June 2011 Archives

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Martin Bernheimer on "La traviata" at the Metropolitan Opera (Opera)
Laura Bleiberg reviews Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Giselle" (Los Angeles Times)
Laura Bleiberg reviews Ballet Nacional de Cuba (Los Angeles Times)
Larry Blumenfeld on the US-Cuba jazz connection (The Wall Street Journal)
Larry Blumenfeld on the band Harriet Tubman (The Wall Street Journal)
Robert Christgau on Lady Gaga (The Barnes & Noble Review)
Robert Christgau on Bob Mould (The New York Times Book Review)
John Horn on Chris Weitz's movie, "A Better Life" (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews "Bad Teacher" (The Washington Post)
Julia M. Klein on "Epigenetics: The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance" (Obit Magazine)
Glenn Lovell on the coming remake of Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (CinemaDope.com)
Glenn Lovell reviews Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette on Lorin Maazel's first live "La Bohème" (The Washington Post)
Anne Midgette reviews Francesca Zambello's "Ring" (The Washington Post)
Renee Montagne interviews Chris Weitz about his film, "A Better Life" (NPR)
Renee Montagne interviews Simon Pegg about his memoir, "Nerd Do Well" (NPR)
Ann Powers on singer-songwriter Molly Sweeney's song, "You Mustn't Worry" (NPR)
Ann Powers on having coffee with rappers in her hometown, Seattle (NPR)

It had been nearly a year since I'd been to Bargemusic, the floating concert hall docked at the Fulton Street pier in Brooklyn, so it was a great pleasure in any case to be back there last Saturday night.  They have even acquired new chairs in the interval, so to all the other pleasures of the Barge--that is, classical music in an intimate setting, the stupendous view of the Manhattan skyline out the glass wall behind the stage, air-conditioned splendor in summer and congenial warmth in winter, and the occasional gentle rocking of the boat--one can now add seating comfort.

But simply being back in this delightful setting was not enough to account for my exuberance last Saturday.  That can be attributed to the three musicians: Mark Peskanov on violin, Nicholas Canellakis on cello, and Adam Golka on piano.  Together, they selected and performed the kind of program that I only get to hear about once out of every thirty or forty tries--a program in which everything seems both perfect and exciting.

They began with Mozart's Piano Trio in G major, which was fine, and probably the draw for most people.  But the real excitement came with the next two pieces.  Canellakis and Golka played Chopin's Sonata for piano and cello with such verve and complicity that I was practically bouncing in my seat with enthusiasm.  They seemed born to play this music, and to play it together: that's how right the performance felt.  And then Peskanov joined them for the last piece, a spirited, intense rendering of Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor.  The speedy virtuosic bits were thrilling enough, but the subdued, mournful ending was, in its own way, even more so.  I am always surprised when I love Tchaikovsky (I forget, that is, that he can move me in this way), and here it was again, that enormously pleasurable surprise, brought on by the commendable teamwork of these great musicians.  Bravo, Bargemusic!

Arts journalists whose beat broaches popular culture bear a special relationship to slang. For us it is a vector of transgressive impulses that are often the source of vitality, one of the ways we can measure the influence of outsiders who intrude upon the signifiers of propriety. It announces the alter-identity of an emergent group. Indeed the replacement of black slang with the jargon of the internet is one sign of a shift, not just in the status of minorities but in the authority of tech over the social imagination. Think of it: a medium has replaced a class as the basis of linguistic innovation. Give me a think piece on that by midnight, and keep it to 500 words.

All the more reason why cultural journalists should be drawn to the new and authoritative dictionary of slang by the British scholar Jonathon Green. He happens to be a good friend, but he also knows a fine French cheese when he smells one, and he's a recognized expert on the subject of this book. The fruit of 17 years' work, Green's Dictionary of Slang (Oxford University Press) contains within its three volumes copious discussions of 110,000 words from all across the Anglophone world. Here you will find everything you always wanted to know about language that makes you feel like a badass when you use it, and more than you could have imagined about its endurance.

Short a column topic for Barnes & Noble Review this month, I bit the bullet and decided that with the release of her second or third album (see column now up as "Monster Anthems" for explanation of why I'm not saying which) it was time for me to confront the force of nature, commerce, and artistic abandon that is Lady Gaga. Is it possible that I'm the only person to do so who came to the former Stefani Germanotta on the basis of her recorded music? Never seen a video, never caught her on TV, had read just a few of the countless treatises on her fame, finally caught a show in February after being won over to her albums by a lot of exploratory plays and hearing "Bad Romance" every time I entered a retail establishment. People say, well, her songs aren't so good but she's such a great presence. The woman, I found out doing my research, made her living as a songwriter. Huh?

Anyway, I barely scratched the surface and overresearched even so. The videos, which I only looked at after struggling through the slough of too much information for the better part of a week, proved less gratuitous than I'd feared--some of them are pretty funny. But for the purposes of this forum I was especially struck by a few details of written coverage that wouldn't have come close to fitting into one of those pieces where I kept deleting side comments and comparative sallies.

1) One of the best treatises I found was by Nitsuh Abebe, the best rock critic New York magazine has had on board in a long time. Hed: "Where's the Beef?" Subhed: "The flimsy fury of Lady Gaga's Born This Way." Sounds pretty damning, right? It's not. I didn't ask Abebe, because I didn't want to get him in trouble if he disliked these supposed summations as much as I did. So I could be wrong. Certainly Abebe argues (correctly) that she's probably not profound enough to inspire so many treatises. But that's not the same thing as calling her flimsy. More to the point is that, intellectually and lots of other ways, she's a mess, as Abebe notes rather fondly in the end. I suspect the entrenched anti-rock forces at the mag of slanting a far subtler piece of work their way.

2) There are a lot of biographies--a lot. Hard to count--who can tell what all these books are?--but over a dozen. The one I read was by an Englishman with some moderately solid journalistic credentials when I Googled him named Paul Lester. Moderately solid it was, though I got my money quote from a woman named Maureen Callahan, who apparently befriended or paid a remarkably unvindictive ex-friend of Gaga's with literary pretensions which he put to work in piece for Esquire, Brendan Sullivan by name. But here's the thing about Lester. He's listed at Amazon as "Paul Lester Ph.D. Jou" What the hell is that, I wondered. Jouissance? Nah. Ah, of course--journalism. But I'd never heard of it. So I asked Mr. Google, and every hit I found brought me back to Paul Lester. Did the guy make up a degree for himself? Did his publisher? Oi.

3) Funniest line in any of the bios I looked at (there were four in the NYU library) came from Briton Helia Phoenix's Lady Gaga: Just Dance: "Because of her family's Italian heritage, there was always tasty Italian food in the house, such as meatballs and marinara, . . . " Those taste-deprived Britons and their enduring fondness for organ grinders. "Such as meatballs and marinara"! Phoenix's book just came out in the U.S., where meatballs and marinara are less exotic. Sentence was untouched.

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

MJ Andersen on Phoebe Snow's music (The Providence Journal)
Robert Christgau on Frank Ocean, Blaqstarr, and the Langford Bros. (Expert Witness)
Laura Collins-Hughes on a play about Harvard's 1920 gay purge (The Boston Globe)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Williamstown's new a.d., Jenny Gersten (The Boston Globe)
Michael Feingold reviews "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews Moisés Kaufman's "One Arm" (The Village Voice)
Christopher Hawthorne on architectural nostalgia in new films (Los Angeles Times)
John Horn on "Top Chef" (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews "The Trip" (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday reviews "Beautiful Boy" (The Washington Post)
Michael Kimmelman on favorites at the National Gallery (The New York Times)
Glenn Lovell reviews "Green Lantern" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette on the Castleton Festival at Lorin Maazel's farm (The Washington Post)
Renee Montagne on tweeting "Ulysses" (NPR)
Renee Montagne interviews the maker and star of "Page One" (NPR)
Ann Powers on Marvin Gaye and his hip-hop legacy (NPR)

There's never been a character quite like Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band saxophonist who died Saturday after complications from a stroke. An imposing figure of basketball height and linebacker torso, the the Big Man served Bruce Springsteen as conscience and commentator, a "Voice of God" and a sly operator from the deep backstreets, a wise soul whose intimidating presence became central not merely to individual songs but Springsteen's overriding myth of young souls desperate to escape dead-end circumstances.

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Martin Bernheimer reviews the NY Phil with Anne-Sophie Mutter (Financial Times)
Misha Berson on the Broadway season (The Seattle Times)
Robert Christgau reviews Tammy Faye Starlite's "Chelsea Mädchen" (MSN Music)
Robert Christgau on Garland Jeffreys, Battles, Thurston Moore et al (Expert Witness)
Laura Collins-Hughes on David Saint and Arthur Laurents (The Boston Globe)
Laura Collins-Hughes on tweaking "Officer Krupke" (The Boston Globe)
Michael Feingold reviews "The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World" (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews Atlantic's "Through a Glass Darkly" (The Village Voice)
Christopher Hawthorne reviews David Bury's Libbey Bowl (Los Angeles Times)
John Horn on finding an audience for "Super 8" (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews Mike Mills' "Beginners" (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday reviews J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" (The Washington Post)
Julia M. Klein talks to Stephen Adly Guirgis (The Wall Street Journal)
Julia M. Klein on Lake Austin Spa Resort (The Boston Globe)
Glenn Lovell reviews "Super 8" (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette reviews the NSO's "Juggler in Paradise" (The Washington Post)
Renee Montagne interviews Edward Albee about his "gay writer" remarks (NPR)
Laurie Muchnick reviews Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder" (Bloomberg News)
Craig Seligman reviews "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit" (Bloomberg News)
Marcia B. Siegel reviews ABT's new works and Tudor revival (The Boston Phoenix)
Laura Sydell on Gertrude Stein in the art world (NPR)
Douglas Wolk on "Kiss and Tell" and other graphic novels (The New York Times)

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

MJ Andersen on Alzheimer's ... and the Phillips Collection (The Providence Journal)
Alicia Anstead on "The Drowsy Chaperone" and imagination (WGBH-FM, Boston)
Alicia Anstead talks Shakespeare in the summer (WGBH-FM, Boston)
Steve Dollar talks with Tom Quinn about selling genre films (The Wall Street Journal)
Steve Dollar on Rooftop Films' SXSW Weekend (The Wall Street Journal)
Michael Feingold reviews David Zippel's Cy Coleman revue (The Village Voice)
Michael Feingold reviews "The Sphinx Winx" (The Village Voice)
Matthew Gurewitsch on Plácido Domingo for Washington National Opera (Pundicity)
Matthew Gurewitsch on Saverio Mercadante's "I Due Figaro" (The New York Times)
Ann Hornaday reviews "The Tree of Life" (The Washington Post)
Ann Hornaday interviews "Beginners" filmmaker Mike Mills (The Washington Post)
Hillel Italie interviews historian David McCullough (The Associated Press)
Michael Kimmelman on Kurdish music and culture in Turkey (The New York Times)
Dennis Lim interviews "Beginners" director Mike Mills (The New York Times)
Glenn Lovell remembers James Arness (CinemaDope.com)
Anne Midgette reviews the NSO's Bernstein program (The Washington Post)
Anne Midgette on the trouble at City Opera (The Washington Post)
Tom Moon reviews My Morning Jacket's "Circuital" (NPR)
Ann Powers on Adele and interracial fluency in pop (NPR)
Craig Seligman reviews David McCullough's "The Greater Journey" (Bloomberg News)
Laura Sydell on Apple's iCloud music service (NPR)

We've said goodbye -- too soon -- to the Royal Danish Ballet, which visited Orange County, Calif., last week on the first stop of a U.S. tour. They brought two nights of Nordic mixed-repertory and four performances of the latest upgrade to August Bournonville's 1842 masterpiece, "Napoli."

The Danes could never overstay their welcome.

The new "Napoli," staged in 2009 by artistic director Nikolaj Hübbe and ballet master Sorella Englund (once a treasured ballerina and still an extraordinary character dancer), was danced with exquisite clarity, unmatched footwork and that celebrated Danish generosity of spirit. But it wasn't all gushingly great. This new "Napoli" has been teleported to the 1950s, with new mime characters, and a redone act two, which has a specially commissioned score. It had a severe case of multiple personality disorder -- a different one for each act. Finnish choreographer Jorma Uotinen's "Earth" (2005) was a kinetically unimaginative caveman tribute. And that led me to this question: Where were the women? Give me your ballerinas. Yes, the Royal Danish Ballet is renowned for its superlative male dancers, personified by Erik Bruhn and Hübbe, to name just two. But if, as Hubbe's program letter stated, this U.S. tour was about demonstrating "the company's strong contemporary artistic profile," then there was no reason for pandering. Strong female dancers have a place in contemporary ballet, one would hope.

And yet, I feel mostly effusive. This company gives you dancing, at a time when Western classical ballet is often percussive gymnastics. When you see the real thing, it literally catches your breath. With an impressive opera house operation of school, company, production facilities, and -- very important -- unbroken lineage from one generation to the next all working together, certain artistic traditions live on -- musicality, precision, the artists' palpable joy in being onstage. Even choreographic tinkering can't spoil that. The Danes remain committed to the myriad rhythmic and spatial possibilities of the body, from the grandest steps to the most detailed. If you go, pay close attention, just in case you're not accustomed to the subtleties of motion and accent at which these dancers excel. But that's not a warning, just a tip. It's only a pleasure to watch them.

After leaving the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (recently renamed because having the name "Segerstrom" on two of the four public performance spaces wasn't enough....guess that's for another blog post), the company moved on to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall through June 4; then it's off to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., June 7-12; and finally New York's Lincoln Center from June 14-19. The programs vary and include other Bournonville delights, "La Sylphide" and "A Folk Tale."