Posthumous publication of a book by a great but grievously neglected writer gives posterity a chance to either rectify its mistake or compound it. The lack of fanfare greeting the recent publication of “towards another summer,” a short but beautiful novel that New Zealand writer Janet Frame thought was too personal to be published in her lifetime, suggests that she will be passed over again.

She is best known for her three-volume reminiscence, “An Autobiography,” but Frame’s volumes of fiction, which include twelve novels and five collections of short stories, merits the attention owed to a master, unruly and ruthless, whose imaginative strength lies in the exorbitance of her language. (more…)

Whether you are seriously hooked on chess or casually intrigued by it, you probably think of the tables in Cambridge’s Holyoke Center as the Boston area’s one big outdoor chess venue. That’s, after all, where the Chess Master sets out his board a few tables down from his counterpart, the redoubtable Chess Mister. That’s where you can play both regular chess and blitz, the high-speed version, most any day, for $2.00 a pop, against skilled competition. (If you win — it does occasionally happen — you get your $2.00 back.) And that’s where, if you’re learning, you can find a teacher.

Who knew? Chinatown Park on the southern tip of the Greenway rivals Harvard Square as a home for outdoor chess

Of course, if you’d been bitten by the chess bug, you didn’t need me to tell you about the scene at Holyoke Center. You knew.

But if you knew, you probably thought that’s all there is to outdoor chess in Boston. If so, you were mistaken. There is another venue where the game is played with at least as much passion and relish — the game, that is,if you’re capable of wrapping your mind around the fact that chess speaks more than one language. (more…)

One in so many Western works of art contains an image of a person we would call black. The phenomenon attracts relatively little attention in art history. The Menil Foundation went after it seriously, in a project now inherited by the Warburg Institute. An exhibition in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam offers a sanitized view of the black in Dutch and Flemish art. (more…)

Now in its third year under the watchful eye of the admirable Whistler in the Dark Theatre, FeverFest presents a selection of Boston’s fringe groups in an evening of short performances, a sort of theatrical tasting event billed as a round up of “explosive work by vital young companies.” Tonight will be the fest’s final performance; those who support the idea of alternative theater, those who root for more than the usual showbiz bosh should attend. These companies say they want to break boundaries: they must build an audience that will give them the financial and spiritual sustenance they need to perform that invaluable service.

But don’t expect to be challenged, provoked, titillated, or pissed off this time around. The six companies roll out a lineup of resolutely genial pieces that are amiably surreal, sweet-tempered and oh-so–pleasant, bouncy and comfortably entertaining. In other words, nothing in FeverFest 08, in spirit, contradicts the staid-to-the-bone stage seasons of the city’s mainstream establishment theaters. If our fringe troupes aren’t going to take risks, if they aren’t going to embrace this year’s theme for the festival – elemental — than what is the point? (more…)

“The way of the Samurai is a natural way of the Universe, Ma, and to learn it, one must live one’s life from first to last in self-control. I know all about that stuff now.”
– Wynne in Adam Rapp’s “Stone Cold Dead Serious”

Just how far are American playwrights from dramatizing a culture buffeted and manhandled by uncertainty, assaulted by fears of economic catastrophe and successful terrorism attacks? In other words, just how shallow is our theater’s response to changing times? The Gurnet Theatre Project’s energetic Boston premiere (closed) of Adam Rapp’s allegedly dark comedy “Essential Self-Defense” suggests the distance between contemporary reality and theatrical fantasy can be measured in light years.

“Essential Self-Defense”: Love at First Kick in the Head
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Luckily the Boston area is home to a considerable number of world-class pianists. Among them is Victor Rosenbaum. An honors graduate of Brandeis University, he was chair of the piano faculty at the New England Conservatory before heading the Longy School of Music for 16 years. He currently is on the Conservatory faculty as well as that of the Mannes School of Music in New York, and gives performances and master classes around the globe.

Victor Rosenbaum displays superb pianism in his latest CD (more…)

The American Theatre Critics Association, which moves around the country for its annual convention, this year spent a recent week in the nation’s capital and environs. The area houses 75 theatres – 43 in the District of Columbia, 17 in nearby Maryland, and 15 in the contiguous portion of Virginia. From the many current offerings, the attendees, thanks to two large buses, were able to sample ten presentations.

A photo of Kimberly Gilbert, a performer in “Measure for Pleasure,” one of the raunchier DC shows on display for the ATCA voyagers. (more…)

Though it does not originate in the Kuiper Belt, the Beijing summer Olympics (8/8/08-8/24/08) is bearing down upon us like an outsized asteroid, bringing China out of feudal/communist distance into full twenty-first century relief. Sports, at this point, remain secondary:before we get to ping-pong, swimming, the shot-put and gymnastics, Americans have unprecedented amounts of trend-setting Chinese art and culture to ponder.

Time to take out your Xiangqui board! (more…)

Hu Jia, a freelance writer, civil rights, environmental and AIDS activist, was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.”

Last week the PEN American Center announced it was sending out letters to the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders protesting, fifty days before the start of the Olympics, the curtailment of human rights in China. I figured this meant that a petition PEN hand-delivered - via much hoopla in early May - to the Chinese Mission at the United Nations asking for the release of dozens of imprisoned Chinese writers came up short.

The news is worse – not only has China’s media clampdown become more draconian over the past few months, but the government’s indifference to finger-pointing letters and petitions such as PEN’s suggests that human rights advocacy wields embarrassingly little influence. Unless you believe that conditions for writers in the People’s Republic of China would have been harsher without these efforts in the international community. The catch, suggested in an excellent recent piece in the New Republic, is that it could also be claimed that China’s authorities reinforce their hold on power by thumbing their noses at demands that they increase freedom of expression.
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The local choral group called the Boston Secession has recently issued its second CD recording, entitled “Surprised by Beauty: Minimalism in Choral Music.” Founded in 1996 by conductor/pianist Jane Ring Frank, who had moved east from California in 1991, this professional chorus consists of two dozen singers – six sopranos, six altos, five tenors, and seven basses. The group’s name was modeled on that of the Vienna Secession, a progressive cooperative formed in 1897 by the painter Gustav Klimt and several Austrian colleagues.

The new Boston Secession CD manifests plenty of beauty
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