Day: December 8, 2022

Arts, Movies

Tár’s counterintuitive conservatism, by Kurt Gottschalk

Todd Field’s Tár begins, essentially, with the end credits: dozens of names in white scrolling over a black background. It could be taken as an indication that it’s time to go home. Once the credits are done, things don’t pick up. The first third of the movie is belligerent in its boringness. It sets up the titular, successful orchestra conductor […]

Arts

The Ghost of Christmas (Books) Pas

Review by Michael Quinn Like the Ghost of Christmas Past in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I’m taking you back in time. Come. Hold my hand. No need to be afraid. We’re flying out your apartment window, and heading toward Manhattan. Look at all those people down there. So much hustle and bustle. Why, it’s Christmastime! There’s the tree in […]

Arts

Talking blues in brand new shoes

With Dry Cleaning’s second album released in October—building on the unexpected success of their infectious 2021 debut New Long Leg—and the subsequent (and harder to fathom) popularity of Wet Leg’s chatty single “Chaise Lounge,” it seems what I want to call the talkcore movement’s got, you know, legs. Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. and Yard Act out of Leeds are more closely […]

Arts, Music

The Year’s Best Recorded Jazz, by George Grella

Just in time for your shopping lists, and just before you might, I hope, have some time off and can spend some of your evenings these dark days listening to fine music, here are my choices for the best jazz albums of 2022. I make this list because I think lists are useful, and year-end ones help focus the mind […]