Archives for March 17, 2010

Andrés Segovia teaches a master class on the guitar transcription of Bach’s Chaconne:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

In preparation for the Broadway debut of The Addams Family, I’ve been revisiting the wonderful New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams, which are infinitely more artful and sophisticated than any of their offspring.
I ran across this cartoon on the Web the other day, and the reason why it caught my eye is that the visual “joke” Addams was making arises from a now-dead technology, that of the phonograph. As I looked at it, a disquieting thought occurred to me: what percentage of people under the age of thirty are likely to get the point of the cartoon?
Speaking as a middle-aged music lover, I find myself reluctant to poll my younger friends. Some things are better left unknown….

“Like most people who cultivate an interest in the arts, Hayward was extremely anxious to be right. He was dogmatic with those who did not venture to assert themselves, but with the self-assertive he was very modest.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage