Music: New music is beginning to appear with more regularity on concert programs these days, and a case in point is this afternoon’s presentation by The Symphonia of Boca Raton. Composer Bruce Adolphe, best-known as the creator of the Piano Puzzler riddles on NPR’s Performance Today, wrote a violin concerto in 2014 inspired by the life of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a German who spoke … [Read more...]
‘Vice’ takes on Cheney, but it’s a mess
When I think of actors portraying Vice President Dick Cheney, I’ll always jump to Richard Dreyfuss in W. first. Remember that scene around the war room, when he emerges literally from the shadows and outlines a sinister plot to take Iraq’s oil and establish permanent American hegemony in the Middle East? Dreyfuss didn’t sound much like Cheney — he sounded like Dreyfuss — but … [Read more...]
Lapham: History’s lessons may help us save our democracy
Lewis Lapham is not impressed by the anti-Trump demonstrations that have erupted since the inauguration. Democracy, says the former editor of Harper’s Magazine, has been under “systematic assault by a kind of plutocracy, a government for the rich by the rich,” for 30 years. Donald Trump, he says, is a symptom of of anti-democratic trends long brewing, not the cause of … [Read more...]