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RIP Captain Phil Harris

Posted by Unknown on February 12, 2010

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Barbara Cook and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

In the past week, I have had the pleasure of attending two concerts at Symphony Hall in Boston. The first featured legendary vocalist Barbara Cook and the other the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by the incomparable Wynton Marsalis. Both were part of the Celebrity Series, and as always both were phenomenal. Approaching eighty years old, Barbara Cook is best known for her work on Broadway, especially for originating the roles of Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's Candide and her Tony Award-winning Marian the Librarian in Meredith Wilsons' The Music Man . Since leaving Broadway she has made a career of the concert stage with such critically acclaimed shows like Mostly Sondheim and Barbara Cook's Broadway . Keeping with her recent Sondheim theme, the Celebrity Series performance was entitled "No One Is Alone" from the musical Into the Woods . Singing songs written by one of Broadway's greatest composers and songs he wished he had written, Ms. Cook ran the

Ian Rankin's Saints of the Shadow Bible

Being a fan of crime fiction and mysteries, I feel late to the Ian Rankin party. While contemplating a vacation to Scotland, I learned about Rankin's oeuvre, all set in Edinburgh. Starting with his newest offering Saints of the Shadow Bible would serve as a test; if it was good, I will have found a treasure trove of new titles to keep me busy. Though there is significant back story to which, as a new reader, I am not privy, Rankin's story telling in the Saints manages to communicate all all this necessary facts once needs to know, without a tedious recitation that long-time readers find boring. (Yes, I'm talking to you Sue Grafton .) Saints pits the old against the new in the realm of police investigations, where it's snitches and favors v. forensics and Google searches. Detective Sergeant John Rebus (demoted for past sins in past novels) represents the old, and internal affairs (complaints department) inspector Malcolm Fox represents the new, while Detective I

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Comic books and superheroes are all the rage at the box office, and Marvel has cornered the market on doing it right. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is the best installment yet of the Marvel franchise, surpassing even "The Avengers," which I loved. The formula for success has been great acting, a good story, and buckets of money. The formula holds for the new installment of Captain America, and the result was $303.3 million opening weekend. What makes "Winter Soldier" a success is its willingness to take an important principle and build a story for our times around that big idea. In our post 9/11 world, the balance between national security and individual liberty is a delicate business. After the alien invasions of "The Avengers" and "Thor: Dark World," I imagine a world ready and willing to consign most of their liberties to history in exchange for the illusory promise of security today. What happens, though, when the app

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