailer of JUAN OF THE DEAD! Cuba’s…
Flannery O’Connor a character in new novel; author in Savannah July 14th
Flannery O’Connor famously said: “There won’t be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.” Well, a couple of years ago Brad Gooch proved that…
The new Savannah Dance Festival and thinking big
I’m incredibly excited about the Savannah Dance Festival planned for October 2012. My entire column today is devoted to it. SDF board president Pat Alley, as I note in the column, is a daughter of the late great Emma Kelly…
CSPAN videos explore Savannah history and literature, including Flannery O’Connor
CSPAN’s Local Content Vehicle (LCV) came to Savannah recently for a weekend of literary and historical pursuits. I recently turned over the reins of the presidency of the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home and am proud of some of the press…
Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” screens Sunday in Savannah
Back in college, I was sort of a Werner Herzog groupie. I’m pretty sure the first Herzog movie that I saw was 1972’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God, but in pretty short order — in part because of a class…
Spoleto review: Kneehigh Theatre’s “The Red Shoes”
There’s theatre, and then there’s Cornwall-based Kneehigh Theatre‘s The Red Shoes, which I was lucky enough to see at Spoleto yesterday. Based on the macabre story by Hans Christian Andersen, Kneehigh’s giddy performance was by turns absurd and inspiring, nerve-rattling…
Spoleto review: “13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” by Dean and Britta
“13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” by Dean and Britta has certainly been reviewed before, including in Charleston during its Spoleto run here and by the New York Times in 2009 here. Even though I had heard…
With the festival underway, remembering some personal Spoleto highlights
I think the first Spoleto USA show that I saw was the opera Wozzeck by Alan Berg in 1997, a spare and stark production — a bit too spare and stark for me, especially after a big, rich dinner with…
Carlos Santana: “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.â€
I don’t know how much will be made of Carlos Santana’s political remarks at Turner Field as he received the Beacon of Change award at today’s Civil Rights Game in Atlanta, but there’s already an article in the AJC and…
New ideas, new art, new music at TEDx CreativeCoast
I didn’t attend last Friday’s TEDxCreativeCoast at the Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center, but I watched some of it on live streaming — including Abraham Lightning Lebos on the piano and a great talk about hand-painted signs and neighborhood authenticity by…