An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
From start to last, Pamuk’s novel The Museum of Innocence reeks of love and sex and, in part, of privilege. Yet, underlying the main character’s obsession with Fushon, a young woman at least 15 years younger than he, is an … Continued
Forgive me, I’m headed toward a slam of one of the great orchestral numbers. Last night we heard our favorite orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, preform several Schuberts and one modern amazement: Betty Olivero’s “Neharot, Neharot,” which means “Rivers, … Continued
Of Turkey, not the bird but the country, I know almost nothing except its largest city Istanbul, curves around a beautiful harbor called the Golden Horn which leads to the Bosporus, that narrow pathway into the Black Sea. Yet listening … Continued
Even if you’re born, bred and live in the Cities (here in Minnesota that means the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul), you have a very good chance of being seduced by prairies. Heading out of the western suburbs, the prairies … Continued
Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August about the first month of World War I is a truly magisterial work. “Magisterial,” suggesting pomp, command, wealth of resources, or in other words “magesty.” Not only is her English prose brilliantly crafted, rich … Continued
We just saw a filmed version of a play called “Collaborators,” by John Hodge, produced by the National Theater of London. Like the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the National Theater has several stages: “Collaborators” was produced in its most intimate, … Continued
Though I didn’t realize her power when she was first publishing, Barbara Tuchman has since become one of my top three favorite American writers about history–Barbara Tuchman, Joseph Ellis and David McCullough. Ellis and McCullough are still alive, but Tuchman … Continued
J. Edgar, Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood “The FBI in Peace and War”–was that the title of the radio drama? I never listened, but the music from a companion show, “Dragnet,” even now plays its “bum-bum-bum-bum-bumbumbum” through my head. As … Continued
It’s a truth universally acknowledged (to borrow an opening from Jane Austen), that female flesh is used to sell the work and sometimes even the reputation of an artist. Case in point: at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a show … Continued