[ad_1]
Lucas Sams’ Madonna and Child
VISUAL ART
Lucas Sams
The Jasper Project continues the virtual editions of its Tiny Gallery series by featuring an artist as well known for his music as his visual art. As Pray for Triangle Zero, the endlessly prolific Lucas Sams has released more than a hundred slabs of adventurous electronic music. His pieces for his new art collection, called Paintings on Glass, shouldn’t disappoint fans of his expansive sonic catalog, as they collide aggressively sharp lines and blurred colors. They are, like pretty much everything he does, gripping and confounding. Find (and shop) the pieces at the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery. JORDAN LAWRENCE
LIVE-STREAM
Diamante
On her 2018 debut album, Coming in Hot, Diamante struggles to break out of a generic “chick rock” straightjacket, but predictable covers like Heart’s Crazy on You don’t do the blue-haired vixen any favors. Anthemic rockers F.L.A.G. and Bulletproof display a fiery independent streak, and when she embraces her Mexican heritage with the Spanish-language Lo Siento, Diamante is about as good as melodic hard rock gets. Catch her on a free live-stream via songkick.com on July 25 at 8 a.m. PAT MORAN
THEATER
Great Performances: Much Ado About Nothing
Beneath the surface of Shakespeare’s lighthearted comedy about two pairs of lovers, the conventional Claudio and Hero and the combative Beatrice and Benedick, lies a labyrinthine of darker emotions. Beatrice and Benedick’s sparring encompasses deception, infidelity and anxieties over gender roles. This Shakespeare in the Park production featuring an all-Black cast is set in contemporary Georgia, and was originally broadcast on PBS Great Performances in November 2019. Watch it for free between July 24 and Sept. 11 at pbs.org. PAT MORAN
FILM
Shaft
Gordon Parks is my hero. On top of being an amazing Civil Rights photographer, writer and everything else art under the sun, he also has the credit of directing Shaft. Not the first blaxploitation film but maybe the one that is most referenced. Sure, tons of stuff didn’t age well in the movie, but for nostalgia’s sake and the Isaac Hayes soundtrack, it’s worth peeping again on Netflix. PREACH JACOBS
LIVE-STREAM
Nick Cave
Many disparate strands are woven into Nick Cave’s DNA: Voodoo bluesman, Mutant roots rocker and elder statesman of songcraft. There’s some Lou Reed mixed in with Cave’s Elvis Presley fetishism, and like Reed, Cave has written some of the most heartfelt love songs of all time. British crime series Peaky Blinders used Cave’s spine-tingling “Red Right Hand” as its theme, and introduced him to a new generation of fans. He performs a free live-stream concert on July 23 at 3 p.m. Find it via songkick.com. PAT MORAN
R&B
Ray Charles deep dive
The most commercially successful moments of the great Ray Charles’ career actually overshadow a vast and varied catalog of music. His R&B music hits, like “What’d I Say” and “Hit The Road, Jack” are towering classics, but he also spent years releasing more mellow singles in a Charles-Brown-style and supper-club soul tunes that are lovely to listen to. And his greatest commercial achievement, the boundary-breaking Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music album, is just the tip of the iceberg when you look at his decades of aching country ballad performances. Ray Charles’ genius is more impressive when you look at (or in this case, listen to) his whole catalogue. VINCENT HARRIS
COMEDY
Jim Jefferies: Intolerant
I have to be honest: When I first came across Jim Jeffries years ago on his show Legit, I found him pretty annoying. Then I came across his stand-ups and have been a fan ever since. His latest special, Intolerant, is classic Jeffries (which means if you love him, you’ll love this, but if you don’t like him, stay far away). He’s a flawless storyteller that always nails the dismount. Find the new special via Netflix. PREACH JACOBS
FOLK
Gillian Welch and David Rawling’s All the Good Times
Of the precious few Gillian Welch LPs we’ve gotten over the years, few have stripped the duo down to their elemental core of two guitars and two voices. For this stripped-down, unadorned covers record, replete with Dylan and Prine tunes scattered among classic folk and country favorites, to simply fall out of the sky two Fridays ago some nine years after Welch’s last solo effort, during this particular summer, felt like manna from the heavens. God bless these old-time troubadours. KYLE PETERSEN
TV
The West Wing
The Bartlett White House, the administration at the center of The West Wing, is rarely above reproach. Secrets — big secrets — are kept from the public. Prominent figures are kidnapped. A foreign leader is questionably assassinated. Sex scandals are had. But while they, definitely for the sake of television, find their way into pretty much every major crisis a presidency can face, there’s a constant sense that the members of this team know what the hell they’re doing. If that sounds like the kind of comforting nostalgia you need right now — or if you just like the sound of great performances from the likes of Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford and Allison Janney, or Aaron Sorkin’s (in the early years) whip-smart dialogue — then you can find all seven seasons that ran from 1999 to 2006 on Netflix. JORDAN LAWRENCE
[ad_2]
Source link