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Do you know the term “pentimento”? Many of us didn’t until we read Lillian Hellman’s first memoir, in which she used the word as her title. “Pentimento,” she taught us, was the result of an artist looking at what he’d painted, reassessing a section, changing his mind and repainting what he’d already done. In listening […]

Last week I pointed out that August doesn’t have any major holidays, but it does have some minor ones. Here’s hoping that my reminding you of Sisters’ Day — the first Sunday of the month – gave you and your sister(s) a great 4th of August. I suggested that those with or without such siblings […]

We’re about to begin the one month of the year that doesn’t have a big holiday. But at least August contains days that have been chosen as commemoratives. One such is Sisters’ Day, which might be celebrated by more sisters if they knew that it existed. Certainly Judy Turner (from A Chorus Line) should be […]

Last week, when I wrote about the cast album of Seven Come Eleven, I stressed its topicality. The 1961 nightclub revue mentioned The Peppermint Lounge, the Peace Corps, Mayor Wagner, civil rights, mononucleosis, The John Birch Society – all names that were then making the news. Revues have often been considered as here-and-now entertainments, never […]

Decades ago, I vowed to obtain each and every original cast album. That meant searching second-hand dives and thrift shops and making many clandestine trips downstairs to dingy basements in record stores. As a result, I was able to get most everything from The Athenian Touch to the bootleg Zenda. But there was one long-playing […]