Celebrating Community
I met Sugandha Gupta during a weekend visit to downtown Manhattan with my friend, Steve. I became completely fascinated when Sugandha began telling me about her textile artwork and her unique niche in the industry. Sugandha is from India. But she was born with Albinism, so she is very blonde. Once I better understood her perspective, we decided to talk […]
TURANDOT The Met’s Production of Turandot opened in 1987 directed by Franco Zefferelli. The production has remained one of the most popular productions at the Met. It is easy to see why, the gorgeously detailed sets and costumes are pleasing to the eye and perfectly fits Puccini’s grand score. And it is a truly excellent evening when the singers rise […]
ON DECK Velvet Underground overloaded. Todd Haynes’ new documentary The Velvet Underground is well worth watching, even if it falls off after John Cale leaves the band, giving only scant attention to the band’s remarkable, self-titled third album and then trickling away with the last one. But watching it got me to go back and dig out a couple of […]
There’s a small group of filmmakers whose latest work gets me into a theater no questions asked. Wes Anderson is near the top of that list. Beginning with Rushmore (1998) straight through to Isle of Dogs (2018), even as the films went further and further into a meticulously curated twee formalism (parts of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), for instance, […]
What if jazz is the original fusion music? What if it was always fusion music, from the very beginning, long before the Tony Williams Lifetime and Electric Miles and Weather Report? That is all the truth, so obvious that it was overlooked before Williams and Miles brought the startling, creative rock of the late ‘60s into jazz. But jazz never […]