Shakespeare, the Playwright with a License to Quill
Jacopo della Quercia’s recently released novel License to Quill places literary legends William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe in a narrative derived from contemporary spy thrillers such as the...
View ArticlePeter and the Starcatcher: A Magical Experience
During the opening night of Peter and the Starcatcher, the Kitchen Theatre Company once again proved its ability to transcend the intimate confines of a performance stage and draw the imagination to...
View ArticleGrey Gardens: Honest, Minimalist Cinema
It is perhaps the underlying ambition of any artist to depict a part of the human condition through his or her work. In doing so, the artist may choose to include complex, reflective, embellishing...
View ArticleRisley Theatre’s Julius Caesar: A Unique and Compelling Adaptation
Like Hemingway’s profound narrative on the destructive perplexity of war, or like Kubrick’s cinematic interpretations of subconscious struggle, Shakespeare’s tragedies possess an infinite relevance...
View ArticleSWAN | Where Rhetoric Falls Short
Musical composition and performance are perhaps two of the most effective vessels for the indication of political support or dissent by private citizens. Consider the late 1960s, when groups and...
View ArticleSWAN | A Genre Marginalized
The Mingus Big Band is one of several ensembles formed after the death of jazz titan Charles Mingus that dedicates itself to performing and interpreting the canon of the late composer’s music. Since...
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Spinning Singles: Beyoncé, Yoni & Geti, Brian Eno
Yoni & Geti — “Wassup (Uh Huh)” Every indie geek whose taste has ever skewed eclectic and depressive should consider it a true-blue blessing that Yoni Wolf (WHY?, Clouddead) and David Cohn aka...
View ArticleSWAN | Woodstock Idealism in Coachella
Last semester, I wrote an essay about American consumer culture as it arose from 1960s New Left activism. It began like this: In the summer of 1999, Mark Puma, 28, a native of upstate New York, would...
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TEST SPIN: Allen Toussaint — American Tunes, Robert Glasper — Everything’s...
In late May, Robert Glasper released his Miles Davis tribute album Everything’s Beautiful, and several weeks later Nonesuch Records issued the late Allen Toussaint’s American Tunes. Glasper and...
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SWAN | Archetypes and Artistic Expression
In 1997, the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published The Fourth Turning, a book that describes and expands upon the generational theory of history for which the two authors are regarded....
View ArticleTEST SPIN: Frank Ocean — Blonde
I have a difficult time describing Frank Ocean’s music. Perhaps it’s a surreal introspection of the most morose and neurotic reactions to something tragic, like the loss of love and the painful journey...
View ArticleSWAN | Who’s Raging?
The lineup of the newly formed Prophets of Rage is an extraordinary one: Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine, along with Chuck D and DJ Lord of Public Enemy and B-Real...
View ArticleSWAN | Legitimization or Appropriation?
2016 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Beastie Boys debut album Licensed to Ill, and in commemoration, the work will be reissued on vinyl, which is set for release on October 14. Licensed to Ill...
View ArticleSWAN | Trying to Be Relevant
I was at a party one time and I was introduced to someone through a mutual friend. “This is Nick,” my friend said. “He’s really into music and he plays the piano.” “Cool, that’s sort of interesting!...
View ArticleSWAN | The Notes that Inspire a Thousand Words
It’s a grand old time. I stand at the edge of the dance floor, that ambiguous event horizon beyond which lies the vociferous, collective rampage of too many young people crowded into too small a...
View ArticleSWAN | Lots of Classical Music in My Spotify Library
One time I was having a classical music listening session with a friend of mine, and when he asked what we should listen to next, I suggested some of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He acquiesced, but not...
View ArticleSWAN | Expression in the Era of Trump and Pseudo-Masculinity
When I was much younger, around four or five years of age, I played soccer on a YMCA little league team. Yet, as I’ve been subsequently told, rare was it that I actually joined in and played the game...
View ArticleSWAN | Well Well Well Well; Thanks for the Memories Fall 2016
“Well this is some old-school, Ivy Leaguer, boys and girls, three-feet-on-the-floor stuff,” I thought to myself. We were going to Wells College for a semi-formal. My friend’s girlfriend goes there, and...
View ArticleSWAN | Not a Review of La La Land
I haven’t even seen La La Land, so this is not a review of that film. The picture accompanying this article is only related to the subject in spirit and is primarily there for bait to increase...
View ArticleSWAN | On Freaks and Geeks and Music
I would like to initiate this piece by making the rather bold assertion that Freaks and Geeks is a most profound creative portrayal of white, suburban and American high school life. Although it was...
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