New York Times

Perfumes, fragrances and scents are everywhere in our lives - natural and artificial ones! The Museum of Arts and Design in New York challenges the American public for the first time to recognize creators and creations: Fragrances - as artists and 'Olfactory Art.' The Art of Scent exhibition presents convincingly developments of the last 125 years in the perfume industry, and fragrances that had the most impact over time.

Ada Louise Huxtable was the first architecture critic at the New York Times (1963) and the first architecture critic to win the Pulitzer Prize (1970). Her clearly stated analytical prose was always accessible and enlightening. She was a voice of reason and often a voice of conscience. Ms. Huxtable's thoughts and refined wisdom will be missed from our civic conversation. Reprinted here is a 2008 review of the last major compendium of her writings.

For the second season in a row Williamstown Theatre Festival will premiere a film transformed into a musical. Last summer Kelli O'Hara starred in "Far From Heaven." She returns to the Berkshires in "The Bridges of Madison County." The film paired Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood,. A co star for O'Hara is yet to be announced.

For the first time in its history, the beleaguered Metropolitan Opera, through Morgan Stanley, offered 100 million dollars worth of bonds for sale. Moody's Investors Service noted that the Met's advantages and disadvantages are the same: a dependency on board and patron support.

Hurricane Sandy flooded the Chelsea galleries resulting in the loss of entire exhibitors and millions of dollars worth of inventory in basement storage areas. During a holiday tour we found mostly business as usual with the major galleries with some still closed for renovation. We provide an in depth slide show of several of the more noteworthy exhibitions.

The 2013 Jacob's Pillow season kicks off with a gala on June 15 and winds down on August 25. Three are numerous highlights including Dance Theatre of Harlem, Compagnie Käfig a word-of-mouth hit of Festival 2012, with six sold-out performances, the return of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, from Brazil Companhia Urbana de Dança, and a return of the stunning, French 3e étage which was astonishing with its 2011 appearance. The legendary Martha Graham Dance Company will perform. Subscriber ticket sales begin January 28 and go on sale to the public on April 8.

As a Palm Springs-based theatre critic, I felt I had the inside track on Jon Robin Baitz’s insight concerning his latest play “Other Desert Cities”, now on the stage of LA’s Mark Taper Forum. I was partially correct. Listlessly directed by Robert Egan, features a nice cast in a less than stellar vehicle.

As a testament of "America's greatest living playwright" there is a currently a double header of plays by David Mamet on Broadway. A proven chestnut "Glengarry Glen Ross" starring Al Pacino is just up the street from a new work "The Anarchist" with Patti LuPone and Debra Winger. With mixed reviews "Glengarry" is a hit while following dreadful reviews "The Anarchist" is a flop. But "The Anarchist" may have suffered a particularly vicious treatment by the NY media. Perhaps in another life in regional theatre productions it will come to be regarded as a great work in the late oeuvre of Mamet.

There are ways to consume culture at affordable prices. There are half price tickets for Broadway shows and lawn access at Tanglewood. A movie costs about ten bucks or you can see it on Netflix. Kids pirate downloaded music and videos. But it takes deep pockets to travel the world visiting great monuments and museums. Only the mega rich can afford to own the contemporary art displayed in galleries and museums. For social and economic reasons the fine arts are more elitist and esoteric than other art forms. Then there are matters of taste- High Brow, Middle Brow and Kitsch.

​Top Chef Tom Colicchio attended the premiere of Dreamscapes, a Wolfgang Hissen documentary profiling Berkshire artist Stephen Hannock. His works hang in Colicchio and Sons and overall a dozen New York restaurants developed by the chef and Andy Meyer. During the recent the Williamstown Film Festival we engaged Colicchio in a lively and revealing dialogue.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute will honor artist, writer, and critic Brian O’Doherty with the 2012 Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing by recognizing his continuing contributions to the visual arts. Established in 2006, the Clark Prize recognizes insightful and accessible prose that advances a genuine understanding and appreciation of the visual arts.

The documentary film Dreamscapes by Wolfram Hissen will be screened on Thursday October 18 at the annual Williamstown Film Festival. Following the film, its subject the artist Stephen Hannock, and Top Chef producer and chief judge, Tom Colicchio, will engage in a dialogue with tasting at the restaurant Mezze. Hannock has been involved by creating paintings for a dozen new restaurant projects with Colicchio and his partner Danny Meyer. We met with Hannock in his Berkshire studio to discuss the film and his latest art projects.

The Boston Book Festival, in partnership with WBUR 90.9 FM, announces the complete schedule and locations for the widely anticipated annual event, taking place Oct. 27, 2012 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in locations in and around Copley Square

Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout has written and produced an opera The Letter and a play Satchmo at the Waldorf. He has written two plays and another libretto since then but refuses to reveal details. We discussed his next music bio Mood Indigo, about Duke Ellington, which he hopes to finish in January. He did admit that he had a multi character idea for a play that would not include Ellington.

Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal is the only critic for a national publication covering both New York and regional theatre. During the American Theatre Critics Association meeting in Chicago, last June, we heard his keynote address on the state of criticism. Taking a break from working on his new play "Satchmo at the Waldorf" at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass. we followed up on issues he raised for assembled ATCA members. It concerns him to be America's Drama Critic. There should be a dozen others like him on the road. This is part one of an in depth dialogue.

Close Encounters With Music introduces grand prize winners of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition and Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in their Berkshire debuts; presents one of the preeminent Baroque ensembles, Tragicomedia, to usher in the holiday season; and adds another notch on its belt of successful commissioning projects with a new work by American composer Robert Beaser, who has written for Glimmerglass and New York City Opera.

In 1964 Louis Armstrong knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts with the hit "Hello Dolly." It was a compelling answer to a New York Times critic who pronounced him washed up. The bug eyed, grimacing, clowning, handkerchief waving Satchmo relaunched a career as the first super star in jazz. . The superb Terry Teachout play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, starring John Douglas Thompson, catches him after the gig in his dressing room just months before he died in 1971.

An ingenious thriller, the ultimate murder mystery, The 39 Steps has it all. Shakespeare & Company opens the 2012-2013 Fall & Winter season with this hilarious adaptation of John Buchan’s novel, which also draws inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film. Featuring a seasoned ensemble including Elizabeth Aspenlieder (Bad Dates), Jason Asprey (Parasite Drag), David Joseph (The Tempest), and Josh Aaron McCabe (Hound of the Baskervilles), The 39 Steps offers an intriguing, sidesplitting evening or afternoon at the theatre. The 39 Steps runs from September 22 through November 4 in S&Co.’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

The Joffrey Ballet, one of America’s pioneering ballet companies of the 20th century, makes a rare East Coast appearance to conclude the Jacob’s Pillow 80th Anniversary Season August 22–26. The Joffrey Ballet returns for the first time since its high-profile appearances at the Pillow in the 1950s and 60s, presenting an impressive program that features Taiwanese-American choreographer Edwaard Liang’s Age of Innocence, Russian choreographer Yuri Possokhov’s Bells, and the world premiere of Son of Chamber Symphony by Stanton Welch, Artistic Director of Houston Ballet.

In the second part of a dialogue with Jenny Gersten we compared and contrasted her uneven first season with the smooth sailing of her second one. While the first season drew mixed reviews and controversy its ambition proved to be a magnet for major artists wanting to work at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The success of this star studded season is a sanguine harbinger of more to come.

Lyric Stage in Boston announces its season for 2012-2013. The Mikado opens on September 9 with the perennial music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Another musical, On the Town by Leonard Bernstein closes Lyric on June 8. Sandwiched in between is a heady mix of drama and comedy.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute presents rare Chinese burial objects in an exclusive exhibition that considers both the discovery and the impact of modern Chinese archaeology, Unearthed: Recent Archaeological Discoveries from Northern China through October 21, 2012. The exhibition features objects recently excavated from sites in the Shanxi and Gansu provinces and never before seen outside of China, including a full-size stone sarcophagus discovered intact in 2004.

In a storefront on Summer Street in Adams, Ma., formerly a clothing store, five years ago the multi media artists Matt Belanger and Marianne Petit opened the alternative Greylock Arts. This summer they are celebrating with an anniversary exhibition including many of the artists from New York and the Berkshires that have been included in their edgy program. Their alternative, artist run space, is, hands down, the best in the Berkshires.

Nearing the end of our conversation, Herb notes a few of the ones who got away. When Phil Ochs was mentioned, the focus shifted and we took time to share some memories of our colleague.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute welcomes legendary singer-songwriter Art Garfunkel in a rare concert appearance on Saturday, August 11, at 8 pm.