Category: Kevin Filipski

Entertainment, Lifestyle, Travel

TRAVELS & ART: MUSEUMS FROM MASSACHUSETTS TO MANHATTAN

Even though Manhattan’s museums are open all summer, for art-saturated New Yorkers, the hot and sticky season is an excuse for an opportunity to travel and…well, see more art. Just a few hours north of the city, the Berkshires and western Massachusetts contain world-class theater, dance, music and art. Even if one has visited the area for years, there are always places that one has never gotten to before.

A NEW HAMPSHIRE JAUNT

Vermont has skiing, Maine has Acadia National Park, and Massachusetts has Boston, Cape Cod and the Berkshires. What’s worth seeing in New Hampshire? I recently found out after always managing to miss visiting that state on previous New England trips.

PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM

Living in New York, I admit to a bias against other cities: why visit (fill in city name) to see theater/opera/art/architecture when we’ve got it all here? But one must go where the action is, and the U.S. premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s latest opera and an exhibition of artworks by Marc Chagall and others weren’t on the docket in Manhattan, so I hopped on a Boltbus (the best travel bargain for New Yorkers to go to nearby cities cheaply and quickly) and headed to Philadelphia.

L.A. CULTURE SHOCK

There are many people—myself included—who think of Los Angeles as a cultural wasteland where only movie and TV stars count in any way, shape or form. A recent visit to the City of Angels helped to disprove that theory by concentrating on the arts far removed from the clichéd stars on the sidewalks on Hollywood Boulevard.

BOOK BEAT: THE HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA

Today, there are people who think that American independent cinema began in 1989 with SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE; or in 1992 with RESERVOIR DOGS; or even in 1999 with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.??