Broad Street Review

Philly's home for arts, culture, and conversation

AJ Sabatini

Contributor

BSR Contributor Since June 14, 2009

A.J. Sabatini is an arts writer and scholar who lives and teaches in Philadelphia and Arizona.

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

Search

By this Author

29 results

Page 1

Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar frequently references the work of Marcel Duchamp in his outdoor mosaics. (Photo by AJ Sabatini.)

'Unexpected Affinities,' by Pablo Meninato

What's your "type"?

Pablo Meninato's 'Unexpected Affinities: The History of Type in Architectural Project from Laugier to Duchamp' decodes the city's streets and buildings. AJ Sabatini reviews.

Aug 07, 2018 Articles 3 minute read

Inspecting the soup: Carroll and McElwee. (Photo by Johanna Austin)

Gogol's 'Inspector General' by Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (1st review)

Who's corrupt?

Invited to dance, the Inspector General extends his palm, and the more it is greased, the greedier he grows, until he gets on his horse and gallops away.

Feb 06, 2016 Articles 5 minute read

The Third Avenue El above the Cross Bronx Expressway. (Photo by Jack Boucher, Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress)

Growing up in the Bronx

I am looking forward to hearing Arlene Alda on February 3 when she talks about her book, Just Kids from The Bronx: Telling It The Way It Was, at the Jewish Museum. If she'd asked for my recollections, here's what I would have told her.

Feb 02, 2016 Essays 5 minute read

Wailing, chants, and desperate moans: The Wilma/Attis “Antigone.” (Photo by Alexander Iziliaev)

'Antigone' and 'Metamorphoses'

A few words about dramatic language

When watching classic plays translated from other languages, consider what is lost and how much our contemporary mindset and values change meaning.

Oct 26, 2015 Articles 6 minute read

A man looking at a landscape: Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper.” (© 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.)

'American Sniper' and 'Mr. Turner'

The eyes of Mr. Turner and an American sniper

How far can a movie go in representing the lives of real people?

Feb 10, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

Who would Heidegger root for? (Drawing of Martin Heidegger by aeneastudio via Creative Commons/Flickr)

Heidegger and the Super Bowl

Thinking football

It might be possible to argue that Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is the Heidegger of football, if anyone could actually figure out what Belichick is thinking.

Jan 30, 2015 Essays 5 minute read

Thumbs up for existentialism!

Soren Kierkegaard and Stephen Colbert

A parting shot at Stephen Colbert's irony

Who knew Kierkegaard had the insight to not only nail Colbert’s act but to also be savvy enough to capture the two aspects of the contemporary mindset that Colbert most exploits with his pretzel logic?

Dec 30, 2014 Essays 4 minute read

“Send me”: Brad Pitt in “Fury.” (© 2014 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

David Ayer's 'Fury'

Fury's flaws

Filmed heroics or others’ stories did not impress my father. If he were alive today, I might have mentioned but damn sure I would not have the nerve to ask him to see David Ayer’s Fury, starring Brad Pitt and a tough bunch of supporting actors.

Nov 08, 2014 Articles 6 minute read

Is this how Odysseus and Beowulf got started?

Lee Breuer’s ‘La Divina Caricatura’

A dog’s search for meaning

Lee Breuer’s two-and-a-half-hour multi-media music-driven puppet extravaganza is an American epic, featuring a dog with an addiction to a bad master and a longing for fame who spirals into the depths of popular cultural despair and unexpected spiritual teachings.

Dec 21, 2013 Articles 5 minute read

Have you ever seen a nose walking?

The Met’s ‘The Nose’ in HD Live

The exuberant heyday of Russia’s avant-garde

From Gogol to Shostakovich to the South African director William Kentridge, the absurdist tale of a disembodied nose has survived as a refreshing reminder that laughter is the most effective antidote for government oppression, censorship and pomposity.

Oct 28, 2013 Articles 4 minute read

Bullock: Trauma? What trauma?

Alfonso Cuarón’s 'Gravity' (1st review)

Exploring outer space?
First, check your brains at the door

Like most Hollywood films about outer space, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity gives the universe its due as a boundless, forbidding zone of inhospitable horror. But it fails to suggest anything thoughtful about the raison d’être for exploring space.

Oct 22, 2013 Articles 5 minute read

'Europa Report's' crew: Young, muscular and clueless.

"Europa Report': The trouble with outer space films

How do you reason with a humanoid? (And other outer space movie challenges)

For space scientists, the ultimate question is: Does life exist in the vast reaches of the cosmos? But for the rest of us, an equally pressing question is: Will a truly intelligent and watchable film about space exploration ever be made?

Aug 11, 2013 Articles 6 minute read

Jurors in '12 Angry Men' (1957): Do men see violence differently?

Zimmerman's jury: The ideal vs. the real (3rd comment)

A jury of whose peers? George Zimmerman's trial, and mine

In the mid-1980s I served on a jury for a murder trial in Philadelphia. It soon became apparent that none of us jurors were “peers” of the defendant or his victim— the legal ideal. The same applies to the six women jurors who recently acquitted George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. So what's the decisive factor in a jury's verdict?

Jul 30, 2013 Essays 10 minute read

Angie is on his list.

Banality as an art form

The most interesting man on the block

Do you have what it takes to be truly banal? Let me count the ways.

May 11, 2013 Essays 1 minute read

It all started with a stolen notebook.

Andrei Codrescu's "Bibliodeath'

Requiem for the printed word

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.

Jan 26, 2013 Articles 5 minute read

1