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Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Theater

Rebecca Luker Has 'Got Love' For Jerome Kern

Soprano Rebecca Luker made her Broadway debut as an understudy to Sarah Brightman in Phantom of the Opera in 1988.

February 5, 2013 The Broadway star has a new album, I Got Love: Songs of Jerome Kern, which features songs by the great Broadway composer. The collection came out of a live show Luker performed at the Manhattan club 54 Below.

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Monday, February 04, 2013

Music Reviews

Yo La Tengo: Decades In And Far From Fading

Yo La Tengo's new album is titled Fade.

February 4, 2013 The indie-rock favorite's new album, Fade, demonstrates that the group is all grown up but not at all stuffy. The album's music and words add up to pure affirmation of life and living.

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Author Interviews

A Barbados Family Tree With 'Sugar In The Blood'

The sugar cane fields of Barbados.

February 4, 2013 In her new book, Andrea Stuart explores the intersection of sugar, slavery, settlement, migration and survival in the Americas. Stuart's personal history was shaped by these forces — she is descended from a slave owner who had relations with an unknown slave.

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Saturday, February 02, 2013

Fresh Air Weekend

Fresh Air Weekend: Spacey, Fincher And Macy

Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright star in the new Netflix original series House of Cards, which premieres Feb. 1.

February 2, 2013 Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey and Oscar-winning director David Fincher team up for an excellent new Netflix original series that premieres Friday. As the alcoholic paterfamilias Frank Gallagher on the Showtime series Shameless, William H. Macy enjoys portraying a man with a dark side.

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Friday, February 01, 2013

Movie Reviews

'Gatekeepers' Let Us Inside Israeli Security

The documentary The Gatekeepers examines Israeli security policy in interviews with six former heads of the secretive  Shin Bet agency.

February 1, 2013 The Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Dror Moreh is not a defense of Israeli security policy, but a critique. The six Shin Bet heads Moreh interviews may believe in the tactics they devised, but it's the overall strategy they think is flawed.

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Author Interviews

How The Glock Became America's Weapon Of Choice

Glock cover detail

February 1, 2013 In his book Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, Paul Barrett traces how the sleek, high-capacity Austrian weapon found its way into Hollywood films and rap lyrics, not to mention two-thirds of all U.S. police departments.

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Music Reviews

A 'Special Edition' Box Set Of Jack DeJohnette And Band

Jack DeJohnette.

January 31, 2013 A new four-CD set highlighting the music of the jazz keyboardist and drummer contains two discs that are gems and another two that have their moments.

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Television

Spacey And Fincher Make A 'House Of Cards'

Kevin Spacey is the star and a producer of the new Netflix series House of Cards, on which David Fincher is a co-producer.

January 31, 2013 Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey and Oscar-winning director David Fincher team up for a new Netflix original series that premieres Friday. House of Cards follows a Machiavellian politician as he schemes to take down the president of the United States.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Music Reviews

Paloma Faith's 'Fall To Grace' Is A Keeper

Singer-songwriter and actress Paloma Faith's new album is titled Fall to Grace.

January 30, 2013 A British singer with classic R&B and pop influences, Faith draws comparisons to Amy Winehouse and Adele. If she keeps doing what she's doing, she's going to have lots of fans following her every musical and social cue.

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Television

'House Of Cards' Is Built To Last

Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright star in the new Netflix original series House of Cards, which premieres Feb. 1.

January 30, 2013 Two new dramas fueled by intrigue premiere this week: The Americans on FX and House of Cards on Netflix. While The Americans has its moments, House of Cards is the show that's going to make television history.

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Television

William H. Macy Is 'Shameless' On Showtime

In Shameless, William H. Macy is the dysfunctional father of six.

January 30, 2013 As the alcoholic paterfamilias Frank Gallagher on the Showtime series Shameless, the actor enjoys portraying a man with a dark side. But he says it's Frank's better qualities that make him sustainable as a character.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Author Interviews

'The Insurgents': Petraeus And A New Kind Of War

Gen. David Petraeus is the subject of The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, a new book by Fred Kaplan.

January 29, 2013 In a new book about Gen. David Petraeus, author and journalist Fred Kaplan looks at how theories of counterinsurgency have shaped U.S. military policy in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Monday, January 28, 2013

Author Interviews

'Anything That Moves': Civilians And The Vietnam War

Visitors take in a re-created scene at the massacre museum at Vietnam's My Lai village. Researcher Nick Turse says atrocities of all kinds were more common in the Vietnam War than most Americans believe.

January 28, 2013 In a new book, Nick Turse says the pressure on U.S. forces to produce a body count during the Vietnam War led to mass civilian deaths. "The idea," he says, "was that the Vietnamese, they weren't really people."

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Book Reviews

Jane Austen's 'Pride And Prejudice' At 200

Cover of The Real Jane Austen

January 28, 2013 As the classic novel celebrates its bicentennial, Paula Byrne's The Real Jane Austen examines some of the key objects in Austen's life and how they reveal a much more cosmopolitan awareness of the world than is commonly credited to her.

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