A review of Talking Heads by Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is the master of the monologue, pondering a range of social issues with a deftness that few other playwrights could match. This powerful collection features some of Bennett’s most famous monologues, performed superbly by actors that clearly have a deep understanding of the work. The combination of character development, a great eye for the minutiae of everyday life, and a theatrical sense of the absurd and tragic inherent in that life makes this an excellent piece of work.

Sensuality and Trouble: Marshall Crenshaw, Jaggedland

The fragile, shifting aspects of existence have found an eloquent chronicler in Crenshaw, although his voice may be too pretty for the crashing rhythms that surround it in “Someone Told Me.” “I sadly wondered, could we ever be on common ground?” he wonders after being told something disturbing, noting “so many worlds colliding” (“Someone Told Me”).

One More Listen: U2, No Line on the Horizon

The lyrics of “Breathe” blend reflections and observations, personal details and social events, and there is something surprisingly, pleasingly, Asian in some of the music. “Spent the night trying to make a deadline, squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline,” Bono sings in the song “Cedars of Lebanon,” an admission which seems less an ideal than a compromise to me, and part of the song’s Dylanesque rambling.

Woman as Center: Jill Sobule, California Years

It is impressive how much of the world Sobule gets into her songs, how easily she creates or documents characters. “Spiderman” could be the rantings of a mad man, but it is more likely the ruminations of one more person in California trying to make a little money off Hollywood by impersonating a movie figure. California Years ends with “The Donor Song,” a song made up of the names of people who contributed funds allowing Jill Sobule to create the album California Years.

American Masters, Southern Artists: Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi, Buckwheat Zydeco’s Lay Your Burden Down, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys’ Best

The pianist, songwriter, and singer Allen Toussaint’s collection of song standards The Bright Mississippi is elegant, haunting, pleasing. Is that what is expected of music made by a musician in Louisiana? If anyone wants to know what music in Louisiana is like, they can listen to Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi, Buckwheat Zydeco’s Lay Your Burden Down, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys’ Best of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. This is American music by American masters.

A review of The Sicilian Bb5 Revealed by Neil McDonald

There is an occasional dry wit, too, which is no bad thing (e.g. after a cool positional display by Adams, he remarks that ‘the Hedgehog wasn’t so much squashed as slowly marinated’). There are a plentiful number of diagrams and the text is clear and well-spaced, however, one would have liked to have seen an index of players or complete games. Other than that, The Sicilian Bb5 Revealed is a model of its kind.