Arts & Culture

  • David and Brutus

    The gifts of a great artist can be used to further political ends. Jacques-Louis David, painter of the French revolutionary era, created several wonderful paintings that were fraught with political and social meaning, but are still notable on a purely artistic level. One such painting tells a remarkable story. Called Brutus, or Lictors Returning the… Continue reading

  • Sound Before Our Eyes

    Researchers have found a song recorded before Edison’s phonograph. A Frenchman used a phonautograph [a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back] on April 9, 1860. The song is 10 seconds of a crooner singing “Au Clair de la Lune.” Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville went to his grave convinced that Edison… Continue reading

  • Shakespeare Lives!

    It is easy to take Will Shakespeare for granted.  So established is he in the cultural and academic pantheons that even the frequent attempts to update or “jazz up” the plays feel time-honored and traditional.  Two recent movies provide a nice antidote to the standard bardolatry, reminding us just why he is truly immortal. Hank Rogerson’s Shakespeare Behind Bars observes a troupe of… Continue reading

  • Ghost Singer as Author

    As I read a recent Seattle Times review of the traveling production, My Fair Lady, the name Marni Nixon “jumped out” at me. The former Seattlite was playing the non-singing role of Higgins’ mother. What a surprise, she’s still active, I thought. A long time admirer of hers, I wondered what would it be like… Continue reading

  • Just for fans of Sex and the City …

    All the hype around Carrie Bradshaw and Big hitting the big screen is giving me happy flashbacks to those weekly Sex and the City get togethers — 30 minutes with the TV and another two hours gabbing and laughing with friends. Sure, reruns are on almost every night of the week (or you can reserve… Continue reading

  • The Genesis Suite

    Have you heard about the Genesis Suite? In 1944, Hollywood composer/arranger Nathaniel Shilkret commissioned leading composers of the day (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Milhaud, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Tansman and Toch) to write a piece based on the book of Genesis. The seven-movement work (Shilkret himself wrote one of the movements) premiered in 1945 in Los Angeles. In the early… Continue reading

  • All Robbins all evening: a Pacific Northwest Ballet Preview

    Discover the artistry of choreographer Jerome Robbins at a lecture and video preview of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s program, All Robbins. All Robbins includes three ballets: Fancy Free, In the Night and The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody) with music by Leonard Bernstein and Chopin. Doug Fullington, Educational Programs Manager at PNB will discuss the… Continue reading

  • Read a Movie, See a Book

    “See what it is invisible, and you will see what to write. That’s how Bobby used to put it. It was the invisible people he wanted to live with. The ones that we walk past every day, the ones we sometimes become. The ones in books who live only in someone’s mind’s eye.” A Love… Continue reading

  • King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

    I thought the days of video gaming on console machines were over, but it is not a lost art. King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters is a truly entertaining documentary about an underdog challenger to the Donkey Kong high score title.  After being laid off from Boeing, Redmond resident Steve Wiebe hones his Kong skills with… Continue reading

  • The Making of a Museum

    With the opening of the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) on March 8, 2008, Seattle’s cultural map expands to include one more unique and interesting destination. Through interactive exhibits, programs and events the museum promises to “document the unique historical and cultural experiences of African Americans in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.” NAAM is, clearly,… Continue reading

  • Cherry blossoms bloom herald the spring

    The appearance of cherry blossoms marks the arrival of spring in Japan, sending revelers of all ages outdoors to enjoy wine and picnic lunches under flowery pink canopies in the nation’s parks and orchards. One cannot delay cherry blossom viewing, or “hanami,” because the cherry blossom is like life: beautiful and tragically fleeting. In Seattle,… Continue reading

  • Turn It Up!: Cambodian Cassette Archives

    Unless you were living in Phnom Penh in the 1960s, you’ve probably never heard anything quite like Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk & Pop Music, Vol. 1  (Various Artists, 2004) before. Painstakingly compiled from over 150 cassettes found in the Asian branch of the Oakland Public Library (by folks at Seattle’s own Sublime Frequencies label), this album… Continue reading

  • 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity

    30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space  inspires readers to think about art in a different way.  Accessible and not stuffy, this work looks chronologically across the centuries of art in a way that avoids the thematic conventions and classifications of the way we typically study art history. This… Continue reading

  • Gentrification and the Arts

    If you have picked up this year’s Seattle Reads novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu you’ve had a chance to get one novelist’s take on some of the issues and pressures that can fracture a community changing in the face of gentrification and immigration. Facing similar issues, particularly those of gentrification… Continue reading

  • Comedy from Canada

    Are you constantly annoyed by what’s on commercial television and find you have watched all the hot HBO series from beginning to end? Try Slings & Arrows, a three season comedy from Canada available on DVD. The story takes place behind the scenes of the fictional New Burbage Festival, a theatre troupe modeled loosely on… Continue reading

  • Tapping your feet at the Ballet

    Ballet is a feast for the eyes. But don’t forget your ears. DIRECTOR’S CHOICE, the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s March 2008 program, includes some material from new choreographers and some unusual composers. Musical selections by Mikel Rouse, Arvo Paart, Phlip Glass and Thom Willems will be previewed in the Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Public Library’s… Continue reading

  • Dear Farmer John

    For Valentine’s Day I made dinner and invited friends over to watch the documentary The Real Dirt on Farmer John.  It’s the deeply personal story of John Peterson, a creative northern Illinois farmer who suffered from the near loss of his family farm and exclusion by his neighbors. The film narrates the history of the Peterson family and explains how John ended up running… Continue reading

  • Leaving Deadwood

    One thing I notice when watching some of the edgier television shows released on DVD for home viewing, is the excellent music selections that appear incidentally at the end or in the middle of a show, sort of audio riffs on some pragmatic theme. Whoever is choosing this music has a great ear for matching… Continue reading