Category: music
- The Spirit Behind the StoryThe Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother by James McBride. Riverhead Books. 295 pp. ***** I was so overwhelmed by The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store that I decided to reread James McBride’s memoir of life with his mother, The Color of Water. I knew his own situation influenced the novel, ...Read more
- Extending the LineHolding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music by David Remnick. Knopf. 304 pp. $20.87 ***** I have no idea how David Remnick does it. He’s the editor of the New Yorker, which, the last time I looked, was a full-time job. But he also churns out books on a variety of subjects, everything from Barack Obama ...Read more
- Art Imitating LifeChampion an opera by Terence Blanchard. Libretto by Michael Cristofer. With Eric Owens, Ryan Speedo Green, Ethan Joseph, Latonia Moore. ***** I have never reviewed an opera and certainly don’t have the qualifications. I’ve only been attending for a few years, and know little about the art form. I sometimes think television reviewers watch so much ...Read more
- War Is AbsurdThe Banshees of Inisherin a film by Martin McDonagh. With Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan. Streaming on HBO Max. **** I can’t remember ever saying this before, but I enjoyed thinking about this movie more than actually watching it. The watching was sometimes excruciating, especially because my wife kept jumping up and leaving ...Read more
- Human ConsciousnessMrs. Dalloway a novel by Virginia Woolf and The Hours a novel by Michael Cunningham. A Combined Edition. Picador. 417 pp. (more or less). $20.00. ***** I haven’t read much Virginia Woolf and don’t have any particular excuse. She was all the rage in the seventies and eighties, when her diaries and letters were coming out. ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artists Through a Boozy HazeEarly Novels and Stories by James Baldwin: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country. Library of America. 970 pp. In the midst of the endless current theorizing about race and sexuality and gender identity, and talk of all the books we must read (I hate to be told I must read a book), ...Read more
- Things Will Never Be That Way AgainSound of Metal a film by Darius Marder. With Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cook, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff. ***** I almost stopped watching Sound of Metal during the first five minutes. I’m not a fan of heavy metal and didn’t want to spend two hours listening to what I heard in those early minutes. I didn’t need ...Read more
- What Violence BegetsQueen and Slim a film by Melina Matsoukas. With Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine. Written by Lena Waithe ***** This is a stupendous movie, another absolute must see, by a group of people I hadn’t encountered before (which may be a failing on my part). The acting, directing, and cinematography are all marvelous, but the ...Read more
- Family ReunionThe Irishman a film by Martin Scorsese. With Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano. ***** Toward the end of The Irishman, the former union boss and mobster Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) is looking through some photos in a nursing home while a nurse takes his blood pressure. He asks her if she knows ...Read more
- How Could She Doubt It?Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice a film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. With Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne. **** I missed much of the music of my generation. I was still in touch with mainstream culture through my college years (1966-70), and continued to listen to the radio while I ...Read more
- Whose House Is It?The Last Black Man in San Francisco a film by Joe Talbot. With Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover, Tichina Arnold. ****1/2 The Last Black Man in San Francisco was for me a study in faces, the deeply expressive faces of not only its lead actors, but also every actor in the film, from the street ...Read more
- Get Out Your HandkerchiefsPavarotti a film by Ron Howard. With Placido Domingo, Zubin Mehta, Jose Carreras, Bono. ***** Pavarotti is an unabashed example of cinematic hagiography, which tells the life story of Luciano Pavarotti through a group of loving admirers. The film mentions a couple of illicit affairs—including the notorious one that led to his divorce and second marriage—and ...Read more
- Frankie and Johnny Were SweetheartsJazz a novel by Toni Morrison. Plume/Penguin. 229 pp. $11.95 As I move chronologically through Toni Morrison’s fiction and arrive at her sixth novel, I’ve come to various conclusions: I think of her as a Southern writer. Actually, she grew up on Lorain, Ohio, and never lived in the South. (Lorain, as she describes it in the ...Read more
- Go For the MusicA Star Is Born a film by Bradley Cooper. With Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle. **** The first thing I should say is that—somewhat to my surprise—I liked this movie from beginning to end. Bradley Cooper’s Jack was a warm and compelling character; the entire cast was great, including various ...Read more
- Ditching the DipshitJuliet, Naked a film by Jesse Peretz. With Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Ethan Hawke, Azhy Robertson. ****1/2 There are all kinds of nutcase people on the Internet, pursuing this or that weird obsession (like Buddhism, Books, Movies, Life). Now and then I’ve stumbled across someone whose Internet presence resembles a weird rabbit hole. Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) ...Read more
- But Who’s Counting?A Brief History of Seven Killings a novel by Marlon James. Riverhead Books. 688 pp. $17.00. **** I don’t know quite what to say about this novel, which I seem to have lived with for half my life (probably six weeks or so). It’s a massive novel about gangs in Jamaica, also the CIA in Jamaica, ...Read more
- Clint to a TThe 15:17 to Paris a film by Clint Eastwood. With Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer. *** This review will be loaded with spoilers, but the event which inspired it was well-publicized when it happened, and has been spoken of plenty in the publicity for the movie. The three men who foiled ...Read more
- Sex in HeavenCall Me By Your Name a film by Luca Guadagnino. With Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar. ****1/2 First the things I don’t like: Everybody is so good looking. They’re all so intelligent, and talented. This is the kind of movie where people are lying around their Italian villa in the sun, not doing ...Read more
- Who You Really Are (You Knew All Along)Coco a film by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. With Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach. ***** I went to this movie as an act of desperation. Every day I read in the New York Times about the marvelous movies that are arriving for the holiday season and the great reviews they’ve gotten, ...Read more
- Time is a What?A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Anchor Books. 340 pp. $16.00. ***** I’m aware as a writer that many people I read are more talented than I, but now and then I’m pulled up short by a writer who does something I couldn’t even aspire to. I felt that way about War and ...Read more
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The River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are GoldenA State of the Union and a State of MindEmbodied Mystic
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (195)art (108)Buddhism (162)Christianity (119)creative process (230)death and dying (128)meditation (117)movies (152)music (36)race (94)religion (179)sex (156)spirituality (166)the art of narrative (236)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)