If, as a commemorative volume, "Fifty Poems" invites readers to sample the German poet #rainermariarilke more extensively, either in the original or in the range of translations currently available, it will have accomplished a valuable task. @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social artsfuse.org/317870/book-...

Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews. Short reviews for October include short bursts from Ralph Locke, Steven Erickson, Peter Walsh, Allen Michie, and me. artsfuse.org/317673/octob...

In his one-person show "Sardines" at The Huntington Theatre, writes Bob Israel, Chris Grace invites us to think about mortality with him, to learn something from his stories, and to share a few heartwarming laughs along the way. artsfuse.org/317978/theat...

Ed Meek on Wim Carton and #andreasmalm's "The Long Heat" @versobooks.bsky.social and other books on the Climate Crisis: How bad is the future going to be? Depends on who you read. artsfuse.org/317838/book-...

Helen Epstein on #ArundhatiRoy's memoir "Mother Mary Sings to Me": This account of a formidable mother and equally formidable daughter is an absorbing read that packed the memoir form to the gills and demanded my attention. @scribnerbooks.bsky.social artsfuse.org/317909/book-...

At a time when the world’s aflame, writes Paul Robicheau #davidbyrne's show at the Boch Center Wang Theater ignited creative camaraderie and delivered a dazzling experience that lingers in mind and spirit. artsfuse.org/317958/conce...

Erica Abeel is suspicious of the murky political messaging in #LucaGuadagnino's "After the Hunt": the film churns up issues that feel several years behind the curve (hello 2007 and #HarveyWeinstein). artsfuse.org/317779/film-...

#thenewyorkfilmfestival's “Revivals” series showcases new restorations, writes @callinamagician.bsky.social, so the expectation is that these movies, including art films from around the world, will become more widely available. He reviews four of this year's entries. artsfuse.org/317811/film-...

Cyrisse Jaffee on two new non-fiction books -- "Fight for the Right to Read" and "The Ultimate Book of the Human Body" -- that offer important information for young readers. @crestonbooks.bsky.social artsfuse.org/317745/child...

Tim Jackson on @bowedtie.bsky.social's #TheSmashingMachine: This is far from a conventional sports drama: it is a study of a man’s struggle to find a sense of personal worth and relevance. artsfuse.org/317756/film-...

The Arts Fuse poem of the week: Jim Dunn's "The Ballad of Bailability" artsfuse.org/317803/weekl...

Kai Maristed on Laura Vazquez's #theendlessweek (@dorothyproject.bsky.social): the novel is a brave, uneven, at times brilliant swathe of prose. Experimental? For certain. Perhaps the only way to write an Internet novel is by looking from the inside out. artsfuse.org/317481/book-...

John Tamilio on #junctiontrio performing the music of #johnzorn at the #IsabellaStewartGardnerMuseum: this was the coolest show in town — an afternoon of experimental music that highlighted their virtuosity as individual players and as a unit. artsfuse.org/317711/conce...

The newsletter is out and about. My editorial points out that America’s arts and culture establishment has decided to bow to Trump. artsfuse.substack.com/p/the-arts-f...

Biographer Jennifer Ann Redmond’s sympathetic approach to Diana Barrymore’s disastrous life is valuable, writes Tom Connolly, because it rejects the poor-little-rich-girl tropes. She was more than a debauched debutante or fallen starlet. artsfuse.org/317656/book-...

Jonathan Bonfiglio on "Paradise/Mash-Up: Andrae Green" at the Boston Center for the Arts. For Jamaican-born visual artist @andraegreen.bsky.social, where land and sea meet is not a line, but an immersion. artsfuse.org/317545/visua...

Peter Walsh on "Matisse at War: Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France" (@penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social). All in all, this is a crisp, entertaining, and, so far as I can see, an accurate account of the last acts in #henrimatisse’s career. artsfuse.org/317407/book-...

Jonathan Blumhofer reviews a disc from the Estonian Festival Orchestra and conductor #paavojärvi that celebrates the 90th birthday of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. On Alpha Classics artsfuse.org/317490/class...

Martin Copenhaver on the drama "The Hills of California" at @thehuntington.bsky.social: This script about a dysfunctional family eventually packs a wallop, but it drags its feet at the start. artsfuse.org/317532/theat...

Scott McLennan on hearing #ZiggyMarley and #BurningSpear: The cross generational #DotheReggaeTour suggested that the music's creative trek was far from over. artsfuse.org/317504/conce...

David D'Arcy at #TiFF50 A trio of intriguing political films, ranging from tragedy to farce, one featuring Vladimir Putin as a character. artsfuse.org/317463/toron...

Across his career, British conductor #MartynBrabbins has used his bully pulpit to bring to light all sorts of deserving, unfamiliar repertoire, including the music of #havergalbrian. Jonathan Blumhofer reviews Brian's opera "Agamemnon" on Hyperion Records artsfuse.org/317451/class...

Erica Abeel on this year's #newyorkfilmfestival: it’s hard to imagine that Hollywood suits would get behind a movie like Brazilian filmmaker #klebermendoncafilho's "The Secret Agent," even one focused on a corrupt political regime that’s now history. artsfuse.org/317439/film-...

@pkeough1.bsky.social on #PaulThomasAnderson's confused and spectacular "One Battle After Another." It opens like a #MAGA wet dream about "Antifa". artsfuse.org/317424/film-...

Bob Katz on "Organizing America" (@thenewpress.bsky.social). The book presents brisk, capsule biographies of twenty largely under-publicized figures who, against the odds to promote a range of underdog causes, from abolition to union organizing to disarmament. artsfuse.org/317381/book-...

John Killacky writes that Angelo Madsen’s "A Body To Live" In is not trying to be a conventional biopic — this is an atmospheric reminiscence of an underground movement fascinated by extreme body modification. artsfuse.org/317098/film-...

@pkeough1.bsky.social on the indispensable Newburyport Documentary Film Festival: As other outlets for reporting and investigating the truth are persecuted or succumb to pressure, the role of independent documentary filmmaking grows more urgent and vital. artsfuse.org/317339/doc-t...

David Greenham on the Lyric Stage Company production of "Our Town": Given all the chaos and violence around us, isn’t it a mite too late for a subtle play like “Our Town” to be considered a “primal scream?” artsfuse.org/317354/theat...

Bill Marx reviews Front Porch Arts Collective's production of "The Mountaintop": this engaging revival of Katori Hall’s drama -- set in Memphis’s Lorraine Motel on April 3, 1968, the eve of the Rev. #MartinLutherKingJr.‘s assassination -- comes at a critical time. artsfuse.org/317253/theat...

This week’s poem: Chris McCreary’s “Echologue” artsfuse.org/317391/weekl...

The newsletter has set sail. In my editorial, I recommend that those who care about arts and culture read the PEN report: "All That is Lost: The Cultural Destruction of Gaza." This is "a grievous loss to the cultural heritage of humanity that we all share." artsfuse.substack.com/p/the-arts-f...

Ed Symkus on "Turla!", a new doc that bares (almost) all about stripper-actress #turasatana, best known as Varla, the buxom, tough-as-nails, black leather-clad, go-go-dancing, race car-driving, money-loving, psychotic lesbian in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" artsfuse.org/317289/film-...

Jeremy Ray Jewell on "How Progress Ends" @princetonupress.bsky.social y.social. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.” Rather than ask how progress ends, shouldn’t we be asking how progress bends? artsfuse.org/317131/book-...?

Jeremy Ray Jewell on "How Progress Ends" @princetonupress.bsky.social. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.” Rather than ask how progress ends, shouldn’t we be asking how progress bends? artsfuse.org/317131/book-...?

@aaronkeebaugh.bsky.social is over-the-moon that Horizon Ensemble is championing Germaine Tailleferre’s mesmerizing piano concerto. artsfuse.org/317310/conce...

Despite its abrasive style, writes @callinamagician.bsky.social, #plainclothes leaves no doubt about what is going to happen or what is meant to be its takeaway message about the film's tormented gay cop protagonist. artsfuse.org/317139/film-...

Jon Garelick reviews two superb bands at The Regattabar: Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis and the Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol Quintet. artsfuse.org/317271/jazz-...

David D'Arcy reviews two outstanding films from this year’s #TorontoInternationalFilmFestival— “The Tale of Silyan” and “Wrong Husband”. artsfuse.org/317224/film-...

Arts fuse critic Kai Maristed talks about the world premiere production of her play "Paul and Émile" at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. The script focuses on a fictional rapprochement between two painter Paul Cézanne and novelist Émile Zola. artsfuse.org/317204/theat...

Bill Marx talks to Boston-born actor/director Vincent Paul Murphy about his memoir "Caught." What has made for a successful life in the theater? For Murphy, living by the values of “cooperation, creativity, listening, and play.” artsfuse.org/317007/theat...

Thomas F. Connolly on "Three Speeches That Saved the Union" (@nyupress.bsky.social): Peter Charles Hoffer’s book offers valuable lessons on how concession and consensus once served as pillars of the Republic. artsfuse.org/316800/book-...

In The Short Fuse Podcast, host Elizabeth Howard talks with @setonhawkins.bsky.social, the Director of Public Programs and Educational Resources at Jazz at Lincoln Center, about Jazz at @lincolncenter.bsky.social Orchestra’s “Mother Africa” season. artsfuse.org/317187/short...

Cowboy Junkies has simply been too busy to wallow in the past, which has meant a lot of great songs have been untouched in concert. That will be remedied when the band returns for a tour in New England. artsfuse.org/317158/conce...?

According to Robert Israel, @spkeasy.social's new artistic director, Dawn Meredith Simmons, has chosen wisely. She has opened the troupe’s 35th season with a strong production of #ebonibooth's heartwarming, well-constructed, one-act. artsfuse.org/317173/theat...

Michael Londra on Askold Melnyczuk's "The Venus of Odesa: New and Selected Poems" (Madhat Press ). Of special interest is the poet's treatment of objects. His imagination transforms curios into uncanny artefacts. artsfuse.org/316954/poetr...

For Michael Marano, "HIM" works incredibly well as a Grotesque, and by that he means the film takes the incipient, creepy ideologies of pro football and blows them up to terrifying and absurd proportions. artsfuse.org/317121/film-...

At this exhilarating Alabama Shakes show at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, writes Paul Robicheau, it was clear that Brittany Howard’s status as a force of nature came not from her bellowing vocals so much as the soulful subtleties she wove into high notes. artsfuse.org/317021/conce...

Although Greg M. Epstein’s analysis and critique of what he calls a tech religion are on target in his book "Tech Agnostic" (The MIT Press), writes Preston Gralla, his solutions for undoing its damage are bland, vague, and toothless. artsfuse.org/316994/book-...

The week's poem: January Gill O'Neil's "America, What Dream Do You Dream?" artsfuse.org/317077/weekl...

Kathleen Stone on an illuminating book about the 19th-century American artist Francesca Alexander, a Bostonian who shaped a very different life for herself and for her art. Published by Lund Humphries artsfuse.org/316971/book-...