Scene4 Magazine | letters to the editor

I really enjoyed your insight into an artist's passion for his music to carry him to the end, and be heard long after his departure from the here and now. In the words of Billy Joe Shaver's Live Forever; "Just Like the Songs I Leave Behind Me, I'm Gonna' Live Forever Now." I'v'e written many songs that I have never had the ability to record, but from the feedback I get from playing them live in the clubs, I know they should have been put on vinyl, tape or digital. But with manual labour's small payback, I have never had enough money left over to afford the high cost of recording those songs. Oh well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has fallen through the cracks. And God Bless those who somehow managed to get their music promoted by those producers who had the money to make their songs heard.

Great article.

Ray Murray (okommissionaries)

Read Les Marcott's Article

As always, a very fine article. I remember hearing Johnny Cash's cd after his wife June passed away, I cried. Thanks again for another thought provoking article, I'll be looking into the artists you wrote about more.

Michelle Dowell

Talk about Comic Relief! What a hoot. And definitely a piece of art in an arts and media magazine. More, more!

Dave Mandelbaum  Read Elliot Feldman's Comic

I believe you have missed the underlying humanist upheaval Stoppard has allowed to occur in 'Coast of Utopia'. The characters are not political naysayers, but real people trying to find they're national, personal, and artistic identities. Much like our African American youth searches for cultural identity in the kiddy pool of their free history but is force-fed a censor-packaged consumable gangster-rap sustenance, the revolutionary youth in Stoppard's play searches for it's own identity in an culture that force feeds them a regurgitated version of itself. I found myself deeply moved by the statements made in the play (direct quotes in fact) about art and philosophy’s relation to art. I was not impressed with the Jane Austin romance plot- but found the lead's futile philosophical meanderings amidst a greater social upheaval spoke directly to me. It said, "Shut up and DO," "Stop talking and start DOING." "Stop writing love poetry and start LOVING." "Stop theorizing and start TRAIL BLAZING." I'll be there for the next two installments, not because this play made me feel smart like some intellectual elitist, but because I saw myself exposed and explored in these characters, exactly what you implied is the soul gift of theatre over other art forms. If you have found a dead end at the conclusion of 'Coast of Utopia', then I have to speculate that you were going the wrong way on that street. P.S. The only thing I regret is (as with most theatre) I felt like the youngest person in the audience, and I'm almost thirty.

Jerrod Bogard
Read Michael Bettencourt's Article

Another great review by Miles David Moore. I look forward to his monthly reviews and read them with relish. Clearly Moore understands film and how to share this knowledge with his readers. Keep up the great work!

Steve Rogers
Read Miles David Moore's Latest Reviews

Arthur Meiselman's December column, "Anthony Hopkins Unwired!", recalls the quote from Edward Gibbon: "The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."

Or else the quote from Louis Armstrong, answering a society matron who asked him his definition of jazz: "Lady, if you have to ask, you'll never know."

Sir Anthony Hopkins, that greatest of actors, reminds us that talent is innate and unteachable. And Meiselman, a lifelong observer and director of actors, approves and endorses that basic wisdom. My own observation would be, comparing actors with poets, that a successful acting class would be much less a class than a workshop. The participants would all be of roughly equal talent, if differing styles, and the only thing that would distinguish the teacher is length and depth of experience. Whether you want or need a class is a matter strictly of temperament, not instruction. Whereas Hopkins is a lone wolf who avoids the company of actors, an actor like, say, Al Pacino seeks out the classroom experience and the comments of his fellows. It's similar to the difference between Robert Frost, who gloried in the classroom and the company of poets, and that great solitary Emily Dickinson. The one thing that unites them all is that, in the end, no one HAD to teach them to be great artists. They were born that way.

Having said my piece, I will only urge Meiselman and Sir Anthony to be very careful about accepting any parcels in future from James Lipton.

Read Arthur Meiselman's Column

LOL! Funny stuff.
Sam Powell

Keep this guy employed! VERY funny!
Catharine McCammon

I found Karren Alenier's comments about the similarities in technique of these 2 very different operas insightful. I saw the Madame Butterfly production and agree that the "film" techniques were largely effective in conveying the emotion of the opera, if somewhat jarring at times to one used to a more traditional production. While I didn't see "College Park", Karren's review of it reminds me of an "over the top" production of The Italian Job at the Edinburgh fringe festival a few years back. We can only hope that traditional opera will not have to lower its production values too much to remain relevant to ticket buyers in this video charged entertainment world.
Susan Absher
read Karren Alenier's article

It's so sad that Ricardo Montalbán is so sick that he can't see what's happening in his name. Gurza wrote a great article (Two For The Stage) and what's happened to Nosotros is a shame. Now these two artists, Llauger-Meiselman and Alejandro can finally realize Ricardo's dream. Bravo! And now something has to be done about this guy, Jerry Velasco, who's done nothing but line his own pockets and ripped off the situation for his own glory. He needs to be finally booted out on his a** so he can get a job doing what he does best—nothing! It's time to let the real people do the dream. Viva Ricardo.
Alicia Munoz Tompkins
read Agustin Gurza's article

The problem with Rich is that her view is so narrow and so out of step with the times that her writing ignores a vast part of the people and the explosion of poetry forms that they relate to and they in turn ignore her. And she shuns lyricism because maybe she has no sense of music. It says a lot about for whom the National Book Awards toll.
Beth Bradshaw
read Kathi Wolfe's article

Thanks for the article. I just finished watching Nashville Sound (again) and thought that I would find out what happened to Herbie Howell. You were the only web site that had anything on the man. I too hope that he is doing good for himself.
David Burch
read Les Marcott's article

Thanks for a very thoughtful and insightful article. In your experience with those plays, I wonder what the difference would be between audiences in New York and audiences in Texas. I wonder who would stand and who would sit at the end of the play?
Kenneth
read Nathan Thomas' column

If you are saying that the British are hypocritical when it comes to sex, imagine what that study would show in the rest of Europe or better yet in the good old US of A. Sex and sex things are such a profitable commercial product that if they could only figure out how to convert it into an alternative fuel we would be a happy planet!
Jezebel
read Andrea Kapsaski's column

I love Anthony Hopkins but I don't believe one word of his interview. He has such a twisted sense of humour, but as you make abundantly clear, he is the one "great" talent of our time, and that is all that matters.
Miranda Thomas
read Arthur Meiselman's column

Just wanted to comment on Bill Ballantyne's article "Writing a Play" in the November Issue. Excellently written piece on what the theatre is about--at it's core. Ballantyne captures the event of live theatre and playwriting. Invigorating writing. Clear and inspirational.
Marcia Bennett
read Bill Ballantyne's article

Freddie Mercury was dying of HIV/AIDS during the recording of the last Queen Album. I've always considered Innuendo to be Mercury's validictory, with the songs "I'm Going Slightly Mad," "The Show Must go on," and the title track itself acting as snapshots into the soul of the singer even as he refused to acknowlege his mortality publicly till the day before his death. Those who were in the studio with him at the time reported being somewhat scared and amazed at the sheer vocal strength coming from Freddy's obviously dying body. Without a doubt, Freddy sips Ambrosia in the same halls with Jimmy, Warren and Johnny.
Daniel McGowan
read Les Marcott's article