Somewhere between Ballydehob and Skibbereen, the G.P.S. directed me down a narrow country road toward an indentation in the southwestern Irish coast called Roaringwater Bay. The castle I was looking for had been one of the last to fall to the English, in the early 1600s, in a coda to the historic Battle of Kinsale, […]
One morning in may, the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was recuperating in a sunny room on the first floor of a Palo Alto convalescent hospital. He was dressed in white pants and a green sweater, not a hospital gown, and was quick to point out that he is not normally confined to a medical facility. “I […]
For close to a half century, prog has been the breeding ground for rock’s most out-there, outsized and outlandish ideas: Thick-as-a-brick concept albums, an early embrace of synthesizers, overly complicated time signatures, Tolkienesque fantasies, travails from future days and scenes from a memory. In celebration of Rush’s first Rolling Stone cover story, here’s the best of […]
David W. Griffith was the pioneering director who invented and introduced the original grammar of cinema as we know it today, but there are many who took the principles and developed them into an art form, and formed the grammar of cinema in different but influential ways. 1. Alfred Hitchcock It’s no wonder Alfred Hitchcock […]
In the recorded history of philosophy, there may be no sharper a mind than Ludwig Wittgenstein. A bête noire, enfant terrible, and all other such phrases used to describe affronts to order and decorum, Wittgenstein also represented an anarchic force that disturbed the staid discipline. His teacher Bertrand Russell recognized the existential threat Wittgenstein posed to his profession […]
“Rashomon” is one of Akira Kurosawa’s most famous films, and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. It is a very significant production for the Japanese movie industry since it marked its entrance to the world stage, a move that proved the prowess of Japanese cinema in the best way possible. “Rashomon” […]
\Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted band Steely Dan, died Sunday at the age of 67. Becker’s official site announced the death; no cause of death or other details were provided. “Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College […]