A.J. Sabatini is Arthur J. Sabatini. For decades I wrote and worked in the arts in Philadelphia. I taught at Drexel University and The University of the Arts, worked with Relâche and The Yellow Springs Institute, wrote for the Inquirer and a bunch of publications that are no longer around.
I live in both in Philadelphia and Arizona and am associate professor of performance studies in interdisciplinary arts and performance at Arizona State University. Most of my writing is academic and focuses on the avant-garde and experimental artists. I also perform, have written a play and keep working on other projects. Nearly everything I know can be traced to some conversation in or related to Philadelphia. More at: www.public.asu.edu/~ieajs/Welcome.html
| Banality as an art form |
May 11 2013 |
Do you have what it takes to be truly banal? Let me count the ways.
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| Andrei Codrescu’s ‘Bibliodeath’ |
January 26 2013 |
Andrei Codrescu grew up in Communist Romania, where printed words were deemed more dangerous than bombs. Now he lives in a virtual world inundated with too many instantly disposable virtual words. Ah, but he has a solution.
Bibliodeath: My Archives (With Life in Footnotes). Andrei Codrescu. Antibookclub, 2013. 168 pages; $25.00. www.antibookclub.com.
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| Art Museum’s ‘Dancing Around the Bride’ (2nd review) |
January 12 2013 |
By making art from ordinary objects, Duchamp and his colleagues sent a message: It’s not the work of art but the work of imagination that’s essential to creativity.
“Dancing Around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg and Duchamp.” Through January 21, 2013 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benj. Franklin Pkwy and 26th St. (215) 763-8100 or www.philamuseum.org.
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| Why Americans love guns |
December 22 2012 |
In a culture of disposable commodities, certain hand-held objects— like cell phones and iPods— seem to retain the quality of totems or fetishes. But no piece of machinery resonates with the feel of childhood control like a gun.
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| ‘Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,’ at the Ritz Five |
August 15 2012 |
What could be more threatening to a dictatorship than an artist who acts like a free man? That is the question posed by Alison Klayman’s graceful documentary about the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. A film directed by Alison Klayman. At the Ritz Five, 220 Walnut St. (215) 725-7900. For show times, click here.
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| Searching for intelligent life at the shore |
July 10 2012 |
You’re down the shore, with six days to go. How many more miniature golf courses, mermaid key rings, seashell villages and jellyfish in your newspaper before your brain turns to applesauce?
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| Commotion Festival: The city as a work of art |
June 26 2012 |
What James Joyce did for Dublin, Commotion Festival is doing for three emerging Philadelphia neighborhoods— that is, savoring the poetry in the lives of ordinary urban people and places.
Commotion Festival. June 16-30, 2012 at various locations in Grays Ferry, Point Breeze and South of South Street neighborhoods. commotionphilly.org/festival.
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| Carlos Fuentes as I remember him |
May 19 2012 |
The magical but realistic novels of Carlos Fuentes are compendiums of pulsating narratives and capacious realms of knowledge. He wrote in a genre that raises questions at a time when all forms of story are suspect and knowledge is represented as what anyone can locate on the Internet.
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| Joseph Cedar’s ‘Footnote’ (1st review) |
April 24 2012 |
Writing, books and acts of reading and arguing about books and publications and words and ideas are to Joseph Cedar’s Footnote what martial arts are to Jackie Chan movies. And I’ve got the footnotes to prove it.
Footnote. A film directed by Joseph Cedar. At the Ritz Five, 220 Walnut St. and other Philadelphia venues. For show times, click here.
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| Another Titanic night to remember |
April 13 2012 |
If you still can’t comprehend why the rich refused to associate with the poor aboard the Titanic, you might consider inviting my wife and me to your next party.
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| Our dreams, our movies, and ‘Inception’ |
July 25 2010 |
Films with dreams, like dreams themselves, continue to fascinate us, mainly because dreams, like language, are at once common, immediate and identifiable, yet ultimately unexplainable. They seem to be meaningful. But are they?
Inception. A film directed by Christopher Nolan.
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| Opera Company’s ‘Orphée et Eurydice’ (1st review) |
June 19 2010 |
The Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Orphée et Eurydice, with its orchestra and 26-member chorus, along with dance by choreographer Amanda Miller, is a tightly-wound and satisfying production, albeit with a few strings attached.
Orphée et Eurydice. Opera by Christof Willibald Gluck (Hector Berlioz adaptation) directed by Robert B. Driver; Corrado Rovaris, conductor. In French with English supertitles. Opera Company of Philadelphia production through June 25, 2010 at Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Sts. (215) 732-8400 or www.operaphila.org.
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| Mithen’s ‘Singing Neanderthals' |
June 12 2010 |
Archaeologist Stephen Mithen opened up a music-filled box of speculation about the ways humans think, dance, sing and speak. He says we owe it all to our much-maligned Neanderthal ancestors.
The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body. By Stephen Mithen. Harvard University Press, 2007. 384 pages; $18.00. www.amazon.com.
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| The meaning of Havel’s ‘Leaving’ (4th review) |
June 01 2010 |
Some critics have attacked Vaclav Havel’s Leaving for ridiculing his own heroic political career. On the contrary, Havel is deeply concerned about what it means to be human in a globalized world. Leaving is his critique of uncritical language and careless thinking that allow scoundrels to leap into the void.
Leaving. By Václav Havel; translated by Paul Wilson; directed by Jiri Zizka. Through June 20, 2010 at Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St. (at Spruce). 215-546-7824 or www.WilmaTheater.org.
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| Hidden City Philadelphia (2nd review) |
June 29 2009 |
The recent Hidden Cities Arts Festival is an art experience that’s about much more than the effect of individual work. It also exemplifies the sort of current socially immersed art that’s too often hidden in favor of showier work.
Hidden City Philadelphia. Through June 2009 at various locations in Philadelphia. www.hiddencityphila.org. Sonambulo (1998-2009), by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, at Shiloh Baptist Church, 2040 Christian St. inigomanglano-ovalle.com. Running True, by John Phillips and Carolyn Healy, at Disston Saw Works, 6795 State Rd. terragizmo.net/Healy&Phillips/H&P-Installations.html
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| Bruce Nauman at the Venice Biennale (1st review) |
June 14 2009 |
The in-your-face multi-media artist Bruce Nauman has been much feted since his Venice Biennale entry won the Golden Lion Prize for best national pavilion early this month. Would it be churlish to ask what his work means?
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