The Arts Fuse Newsletter, December 18
The Winter Appeal enters its Third Week -- Feed the Fuse! The Year's Best in Film and Classical Music, reviews of a Jesus Lizard live show, and an album featuring music by Boston-based composers
From The Editor's Desk:
A grateful shout-out to all who have already contributed to the magazine’s Winter Appeal. Please consider going here to help us raise the $700 needed to make a $1000 match. If it helps any, my birthday is tomorrow — I turn 71 — and no gift would be more welcome than one that sustains arts criticism.
This will be my last column before 2025, so Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to Arts Fuse readers. As someone who believes in the importance of negative criticism, especially given the media’s nonstop happy talk, I didn’t want 2024 to end without saluting art critic Sean Tatol’s cheerleading for the value of fault finding in The Point:
“It is plainly impossible to approach the world without making judgments: anything from choosing friends you can trust to picking out a ripe orange requires a differentiation of qualities we learn to recognize through experience. Art and media are no different. A toddler will tend to prefer The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Moby-Dick, subjectively, but a twenty-year-old should be able to discern that the latter is an objectively better work of literature, even if they may not go so far as to agree that Herman Melville is better than Harry Potter.
Of course, today’s twenty-year-old is certainly less likely to read Moby-Dick, especially if no one has ever made the case to them that it’s a better or more important book than others that are more accessible and “fun.” This underscores the subtext of “letting people enjoy things.” Refusing negative criticism is not only an instinctive rejection of negativity itself, but also a preemptive defense against the notion that anything strange, antique or otherwise difficult may be of more value than what is familiar, popular or easy.”
I would add that negative criticism is essential because judgement takes place in a social context: it is about persuading others of the correctness of your verdict. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” promotes enervating unanimity. The Fuse will do what it can to make cultural dialogue richer, deeper, and more contentious in 2025.
—Bill Marx, Editor-in-Chief
Archive: From the Editor's Desk
Arts Feature: Best Movies (With Some Disappointments) of 2024
Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor
Our demanding film critics -- Gerald Peary, Peter Keough, Nicole Veneto, Tim Jackson, Ed Symkus, and Peg Aloi among them -- choose the best movies (along with some disappointments) of the year. And there is plenty of fruitful disagreement.
Arts Feature: Top Classical Recordings and Concerts of 2024
Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor
Our classical music critics supply their favorites, albums and concerts, from over the past year.
Concert Review: Jesus Lizard — More than a Noise-Rock Band
By Paul Robicheau
Jesus Lizard remains one of rock’s most fearsome combos, and this night the veteran band delivered one of 2024’s most memorable shows..
Classical Album Reviews: “Boston Etudes” and “American Sketches”
By Jonathan Blumhofer
Violinist Kristin Lee revels in ragtime; pianist Jihye Chang commissioned a series of keyboard etudes from eight Boston-based composers.
Film Review: “Queer” — The Color of Loneliness
By Peg Aloi
Queer breaks new artistic ground for an artist whose visionary talent is already well established.
Book Commentary: “Taming Silicon Valley” — Man Over AI
By Jeremy Ray Jewell
The kinds of regulations Gary Marcus proposes, however well-intentioned they may be, would — in practice — only end up further disenfranchising the masses.
Visual Arts Review: Let Us Now Praise Famous Women — “Paula Modersohn-Becker: I Am Me”
By Mary Sherman
The tiresome refrain leveled at so many brilliant woman artists is also often attached to Modersohn-Becker: she died too young for us to really know if she could have achieved greatness. But that claim does not hold up in the face of the works here.
Help Keep The Arts Fuse Lit!
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Keep the Fuse lit and support our 70+ writers by making a donation.
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Questions, comments, concerns?
Editor-in-Chief
Bill Marx
wmarx103@gmail.com
