“Earlier this year we had the great Al Pacino’s memoirs published, and now we have the new memoir of another great actor available, Anthony Hopkins, who as a child had to hear his schoolmates call him “Elephant Head.” And while both Pacino and Hopkins grew up in working class circumstances with difficult upbringings, their writing voices, like their acting voices, could not be more different…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above for my commentary on the new Hopkins memoir, We Did Okay, Kid, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica stations across the nation.
“Crap, crap crap crap crap. I’m saying crap because that’s the euphemism I’m going to have to use now for the new book by Cory Doctorow whose name will not pass FCC rules, so I’ll just call the book Encrappification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What You Can Do About It, though of course the real title rhymes with Ensittification. If you’re wondering why everything, especially the internet and Big Tech, which Doctorow primarily focuses on, is in the crapper, this is the book for you…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my commentary as broadcast on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation
The great Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, King of the 12-string Guitar, one of the most important musicians in American music, is the subject of a recent film documentary, titled Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll. Perhaps it would be more telling to subtitle the film, The History of Being an Exploited Black Musician in America. What makes this film special is that the producer of the film, Alvin Singh II, is the great-nephew of Leadbelly, and the film includes not only his remembrances of Leadbelly, but also the wonderful on-screen memories of Tiny Robinson, Lead Belly’s niece. And to top it off, we get plenty of first-hand accounts of Leadbelly from interviews with a dazzling array of musicians— Odetta, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, BB King, Oscar Brand and more…
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my review (and more Lead Belly music!), as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
A posthumous collection of essays by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, who coined the phrase “We are the 99%,” has just come out, and we look into one of its most interesting pieces.
Click on the triangle above or mp3 link to hear my commentary on the book, as heard on the Arts Express radio program this week, broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
“A Real Pain, written, directed, and featuring Jesse Eisenberg is a film that has recently gotten quite a lot of attention, and I’m going to speak later about why I think that film has gotten that attention. But first let me talk about Jesse Eisenberg and the film…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link to listen to my review of A Real Pain, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program as heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
“It’s said that talent is common, and that’s true. But what is much more rare than talent is longevity. How does one take talent and have it develop and last decade upon decade? I’m thinking about this, because I’ve just finished reading the new autobiography by Al Pacino called Sonny Boy, and it was totally engrossing. No one would call It a work of literature, but you can certainly hear Al’s voice loud and clear, as if he were sitting in a bar with you telling intimate stories about his life and work…”
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my complete review of Al Pacino’s memoir, Sonny Boy, as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
If you are a conspiracy fan and a music fan, then have I got a film documentary for you. It’s called CIA: Drugs are Us and it’s kind of a greatest hits of some of the most evil and deranged programs that have been set into motion by the CIA over the years...
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my entire review as heard on Arts Express broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
In which I talk about Douglas Rushkoff’s brilliant but frustrating book about how tech is leading us to a dehumanized society.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my commentary as heard on the Arts Express radio program today, broadcast on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Hey, it’s National Noodle Month! Who knew? Anyway you can listen to my review of A Short History of Spaghetti With Tomato Sauce, as heard today on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation, by clicking on the triangle or mp3 link above.
Last week I took a look at the theatrics of a classic con game, three card monte. This week, I take a look at some of the most interesting films that have been made about con artists–and there are a lot of them. I managed to con myself into watching or re-watching hours of such movies this week, and if I don’t mention one of your favorites, rest assured this is not a definitive list by any means, just the ones I caught this week. I’ll rate them from one to five stars just for fun.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the review as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program today, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Medical bankruptcy is the number one cause of family bankruptcy in the US. But maybe what’s not as well known is that the major factor driving up the cost of healthcare in the US is due to hospital mergers. Now in a new documentary, Inhospitable, director Sandra Alvarez shows that hospitals are big business and even when dubbed non-profit, the money flows in a way that is not about prioritizing patient care or patient finances.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review of InHospitable as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
In preparation for this labor-day weekend, I thought it might be fun to watch and rewatch a bunch of labour-related films, in particular those that highlight union or workplace struggles. Well, I am somewhat bleary eyed from my home film fest, but I am going to focus on a half dozen of the films that I most enjoyed.
Click on the grey triangle or Mp3 link above to hear my picks as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
The American mass obsession with guns is clearly unique and filmmaker Richard Chisolm has made an intriguing short documentary called Gun Show which details one artist’s attempt to come to grips with the national gun worship.
Click on the triangle above or the mp3 link to hear my review as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Get your free subscription to the Arts Express Magazine, the companion magazine to Arts Express Radio, by sending an email with the word “subscribe” in the subject line to: artsexpresslist@gmail.com
It’s been a while since I did any magic write-ups, so here, in lieu of full reviews, are some brief comments on some magic related items I’ve encountered recently that I really appreciated.
First off, is Steve Spill’s new book. How is it possible that Steve Spill’s books keep complementing and topping each other? You’d think given how much Steve has tipped already, the well would have run dry. But not at all! His newest book, ASSASSIN, continues in the vein of his previous two books: real world advice for magicians who want to create in the real world. If you ever want to step on stage as a magician, this is the book you need: along with bullet-proof advice, every one of the newly published routines is a killer. Steve shows, both explicitly and by example, how to take a commonplace effect and turn it into a magical, fun-filled experience for your audiences. Highly recommended.
Next is Dan Harlan’s e-book, “Excellent Choice: The Art of Equivocation with Dan Harlan.” Dan Harlan is a master of a technique that’s so often done badly, that some magicians may think that it’s not worth it. And how wrong they would be. If you want to check out the best thread, bar none, in the Big Green Place, do a search on Harlan and equivoque, where Harlan does a mind-blowing online effect totally through his verbal posts. In this 60 page pdf, Harlan gives you four complete scripts, complete with all the branches and dialogue to enable you to cover a multitude of situations. You can use these scripts as stand-alone effects or as pieces of a larger routine. Learn it properly and you have one of the most powerful impromptu tools in magic.
Recently, I’ve been reading copies of The Hermit, a new monthly digital conjuring magazine in pdf form put out by Scott Baird. Each issue is about 50 pages, so the space devoted to each effect can be substantial. It’s very reasonably priced and if you like close-up magic you’re bound to find something in each issue that appeals to you. While most of the effects are from Scott, he has begun to attract other magician/writers: Jay Sankey has a regular column, and in the latest issue, Josh Jay contributes a variation of a Guy Hollingworth plot. Nicely illustrated, too.
And finally, there’s the Vanishing Inc Master Class series. It’s a monthly online lecture series that you subscribe to, and while not cheap, if you’re wondering, it’s totally worth it. The lectures by the likes of Dani DaOrtiz, Jamy Ian Swiss, Woody Aragon are at a level beyond the usual lectures that you may have seen before. This is truly one-on-one lecturing with magicians tipping moves, ideas and routines that they haven’t tipped before, with the opportunity of tuning in to a Zoom video call where you can ask questions of the lecturer. In addition, Vanishing Inc gives free access to some excellent videos, including items from Giobbi and Tamariz. And as if that weren’t enough, you get free shipping on anything ordered from Vanishing Inc. I would say try it out for a month or two, and see if you don’t look forward to it every month as I do.
Two of the best films I’ve seen about teachers were foreign documentaries about the teachers of younger children. The first is a French film called To Be and To Have, released about two decades ago, about a rural teacher who taught in a kind of one room school house. But my new favorite teaching film is a recently released German documentary titled Mr. Bachmann and His Class. The Mr. Bachmann of the title is a 6th grade teacher who teaches new immigrants to Germany, and he is decidedly unorthodox.
Click on the grey triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Get your free subscription to the Arts Express Magazine, the companion magazine to Arts Express Radio, by sending an email with the word “subscribe” in the subject line to:
Have you ever had this experience, as I have had many times? I’m at a friend’s house and inevitably someone asks what’s new, and what have you been working on, and though I may have a project that I’ve been working on, I suddenly become all muckle-mouthed and it just becomes a trail of, “Well, it’s kinda hard to explain…”
To the rescue: a book that I thought I would hate, but turned out to be a really interesting and useful book…
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the rest of the story as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Alessandro Delfanti’s new book about Amazon is an excellent primer. Here’s the short version: the situation is worse than you probably thought, Amazon is more dangerous than you thought and they’re certainly more evil than you thought. But other than that…
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review of the book as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
It’s the 100th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature, The Kid, and that’s as good an excuse as any to celebrate all of his films. But who was Chaplin off-screen? A new Showtime documentary, TheReal Chaplin directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney purports to get to the bottom of the real Charlie Chaplin…does it?
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI FM NYC, and Pacifica stations across the country.
Party On!! The worldwide staff at Shalblog® Industries is taking a moment off from their usual Culture Conveyor Belt activities in order to select twenty of their favorite original interviews, reviews, stories, and poetry from the past year that you may have missed as we approach our seventh blog anniversary:
American artist Eli Valley created his Diaspora Boy comics because of his anger with the corruption of American Jewish institutions and so-called Jewish “leaders” that he was constantly exposed to. His response was a savage comic strip with a visual style that mixed the 50s Mad’s Harvey Kurtzman and the 60s R. Crumb.
I broadcast a radio commentary about the collected strips that Valley published in book form, and I also read one of his 9-panel cartoons on the air.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the commentary, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
The Conductor is an excellent documentary film about Marin Alsop, who struggles against enormous odds to become the first female conductor of a major symphony orchestra in the US. It’s a wonderful story told by Director Bernadette Wegenstein, with a compelling theme about the world of high stakes musicianship, along with the high cost of success for a woman in that field.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI FM NY and Pacifica stations across the nation.
This April is the 457th Anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth and I have to admit that everything I thought I knew about William Shakespeare’s life may well be wrong. My faith was recently shaken by both the film Last Will and Testament and the book North by Shakespeare. Both works posit that heresy of heresies that William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon was not the fellow who wrote the 37 plays usually attributed to him.
For the skinny, click on the triangle or mp3 link above and listen to the story as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI FM radio and Pacifica stations across the country.
Derek DelGaudio, whose theater piece, In & Of Itself was an unlikely hit, has turned that audience-centric play into a film with the help of director Frank Oz. DelGaudio has just published a memoir of his life as a card mechanic, called AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies and it continues with DelGaudio’s obsession with identity and reality.
Click the triangle or MP3 link above to hear my commentary on both the film In & Of Itself and AMORALMAN, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI-FM NY and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
