Maybe it has something to do with being from the Isle of Man, an ancient place both of and separate from united empires. Something about those with Manx ancestry, that they possess an ability to light others from within, that they give something innate to others, allowing them to shine in exactly the way they were meant to. Paul McCartney descends from Manx lineage; my… continue
The Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy opened a group of new exhibitions and retrospectives earlier this month. Expanding the Narrative: Recent Acquisitions is comprised of artworks which have never before been displayed for public viewing: rare photo-collages from Beat-generation artist Mary Joan Jay Defeo, oil paintings of Jane Freilicher, and William Wegman’s more recent photographs and panels. In addition, the Addison focuses on self-taught photographer Gordon Parks and a specific set of prints in The New Tide, Early Work (1940-1950). These programs, funded in part by… continue
The dawning of the Fifties birthed the Golden Age of science fiction cinema in America, lasting until…well, has it ever really ended? From the nuclear blast ground zero of giant mutant invasion sci-fi, every subsequent era has had its own impactful wave: the mind-expanding, body-introspective films of the Sixties; the socio-political-environmental Seventies; the Eighties, where the breakneck evolution of special effects sired block bluster-y, world-exploring epics; the… continue
You might have been attracted to Jerry Beck and his non-profit cultural organization the Revolving Museum by one of the many strategic lures set up to summon the interaction of passersby in municipal locations. In Boston’s Downtown Crossing, a basketball hoop bolted to the side of a truck elicits an unusual exercise—the idea of playing a quick game of… continue
A lighthouse is a structure meant to caution, to establish perimeters in limited visibility, to warn when navigating the partially unknown. The Lighthouse, the latest film by filmmaker Robert Eggers, is all of these things, and nothing short of one of the darkest films produced in the last decade, even despite a few laughs. Co-writing the screenplay with his brother, Eggers persists in… continue
