Category: Culture Corner

Collecting Art Bernie Langs I’ve been acquiring works of art for most of my life, starting with the 1960s-style posters that graced the walls of my childhood bedroom. If you keep an eye out at galleries and book/gift shops, you can purchase some great and affordable pieces that will brighten living and work spaces, keeping…

An Interview with Musician and Composer Izzi Ramkissoon Bernie Langs When you speak with the award-winning electroacoustic multimedia composer, performer, and audiovisual artist Izzi Ramkissoon about music, you are immediately swept up by two things. The first is his zen-like manner, which invites you to engage and share his passion for music and the creative…

Television Review: Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story and Springsteen on Broadway Bernie Langs Photo Credits: Netflix If one believes that we’re living in a golden age of television, that blessing comes with a bonus of a golden age of rock and roll documentaries. Recent superlative films airing on Netflix and other cable services…

A Garden of Sports and Musical Delights Bernie Langs The period of the mid- to late- 1960s and early 1970s in America was the greatest window in history to experience childhood and adolescence. The whole world had the opportunity to enjoy the fantastic and exciting revolutionary developments in the arts at that time. A new…

The Piero Tour in Italy Bernie Langs   While familiarizing myself over the years with the pictures painted by the Masters of the Italian Renaissance, I have found that one artist stands out as singularly enigmatic in his body of work, Piero della Francesca (c.1415-1492). I have read various summaries about della Francesca in art…

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones Bernie Langs In December of 1968 The Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet just months before they would be introduced as “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.” The record, which features tunes by the songwriting team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards…

Bernie Langs Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Stephen Kurkjian discusses the Gardner Museum Theft and the Podcast “Last Seen” Stephen Kurkjian (photo courtesy of Mr. Kurkjian) Courtyard of the Gardner Museum in Boston (photo: Bernie Langs) “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” by Rembrandt, stolen in 1990 from the Gardner Museum (photo: Wikipedia) At 1:24 a.m.…

Bernie Langs David Bowie’s music always showcased complex arrangements, alongside lyrics reflecting the turmoil of our world. To learn more about Bowie and his music, I contacted musicians and producers who had worked with him during his productive recording and touring years (2002-2004) hoping to land an interview. Guitarist Gerry Leonard, who worked with Bowie…

Concert Review: Paul Simon at the Prudential Center (Newark, NJ), September 15, 2018 By Bernie Langs Paul Simon sings “The Boxer” at the Prudential Center—YouTube view by audience member. Singer-songwriter Paul Simon completed his farewell tour with an outdoor concert in Queens, New York on September 22, 2018, close to where he and his former…

Aileen Marshall Kelvin Droegemeier, November 19, 2014. Credit: Wikimedia Commons On July 31 of this year, Trump nominated Kelvin Droegemeier, a meteorologist, for Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.  This position has been vacant for 19 months since Trump took office, an unprecedented length of time. At this time, Droegeimeir…

Camila Cabello’s Havana Wows Pop Music Bernie Langs   Photo: Sony Music Entertainment The first time I heard the pop song Havana by Cuban-American recording artist Camila Cabello was on a radio tuned to one of my 20-year-old daughter’s stations. I was immediately floored by the the great groove and the unusually complex, smooth, and…