Blogcritics Author: Terence Clarke

Sundance Cinemas: Robert Redford's New Way Of Going To The Movies

Terence Clarke — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:56:40 EDT

Popcorn and not much else just doesn't cut it any more.
These days, with streaming downloadable movies, with Netflix, Apple, and YouTube, with the glut of so many visuals so readily available everywhere and the Internet poised to become the fount of most people’s film-viewing experience, the notion of going to a movie theater feels like an idea that has passed its prime. When I drive around San...

Vel�zquez and the Soul of Juan de Pareja

Terence Clarke — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:59:21 EDT

Velázquez's masterpiece: The slave, and what his master saw.
The portrait of Juan de Pareja by Diego de Velázquez that hangs in a gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is surrounded by other estimable works, even a few of genius. But this work compels the viewer to look. It is a portrait of personal disappointment and anguish, and its great beauty deepens that anguish profoundly. I...

New "Nuevo Tango" Sacrifices Tradition and Grace

Terence Clarke — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:54:53 EDT

The women want to appear hip and current, but their partners are hurting them with what they�re doing. It�s nuevo, but not tango.
Tango is back, the kids are dancing it in Buenos Aires and worldwide, and this is a good thing. It was relegated for many years -- especially in Argentina, where it was born -- to the status of an old dance done by old people in a rickety sort of way. There were several reasons for this. Rock and roll came to Argentina in the 1960's with the...

The Great Cafés: Cafe Impresso at El Ateneo Grand Splendid, Buenos Aires

Terence Clarke — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 15:32:03 EDT

This caf� immediately fits the bill for the basics of a great caf�: history, theater, Tango, fine books, and great coffee.
The Café Impresso, in El Ateneo Grand Splendid at Avenida Santa Fe 1860 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, immediately fits the bill for the basics of a great café. All is here: a well-appointed wait staff, real ceramic plates, glass glasses, proper napkins, an accommodating attitude, and all the food and drink that would be served in any very...

Movie Review: There Will Be Blood

Terence Clarke — Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:04:53 EST

The Best Actor in thrall to a squandered story.
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! It starts well enough, with a striking vision of what it was like to work in a hard-scrabble hole in the ground in the 1890s, in search of silver. The madness and misery presented in the first fifteen minutes of There Will Be Blood are memorable because they are suffered in such silence, so effectively staged...

Baseball, Poetry, and Nicaragua

Terence Clarke — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:08:12 EST

They are all the same.
In 1986 I went to Nicaragua with a North American baseball team. The Sandinista government was in full flower at the time, which meant that there was almost nothing to be had in Nicaraguan markets; citizens stood in line for basic foodstuffs. Bulgarians, sent by the Soviet government, were offering rather leaden infrastructure assistance, in this...

From Bloggerish to Gibberish

Terence Clarke — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:15:16 EST

Many blogs are more like random momentary conversation that goes nowhere, or at least not far.
In the history of literature, the genre of the letter has been a very important element. Epistolary exchange has shed light on the lives of most of the important artists and historical figures -- and some less important figures that happened to have written well -- in the history of the world. This light has revealed profound emotional difficulty,...

The Great Cafés: Confiter�a Ideal, Buenos Aires

Terence Clarke — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:03:36 EST

For the essence of tango, you can do no better.
The kids are dancing tango again in Buenos Aires, fueled by new styles of tango music that are laced with hip-hop elements, jazz riffs, rhythm and blues licks, and suggestions and samples of rock and roll. You still encounter some younger people in this city that feign a lack of interest, who say that tango is the music of their grandparents and...

Book Review: Fashion - A History from the 18th to the 20th Century, edited by The Kyoto Costume Institute

Terence Clarke — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:06:00 EST

Think that fashion has gone the way of all flesh? Take a look at these books.
Fashion is not for everybody. Simply take a look at any crowd of Americans walking down the street and you’ll see how true this really is. Not since the 1960s, when well-designed couturier and other fashion went into the tank in favor of tie-dyed T-shirts and raggedy beards for the fellows, Afghani muu-muu’s for the ladies, and the...

Felipe and I

Terence Clarke — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:23:32 EST

Will the Atlantic wait for me?
"Felipe!" the children called once more. The islands in the middle of the great Paran� River were being swept over on this Christmas Day by a sudden wind, and the tall grasses seemed to undulate in the breezes, hurried into one another in soft, moving hillocks and vales. "Felipe!"Juan Ram�n Jiménez published a book entitled Platero y yo...