Category: Arts
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A Very, Very, Very Fine House
People cannot sing songs or write poetry on the subject of home without it reverting to an ode to the every-day, to those simple, “meaningless,” and “ordinary” things … that are actually just so goddamn important to us. That are, it turns out, everything.
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Yuja Wang don’t give a shit.
LA Philharmonic brings back the piano prima donna. By S.E. Barcus Perhaps you do not know who “Yuja Wang” is…? Well, judging by her commanding performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall February 18, 2020, in Los Angeles, along with her confident demeanor and skyrocketing fame over the past decade … I really do not…
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Weirdo. Dynasty Handbag — Divine Meets Karen Finley.
Dynasty Handbag (the Doppelgoofy of performance artist Jibz Cameron), is one exaggeratedly foppish gal. She is as schmutzy-glamorous (and lackadaisical with her gowns and lipstick) as Divine, yet suddenly as combative and comedically intense as Karen Finley. Talk about a wonderful blend!
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My Interview with Philip Glass, and His, “New-World-Fusion-Chamber-Music-Quartet-Extravaganza!”
“CP: How insulting is it to you when you hear “New Age” or “trance music”? PG: “Oh, I don’t care, really. I’ve been called all sorts of things. Those things come and go.”
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Mother Russia, No America
Sooo…. The “great transformation” going on in the play — about Russia, and a society being slowly turned into a murderous oligarchic libertarian capitalist one –- should obviously remind us all, right NOW, of … Covid?!
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John Adams and the Noir of January 6
Composer John Adams conducts the Seattle Symphony on the anniversary of the insurrection, January 6, 2022.
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Vive Lapage! Vive Le FLIP! Vive Le Cirque!
OK, “contemporary circus” – you had my curiosity, but now … you have my attention. … Combine the cirque nouveau of FLIP with the theater of Ex Machina, and you now have a dovetailing of creative energy that blends into one of the most humorous and entertaining contemporary circus experiences I’ve ever had, with SLAM!,…
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Tan Dun’s Soundscape Monument for Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters
Tan Dun has called his Nu Shu a “soundscape monument for mothers, daughters, and sisters.” “Monument” is a good word choice. Despite all of the amazingly ambitious and wonderful music this composer has already made throughout his life, I can’t imagine anything will top this piece, and all of the real, human mythology surrounding it.
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Jinkxies! — “Get Ready Bitches ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!”
“Get Ready ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!” is what Jinkx proclaimed as she was crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Season 5. Well, it was a slowly increasing pitter-patter (delayed, in part, by the plague), but Jinkx is now starting to truly feel more like a downpour. I think Monsoon Season is really here…
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Second City Dreamin’
You literally have to see to believe. You have to see Stafford twist apart like a creature from The Thing, when he fears Rihanna might never make music again (was this insanity a little homage to Swarm?). Or McFadden, dancing around as the wooden boy, Pinocchio, finding some cocaine and dry-humping fratboys…. Or Mills’ “sashaying…
S.E. Barcus 