May 2011 Archives

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Robert Campbell on the National Museum of American Illustration (The Boston Globe)
Robert Christgau on Brad Paisley, Lonely Island, and Afro Latin (Expert Witness)
Steve Dollar profiles indie filmmaker Sophia Takal (The Wall Street Journal)
Steve Dollar interviews director Alejandro Jodorowsky (GreenCine Daily)
Michael Feingold asks who will fill the theatrical void (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold on Jonathan Marc Sherman's "Knickerbocker" (The Village Voice)
Christopher Hawthorne on museums and architectural history (Los Angeles Times)
Christopher Hawthorne on the Capitol Records building's context (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews "Midnight in Paris" (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday interviews Brad Pitt (The Washington Post)
Charles Kaiser on how the 1960s saved America (CNN.com)
Julia M. Klein interviews Jeff Madrick about "Age of Greed" (aarp.org)
Glenn Lovell reviews "The Hangover Part II" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette reviews the Philadelphia Orchestra (The Washington Post)
Anne Midgette on changes at Washington National Opera (The Washington Post)
Renee Montagne interviews poet Dean Young, post-heart transplant (NPR)
Tom Moon on Dylan at 70 (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Ann Powers on Scotty McCreery, Lauren Alaina, and "Idol" (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Powers talks to Renee Montagne about Lady Gaga's sales strategy (NPR)
Craig Seligman reviews Peter Moskos' "In Defense of Flogging" (Bloomberg News)

I met Artemy Troitsky, who now seems to be Artyom Troitsky, several times in the glasnost-perestroika period of the late '80s and early '90s. He'd written two books on Russian rock that were translated into English and published by Omnibus, and got me interested enough that I wrote a column for the Voice about Russian rock, and him. He also half talked me into doing a taped dialogue book with him and attending a rock festival he was organizing in Kazakhistan, but these, fortunately, remained in the half talking stage. Troitsky was such a talker that half was plenty. Like another rock expert I knew from Eastern Europe, the academic Peter Wicke, he seemed very impressed by American food. Wicke was especially impressed because he barely ate while he had a study grant here. He didn't have much money, he told me while wolfing down everything we put on the table, and if the choice was buying books or buying food, well, that was no choice. Troitsky was more an aesthete. Once I bought him a sfogliatella at DeRobertis and he told me it was the most delicious thing he'd ever eaten in his life.

This is all very heartwarming, I hope, but what's going on now with Troitsky isn't. He did well after "Communism" fell, as you might expect, but he was only a hustler, not a thug, so smart as he was he certainly didn't get rich. Though he had his idealistic side--a concert for Chernobyl victims brought him early prominence--he was always apolitical; his sympathies were with Russia's chronically sardonic bohemian avant-garde. As he wrote early on and I quoted in the Voice: "We will never be the driving force in any political movement simply because we deeply and sincerely dislike politics." Troitsky became the first editor of the Russian version of Playboy, and after that ended settled into minor fame as Russia's most prominent music journalist. I lost track of him a decade ago.

Until a few days ago, when I found out from two stories in Britain's Independent, one news and one commentary, that he was being sued for a million rubles--about 30 grand, I think--for calling a rock star a poodle. It's odd that this is how both sides are spinning the suit, because the insulting part wasn't really the dog comparison, even though that's the claim of Vadim Samoylov of the goth band Agata Kristi (couldn't leave that out). What Troitsky said was that Samoylov was the poodle of a specific individual, Medvedev apparatchik Vladislav Surkov. Poodle? Slander! Lackey's lackey? Who could possible complain of being associated with such an august personage?

This is only one of four lawsuits recently brought against Troitsky. And before we bewail the crackdown on independent arts journalism--a real enough problem in itself, apparently, as well as a tack Troitsky is taking and more power to him--it's worth noting that Art is apolitical no longer. The news story says he had "recently become an outspoken campaigner on issues such as plans to build a motorway through a forest in the Moscow region." There's a different kind of quote about politics, too: "I am no politician but I have watched how political opposition in Russia has been neutered. There is so much frustration at the grassroots. I will not be made to shut up, I won't give in to pressure." Ain't freedom from totalitarian oppression grand?

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Martin Bernheimer reviews "Gilbert & Sullivan, The Ballet!" (Financial Times)
Martin Bernheimer on the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (The Dallas Morning News)
Laura Bleiberg on Lula Washington Dance Theatre (Los Angeles Times)
Robert Christgau on the Kate McGarrigle tribute at Town Hall (MSN Music)
Laura Collins-Hughes on a share-selling CSA for art (The Boston Globe)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Boston musicians vs. the Rockettes (The Boston Globe)
Michael Feingold reviews "Gilbert & Sullivan, The Ballet!" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews "A Minister's Wife" at Lincoln Center (The Village Voice)
Christopher Hawthorne on Exposition Park as a mirror of L.A. (Los Angeles Times)
John Horn on "Hangover" franchise director Todd Phillips (Los Angeles Times)
John Horn on Schwarzenegger pausing his movie career (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday on female directors competing at Cannes (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday on "Meek's Cutoff" director Kelly Reichardt (The Washington Post)
Michael Kimmelman on the Musée d'Orsay's Manet failure (The New York Times)
Dennis Lim interviews Lars von Trier about his Nazi remarks (The New York Times)
Glenn Lovell reviews "Pirates of Caribbean 4" (CinemaDope.com)
Glenn Lovell reviews Takashi Miike's "13 Assassins" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette on living as a musician while paying the bills (The Washington Post)
Ann Powers on Haley Reinhart's "American Idol" journey (Los Angeles Times)
Marcia B. Siegel reviews Boston Ballet's "Balanchine/Robbins" (The Boston Phoenix)

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Martin Bernheimer on the Toledo Symphony at Carnegie Hall (Financial Times)
Martin Bernheimer reviews "Ariadne auf Naxos" at the Met (Financial Times)
Robert Campbell on the trouble with Boston's Greenway (The Boston Globe)
Robert Christgau on Raphael Saadiq, Blaze Foley, the Beasties et al (Expert Witness)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Edward Hall and the all-male Propeller (The Boston Globe)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Jay Scheib's "Dhalgren" adaptation (The Boston Globe)
Steve Dollar on the Criterion re-release of "Something Wild" (GreenCine Daily)
Steve Dollar on "one-man gonzo orchestra" Sxip Shirey (The Wall Street Journal)
Michael Feingold reviews "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" (The Village Voice)
Sasha Frere-Jones on Stevie Nicks (The New Yorker)
Matthew Gurewitsch interviews the violinist Mari Kimura (The New York Times)
Ann Hornaday on Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" at Cannes (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday on the "Unlawful Killing" ballyhoo at Cannes (The Washington Post)
Julia M. Klein reviews "Innocent Spouse" (Obit Magazine)
Glenn Lovell on "Everything Must Go" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette on Plàcido Domingo in "Iphigenie en Tauride" (The Washington Post)
Anne Midgette on Gustav Mahler, 100 years on (The Washington Post)
Renee Montagne interviews Dick Van Dyke (NPR)
Renee Montagne interviews Will Ferrell (NPR)
Paul Parish on dance as an instrument in the class struggle (Bay Area Reporter)
Ann Powers on irresponsible listening (NPR)
Lesley Valdes reviews the Philadelphia Orchestra with Gil Shaham (WRTI-FM)

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Hilton Als interviews John Guare and Edie Falco (The New Yorker)
MJ Andersen on Dutch art at the Peabody Essex Museum (The Providence Journal)
Robert Christgau on the great Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Barnes & Noble Review)
Laura Collins-Hughes asks Edward Hall re: "Richard III," Osama (The Boston Globe)
Michael Feingold reviews David Ives' "The School for Lies" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews "The People in the Picture" (The Village Voice)
Matthew Gurewitsch on harmonious blacksmith Paul Fuchs (The New York Times)
Matthew Gurewitsch on Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra, twice (Opera News)
Christopher Hawthorne on Stephen Kanner's last major project (Los Angeles Times)
Will Hermes on Fleet Foxes (The New York Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday asks Mark Boal about his bin Laden project (The Washington Post)
Michael Kimmelman on Daniel Barenboim in Gaza (The New York Times)
Glenn Lovell reviews "Thor" (CinemaDope.com)
Ann Powers on the current golden age for female music scribes (NPR)
Ann Powers on Shania Twain (NPR)
Craig Seligman reviews "A Jane Austen Education" (Bloomberg News)

This is a shallow post. (Well, shallower than usual from me.) I was going to post on Richard Serra and Kasimir Malevich, but my train of thought was interrupted by a weekend. And I want to talk about that, because I can't get to the greatest sculptor (I'd even go greatest artist) of the last 40 years or so and the Russian Suprematist who influenced him before I process this weekend out loud.

On Friday, Laurie (Fendrich, my wife; she's a painter, too) and I went to the theater. The tickets were her birthday present, and the play was "King Lear" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (a.k.a. BAM). Derek Jacobi acted the lead role. Now, partly for cheapskate reasons (theater is expensive and I want to make sure I get my money's worth), I like my plays dramatic (as opposed to musicals), tragic instead of comic, and overlong and overstuffed. "Lear" is perfect for me. Some knowledgeable people say it's Shakespeare's greatest play. Personally, I prefer "Macbeth," Laurie "Hamlet" and our daughter "Othello," but who are we amateurs to say?

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Martin Bernheimer reviews Robert Lepage's "Walküre" at the Met (Financial Times)
Robert Campbell on transforming a Providence wasteland (The Boston Globe)
Robert Christgau on Poly Styrene (NPR)
Robert Christgau on Poly Styrene, Gang of Four, AfroCubism, et al (Expert Witness)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Frederick Law Olmsted (The Boston Globe)
Laura Collins-Hughes on the Huntington Theatre's $10M gift (The Boston Globe)
Francis Davis on Steven Lugerner and Matana Roberts (The Village Voice)
Steve Dollar on the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival (GreenCine Daily)
Steve Dollar on saxophonist Darius Jones (The Wall Street Journal)
Michael Feingold reviews Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews Jez Butterworth's "Jerusalem" (The Village Voice)
John Horn on filmmaker Todd Phillips (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday on Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson and "The Beaver" (The Washington Post)
Allan M. Jalon on Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (Los Angeles Times)
Michael Kimmelman on a long-lost artistic era in SoHo (The New York Times)
Julia M. Klein reviews "The Emperor of All Maladies" (Columbia Magazine)
Glenn Lovell on the weekend's top-grossing "Fast Five" (CinemaDope.com)
Ann Powers on the paucity of female "Idol" finalists (Los Angeles Times)
Craig Seligman on Arthur Phillips' "The Tragedy of Arthur" (Bloomberg News)
Laura Sydell on Ai Weiwei (NPR)

In a crowd of people slowly ambling out of the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pa., after Neil Young's solo show Sunday, a young man ahead of me turned to his friend and said, "My wife just texted....she says they killed bin Laden. The U.S. military." Many of us nearby reached reflexively for phones, wanting some sort of "official" confirmation right then, with the colossal guitar-chord fantasias of "Cortez the Killer" (!) and "Cinnamon Girl" still ringing in our ears.

It was an interesting juxtaposition. First there was electric jubilation at the news that the long international hunt for the terrorist mastermind had ended. But right behind it was a kind of awed respect for the military's discipline and obsessive attention to detail that was necessary to sustain the mission through years of errant leads and fruitless chases down blind alleys. In a way, those in Young's audience might have been a bit more attuned to this aspect: We'd just encountered, at hair-raisingly close range, some fruits of the guitarist's obsessive career-long quest for absolute (though crucially not "pure") guitar tone.