Category Archives: Uncategorized

Next year, Video Artists International is releasing on DVD those remaining unreleased kinescopes of broadcasts New York City Ballet made for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Montreal beginning in 1954.  We’re talking legendary, reference performances of Balanchine masterpieces. In some … Continue reading →

at that message guru thing  I called his office today and told the staffer that the President and his party had better be yanked out of  their defensive crouch–the reactive, capitulatory panic mode that is their standard operating procedure. What … Continue reading →

Culture’s accelerating decline in this country advances a step with the announcement that the Brooklyn Philharmonic is seeking to avoid bankruptcy. Robin Pogrebin reports in the Times. And of course, not a peep from our government, which long ago made … Continue reading →

In the Times, he explicates the ideological backstory behind S& P’s downgrading of France’s bond rating. “France has committed the unforgivable sin of being fiscally responsible without inflicting pain on the poor and unlucky. And it must be punished.”

I was at the Met Opera Halloween Eve for a lovely performance of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream—fittingly programmed for that night of traditionally blurred and heightened identities. And any number of people in the audience had gotten into the act. … Continue reading →

Senator Sanders, via Reader Supported News “Interestingly, the so-called congressional ‘deficit hawks’ — Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Jeff Sessions and other conservative Republicans — all voted for those measures that increased the deficit. These are the same folks who now … Continue reading →

In City Arts I review the Met Opera’s Norma.

Last month, the violent arrests of students peacefully protesting General David Petraeus’s City College faculty appointment was caught on video.  Read Steve Horn at firedoglake.com.

Did you know, by the way, that I am a (non-card-carrying) member of the Mayflower Society? When I was born my mother’s aunt Blanche, sister to my grandfather Allyn’s mother Maud, enrolled me forthwith. My parents questioned the Society’s conservatism, … Continue reading →

I took my aunt to New York City Ballet while she was here. At intermission she turned to me and said, “Real life is a lot better than TV!” She’d seen Jewels on TV, she thought it was the Paris … Continue reading →