Day: July 10, 2024

Arts

Music: Wiggly Air, by Kurt Gottschalk 

Heirs to the Court of the Crimson King. Pardon my imprudence but I fail to get excited about one or two former members peddling again what a band they were in did 20 or 30 years ago. As crucial to my young listening as Talking Heads and XTC were, the Remain in Light and EXTC revival bands mean little to […]

Arts

Jazz: Vision Festival 2024, by George Grella

Here in New York City, the jazz capital of the world, hot summer nights mean not just jazz but free jazz. The very idea of Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler playing at Slugs’ Saloon fills me with the image of musicians on the bandstand in a hot, crowded club, the air conditioning failing to compete with the temperature outside, the […]

Arts

Film: Canonizing the Ordinary and Fantastical of “Chronicles of a Wandering Saint”, by Dante A. Ciampaglia

There is nothing the least bit remarkable about Rita, the protagonist of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint. She lives in a desperately rural Argentinian town. Her job, as a cleaning lady in the desperately old church, is, like, her marriage, desperately mundane. As if to prove that cameras do capture souls, her Facebook profile photos are either underlit smears or […]