Gardiner’s life-long immersion in Bach’s music—as performer and conductor, rather than as academic analyst—qualifies him perhaps better than anyone else alive today to recreate what it was to be the living, breathing, human Bach.
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This past weekend people gathered in the nation’s capitol to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech that was part of the […]
Last week I spoke with Elana Schor of Greenwire about the Obama White House and Organizing for America’s strategy to pre-empt efforts by conservatives to undermine support for the proposed […]
When all the galaxies, stars, gas, dust, dark matter and all the other forms of matter and radiation are summed together, its energy still pales in comparison to dark energy. […]
Seventy-five years ago, The Museum of Modern Art staged their first exhibition devoted to the work of a single photographer—Walker Evans: American Photographer. That show brought together many of Walker […]
Does great art last because it is great or is it great because it lasts? Do works find a place in the canon by familiarity, like a ubiquitous tune you […]
How desperate can a city facing financial armageddon get? What’s the last resort for cities such as Detroit, wounded first by the failing American auto industry and then set bleeding […]
Last week was a big one for assumptions. There was Wolf Blitzer asking an Oklahoma tornado survivor if she was thankful that the Lord spared her life. Then that brief, […]
The world just lost a brilliant and fearless journalist. Michael Hastings did more in his short life than most people do in an entire lifetime. As information continues to come […]
America is much like the Hotel California: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
The appeal of the British drama/high-class soap opera Downton Abbey for American audiences has long been a subject of great speculation. Simon Schama called the show “cultural necrophilia” for bringing […]
William Souder’s 2004 biography of John James Audobon, Under a Wild Sky, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His newest book, On a Farther Shore, chronicles the life and […]
Waiting in line to pay admission late last month at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in a sea of heavy-winter-coated humanity, I asked myself why this […]
In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to share an article written by my former colleague Ross Robertson for EnlightenNext magazine called “A Brighter Shade of Green: Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21stCentury.” […]
As widely expected after Ambassador Susan Rice’s withdrawal from consideration, President Barack Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry as his new Secretary of State to succeed Hillary Clinton. A new […]
What do Sir Richard Branson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Paul Mitchell founder John Paul DeJoria; bestselling author/speakers Jack Canfield, Gregg Braden, Barbara Marx Hubbard; three-time Nobel nominated Dr. Scilla Elworthy; philanthropist […]
One important purpose of literature has always been to allow us to safely test our moral fibres against the grain of hardened anathemas: killing, adultery, incest, pornography, theft, anarchy have […]
Imagine that you are making your way through a dense jungle. Thick vegetation makes it difficult to see more than few feet in front of you. Suddenly, you break through […]
Rather than admiring from afar the protesters in India, and congratulating the national leaders who have begun to address sexual violence in the U.S. military, we need to confront the broader problem of misogyny in American legal culture.
So that’s it: the presidential debate season is over. Romney won the first, Obama took the second and…who won the third? Some say the San Francisco Giants, playing opposite the […]
A new iPhone app allows Americans a clear window into the operations and rationale behind the Super PACs that are currently blanketing television’s airwaves with campaign ads.
To celebrate her Jubilee year, the Queen had a large chunk of Antarctica named after her; possibly upsetting the Argentinians and Chileans.
Arguments on both sides of this question were aired at a thought-provoking colloquium sponsored by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College on September 21-22: “Does the President Matter? A […]
“It’s the economy, stupid!” James Carville crowed throughout the 1992 presidential election, and has pretty much continued crowing since. What do you do when you know it’s the economy that […]
“Philosopher” is one of those job descriptions in America that brings inevitable jokes about unemployability. Carlin Romano’s new book, America the Philosophical, aims at transforming the Rodney Dangerfield of academic […]
Private company Space X successfully launched its unmanned Falcon 9 rocket into space early Tuesday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Worldcrunch provided some fun facts […]
There’s no such thing as universality in art, says Stephen Greenblatt. We always create and read from the perspective of our own time and place. What then accounts for the curious power some works have to communicate with us directly across the centuries?
In a post last May, entitled The First Trillionaires Will Make Their Fortunes in Space, we speculated about how the future explorers of space will be chasing unimaginable riches: As Peter Diamandis […]
In the avalanche of analysis and speculation about Chief Justice Roberts’ stunning decision to side with the Supreme Court’s liberal wing to uphold Obama’s healthcare law, one strain paints Roberts […]