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Articles by R. J. Stove
Malcolm in the Middle
A useful idea for a boomer party game. What was the vilest offence against bien-pensant sensibilities which a music-lover, in the second half of the twentieth century, could commit? Reluctance to believe in the world-historical genius of Bob Dylan? Revering The Pines of Rome? Kind words for Hans Pfitzner? Unkind words for Charles Ives? All these conjectural answers have their virtues.
Not Nostrums, but Normalcy
A Letter from Australia In 1956, Anthony Eden found himself graced with the porcine presence of the visiting Nikita Khrushchev. Many hoped that Evelyn Waugh—who, after all, had subjected Marshal Tito to one of the most murderous philippics that 20th-century English literature can boast—would unleash similar invective against the Soviet Union’s strongman. Waugh rejected all newspaper entreaties to unleash it.
The Bully Versus the Bore: Australia Chooses the Least-Abhored
Share this post? Facebook Twitter Pinterest In the 1990 gubernatorial contest between David Duke and Edwin Edwards, Louisiana had “the wizard versus the lizard.” Nothing so journalistically neat marked Australia’s May 21 national election, a quasi-presidential contest between incumbent Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Australian Labor Party challenger Anthony Albanese. This contest amounted to no more gripping of a contest than the Bully (Morrison) versus the Bore (Albanese). The Bore won.
The Saint-Saëns enigma by R.J. Stove
Yet the more tributes officialdom heaped on him (these included the Legion of Honor, the German Order of Merit, doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge, and a request—which he declined—to write Turkey’s national anthem), the more his detractors scorned him as the musical equivalent of an artiste pompier.
RIP Clive James | The American Conservative
The Australian journalist, poet, satirist and author left a rich canon of work, for which "all you can do with the talent is envy it." Clive James outside BBC Broadcasting Nov 2008. (Photo by Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images) “My God, how hard it is to die!” Thus murmured General Franco, amid his last excruciatingly protracted illness. But there must have been times when Clive James, diagnosed with leukemia a decade back, wanted to echo Franco’s words.
Remembering Jessye Norman, Voice of a World-Weary Angel
The obituarists of Jessye Norman have said it all. And probably all of it is accurate. She had one of the greatest voices of any classical singer in the post-war epoch. She mastered an astonishing variety of repertoire from the 17th century (her Dido is one of the few who sounds like a Queen of Carthage) to the 20th. Whether in Purcell or in Poulenc, she excelled.
Composer on the couch
For Mahler, the customer was always wrong. He likewise squelched her youthful composing ambitions: “The role of composer falls to me—yours is that of loving companion!” (One sardonic reviewer of a 1978 Mahler biography commented: “The notion that a great artist must surely manifest ‘greatness of soul’ in his human relations was knocked from its Romantic pedestal long ago.”) Faced with Alma’s adultery, Mahler consulted Freud.
★★★★½ Ilya Gringolts Plays Paganini (Australian Chamber Orchestra)
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne October 1, 2018 For most of us who are non-violinists, the habit of being a non-violinist is something that seldom barrels its way to the forefront of our consciousness. We view our non-violinist condition with the same fundamental ennui – punctuated by the occasional twinge of regret – that we feel about being non-lottery-winners, about being non-supermodels, or about lacking the ability to waggle our ears.
Belloc vs. the Anglosphere
One can never predict which British visitors will master American reportage and which will not. Harold Laski’s written English usually resembled the efforts of a blind, one-armed commissar trying to thread a needle; but lo and behold, when the London School of Economics don came to write The American Presidency (1940) he made a craftsmanlike job of it. Alistair Cooke, undistinguished in his native England, blossomed stateside for seven decades.
Remembering Neville Marriner
Few conductors are loved. It could be as well, for music’s sake, that most conductors are loathed. Any impressive level of attendance at their obsequies readily calls to mind the witticism—attributed both to George Jessel and to Red Skelton—regarding the crowds at a universally abhorred Hollywood tycoon’s funeral: “Well, it proves what they always say. Give the people what they want, and they’ll come out for it.â€?
Is Melbourne Really the World’s Most Livable City?
Who recalls John Gunther? You could acquire a very impressive general geographic education from Gunther’s mid-20th-century gazetteers of the First, Second, and Third Worlds. Inside Russia Today, Inside Europe, Inside Asia, Inside Africa, Inside U.S.A., Inside Latin America, Inside South America, Inside Australia and New Zealand (impressively accurate), and quite possibly, for all anyone knows or cares, Inside Tahiti or Inside Réunion.
Casualties of Waugh
Evelyn Waugh died in 1966 and spent most of his last two decades wishing he had died in 1946—or better still in 1446. His numerous latter-day foes shared this wish, often risking the full might of British libel laws in their zest for mocking him. Scottish journalist George Malcolm Thomson compared Waugh to “an indignant White Leghorn” and charged one of Waugh’s ancestors—on no evidence—with having left the Presbyterian church in protest against its abandonment of witch-burning.
Two Cheers for Howard Zinn
The passing last October of the 98-year-old Gough Whitlam—Australia’s Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975—provoked a renewed realization that not so long ago numerous prominent socialists existed who, whatever the faults of their programs, had done honorable service in the Second World War.
Malcolm Fraser’s Late Burkeanism
For anyone old enough to remember the November 1975 dismissal of Gough Whitlam from Australia’s Prime Ministry, it still seems unbelievable that Whitlam’s opponent and successor (John) Malcolm Fraser—who remained in office until he lost the 1983 federal election, and who died last night—would ever inspire the sort of near-ecstatic obituaries which this week have been his. Whatever happened to the mobs in the streets of Australia’s main cities yelling “Shame, Fraser, Shame”?
COIN Is a Proven Failure
In late October MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow asked retired Army Lt. Col. John Nagl to give viewers a deeper understanding of the fight between the Islamic State (ISIS) and Kurdish fighters around Kobane.
Five Myths That Keep America in the Middle East
“Iraq no longer exists.” My young friend M, sipping a cappuccino, is deadly serious. We are sitting in a scruffy restaurant across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It’s been years since we’ve last seen each another. It may be years before our paths cross again. As if to drive his point home, M repeats himself: “Iraq just doesn’t exist.” His is an opinion grounded in experience.
Ukraine in the Aftermath of Maidan
Friday, November 21 marks the one-year anniversary of the anti-government protests on Kiev’s Independence Square. Much has happened since then, nearly all of it detrimental to the deteriorating European economy and to U.S. and European security interests. The standard narrative of events which posits that the battle between pro-European Kiev and revanchist Russia is nothing less than a battle for the future, indeed, the soul of Europe, though widespread, is incorrect.
Revenge of the COIN Doctrine
Your table manners are a cryin’ shame. You’re playing with your food this ain’t some kind of game. Now if you starve to death you’ll just have yourself to blame. So eat it, just eat it. –Weird Al Yankovic In his first book, counterinsurgency advocate Ret. (Lt. Col.) John Nagl told us how to Eat Soup with a Knife. It turned out that it really was easier to eat soup with a spoon, or frankly, not to eat it at all.
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