Category: Culture Corner

  • Image and Image: How Photographic Reproductions Enhance the Experience of Art

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    Bernie Langs Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, by James H. Stubblebine, is a two-volume set of books examining the fascinating period of early Italian Renaissance art from 1285 up to about 1330. The second volume features over 500 black and white photographs of the paintings discussed in volume one, including each of the surviving…

  • Two of My Favorite Guitar Solos

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    Bernie Langs I came to musical awareness at age five in the early 1960s when my parents played records on our home “hi-fi” system featuring the mellow folk songs of The Kingston Trio and The Tarriers, as well as soundtracks of their favorite Broadway musicals. Like many children and young people at the time, my…

  • The Curious Appeal of “The Innocent” in Film: Benjamin Button and Forrest Gump

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    Bernie Langs The 1994 film Forrest Gump, directed by Robert Zemeckis, focuses on the life of a supposedly simple-minded man who manages to constantly find himself in the center of many historically turbulent moments during the 1960s and 1970s. Along the way, the Greenbow, Alabama native meets several presidents, sees combat action in the Vietnam…

  • Culture Corner: An Interview with Jonathan Klein, former President, CNN/U.S.

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    Bernie Langs Jonathan Klein is the former President of CNN/U.S., having filled the position from 2004 to 2010. A 1980 graduate of Brown University, his interest in media and news started at the respected student-run commercial radio station in Providence, Rhode Island, WBRU-FM, where he worked as news director and, eventually, general manager. He began…

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    An Interview with Artist Ann Chernow of Westport, Connecticut Bernie Langs The artist Ann Chernow was born in 1936 and grew up in New York City. She has worked extensively in the mediums of lithography, silkscreen, etching, and colored pencil as well as oil painting. Known as “The Queen of Noir,” she achieved extensive recognition…

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    Giants of Classic Films: The Exceptional Mind Trapped in a World of Their Own Creation Bernie Langs The misunderstood great mind standing firm and alone with their vision, genius, or obsession has long been a theme in film history. Many of the genre’s greatest masterpieces center around such figures and feature actors of legendary stature…

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    And the Alternative Oscar Goes To… Bernie Langs You obviously cannot hand out Academy Awards for every superlative acting performance and deliver a statuette to all deserving movies every year. That said, here is a commercial-free presentation of Honorary Oscars for a handful of overlooked actors, actresses, musicians, films, and filmmakers that doesn’t take three…

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    Painter as Cinema: Gerhard Richter and Never Look Away Bernie Langs One of the difficult processes of being solidly past sixty years of age has been the near-weekly grieving for the passing away of cherished, long-time film, television, and music personalities. Many of my favorite musicians are over seventy years old, and although they are…

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    A War of the Worlds for the Age of Pandemic Bernie Langs Spoilers below! There have been two excellent film adaptations of the ahead of its time 1898 science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds. Gene Barry starred in the 1953 movie that would find repeated airtime in the late 1960s…

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    Best of the Boston Music Scene, 1979-1981: The Neighborhoods Bernie Langs I lived in Boston from 1979 to 1981, spending time as an active participant in the local rock music scene as a musician and songwriter playing in a short-lived band. The time period is now considered a ”golden age” of local New England music…