UNDERTONE. In the photograph Mary Todd Lincoln sits laden in the heavy black garb of formal Victorian mourning, with only her round pale face and clasped hands visible. Behind her is the transparent form of her deceased husband, his spectral hands on her shoulders. This photograph was one of many staged by infamous “spirit photographer” […]
Arts + Scene
Reviews, interviews and upcoming highlights from the week in visual and performing arts around Humboldt County.
Posted inPoetry
Bear
An open doorFuzzy bear in hand,He wanders outHis sister once went thereHe remembers her faceDimpled, laughing, framed with grace,Her mane flowing in joyArms embraceVibrant garden flowers. Now he scramblesOver concrete and cobbles –fruits of mendacious power –o see her laughing againBear still clutched tightlyAgainst his tattered shirtEyes scanningDefiled landBlossoms face downIn ashes and dirt. Little […]
Posted inFront Row
‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’ Live Again
Classes consistently bludgeon young directors to simply tell the story of theater works — stick to themes, find rhythms, push characters’ objectives and explore consequences. Then you’re given a work like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, forcing you to question or challenge those teachings. After all, theater, like life, doesn’t come with rule books […]
Posted inScreens
Books in Space
Project Hail Mary PROJECT HAIL MARY. Loving books just as much as movies and credibly accused of being a formalist, I am generally skeptical of adaptations for the screen. I suppose I find works of literary creation something like sacrosanct and will always bristle at the notion that there aren’t enough original ideas being developed […]
Posted inPoetry
No Kings
Sing out, America, sing out. Vocalize your discontent. Make clear your grievances. Raise voices high and long and loud. Sing out, America, the time is now. Now to shed these foolish cretins. Now to still the liars’ din. Now to beg no tyrant’s pardon. Now to stoke that rage within. Now refire that torch held […]
Posted inFront Row
No Vonnegut, No Glory
Humboldt Light Opera Co.’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater It’s a rotten state in America. Obscene wealth, unyielding poverty, war, alternative altruism, repressed freedom — this being post-World War II in a 1979 musical based on a 1965 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, presented by Humboldt Light Opera Co., may seem […]
Posted inScreens
Some Good and Some Gold at the Oscars
Exigent circumstances prevented me from watching the majority of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, an event to which I had (to my own surprise) been looking forward. In the decade since I actually sat through one, my enthusiasm for the movies has done anything but wane. I had to consider why this event should stir […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Stitched Together
The Bride! THE BRIDE! Conceptually, this seems very much like something I could get on board with: a mid-1930s Chicago-set, Mafia-tinged feminist update on the Frankenstein story, embellished with punk-rock attitude and curb-stomping? Yes, of course, who wouldn’t want that? And in the early going, it seemed like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s return to the director’s chair […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Black Joy and Culture at the Black Heritage Ball
In a black headwrap, tambourine in hand, Paula Jones addressed the audience of 145 gathered around tables in the Wharfinger Building Saturday night for the Black Heritage Ball. Heritage, she said, “means the inheritance of who we are and the value of our culture,” a culture, she noted, that has permeated American life “since we […]
Posted inScreens
Dark Suburban Corners
DTF St. Louis DTF ST. LOUIS. Some months ago, in a fallow period likely brought on by the end of a Taylor Sheridan binge, I had resigned myself to listlessly stream-scrolling, nearly paralyzed by the catastrophe of excess. In swooped my younger, frequently wiser brother, who recommended the decade-old series Patriot and, at that entertainment […]
Posted inScreens
Top Model’s Ugly Side
Netflix docuseries revisits the obvious REALITY CHECK: INSIDE AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. “That is the only way you change. That is the only way you get better: by someone calling you on your shit.” These are the words of legendary supermodel Tyra Banks at the close of Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Netflix’s […]
Posted inPoetry
Change in the weather
Change is in the air The clouds gathering Could bring welcome rain, And unwelcome wind. Balance in everything. Even those things so bleak So horrible we feel crushed, Are countered by Events and actions of Bravery and beauty, Compassion and hope. Balance and bravery Make life worth living. Withstand the wind To welcome life giving […]