PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 30th 2007 at 7:16

    On Friday I interviewed Simone Dinnerstein, a pianist who's getting more and more attention these days, first through her excellent recordings with cellist Zuill Bailey, and now through her very individual and fascinating recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Being a radio guy, I first asked her how to ...

PIMA CULTURAL PLAN

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, July 26th 2007 at 7:15

    If you've been reading press reports about the Tucson Pima Arts Council's Pima Cultural Plan and would like to dig into it and see what it really says, here's the draft report. I haven't read it all yet, myself. What I have perused makes some good ...

GOOD NEWS AND UNDISCLOSED TRUTH

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 25th 2007 at 8:08

    Yesterday, UApresents, the university’s arts-presenting unit, announced that for the first time in years it was ending the season in the black. The surplus is $98,878, to be exact. The press release went on to promote events in the upcoming season.
    What was missing from the announcement ...

PERILS OF THE CLEANSED COLON

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 25th 2007 at 7:48

    After reading yesterday’s confession by yours truly, another broadcaster—not one who works here—sent this message:

The first time I ever filled in for the afternoon shift at KBAQ, I had to juggle underwriting credits for both news and traffic. My first break involved a very funny aligning ...

CONFESSION

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 24th 2007 at 7:30

    Every time I read the underwriting credit that mentions "mobile phlebotomists," I have a barely suppressed urge to giggle. "Phlebotomists" is a funny word to begin with, and making them "mobile" is somehow hilarious. Beyond that, if you know what phlebotomy refers to, and you conceive of it as a ...

PATTERNS OF CRITICISM

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 24th 2007 at 7:25

    Believe it or not, even without the blanks filled in, the classical-music-review template provided by Jeremy Denk, a pianist with way too much time on his hands despite his summer performance schedule, would be a tremendous improvement over most of what we get hereabouts. Take a look, and don't ...

COMMENT NO. 309,487 ON ALAN GILBERT

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, July 20th 2007 at 10:08

    Everybody this week in the classical-music world is talking/writing/blogging about the appointment of Alan Gilbert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. With all the chatter elsewhere, I haven’t found it necessary to toss in my possibly redundant comments, but I’d like to point you ...

GONE TO THE DOGS

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, July 19th 2007 at 7:44

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, I review a musical about singing canines:

    Bark! is a recent show with music by David Troy Francis, words by a lot of other guys and performances by six singer-actors assuming the roles of dogs. Kevin Johnson's Arizona Onstage Productions always takes big chances ...

CRITICAL DEFENSE

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 18th 2007 at 7:29

    The staff critics at the Dallas Morning News have addressed a number of common public complaints about their work, including such old standards as “What a terrible review! Were you at the same show I was at?” and “Why do critics always criticize everything?” The answers/defenses don’t go ...

ROBERT MCBRIDE

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 16th 2007 at 7:52

    Tucson-born and -based composer Robert McBride died a couple of weeks ago. As far as I can tell, neither daily paper saw fit to note his passing, although they fall all over themselves to eulogize young traffic-accident victims who've had far less importance in the larger community. I never ...

DOG DAYS

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, July 13th 2007 at 11:49

    I've been absent from the air for the past two days because I indulged in Lasik surgery yesterday, which, aside from a recovery period when it felt like I was chopping onions for two hours straight, has gone quite well, thank you. Anyway, yesterday I neglected to post a ...

KUPBEAT

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 11th 2007 at 7:58

    I just stumbled across something unexpected: Kupbeat, an archive of interviews conducted by Edward Kupperstein, KUAT's former radio boss and, before that, program director and, before that, music director. According to the home page, "KUPBEAT is a celebration of Edward Kupperstein's dedication to the the arts community in ...

MICHAEL RABIN IN TUCSON

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 11th 2007 at 7:55

    A scholar who is writing a biography of Michael Rabin has asked me for help in confirming or denying a couple of rumors relating to Rabin in Tucson, and I’m striking out (I suppose means that the lack of evidence constitutes denial of the rumors). If you’ve lived ...

LAZY BLOGGING

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 11th 2007 at 7:21

    Recycling is the key to making a living as a freelance writer; write an article for one publication, then contrive to sell a modified version of it to another. It works well for lazy bloggers, too. When you’re too lazy to post an original blog entry, link to something ...

BAG IT

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 9th 2007 at 8:53

    Newsman Robert Rappaport and I both rolled our eyes at the funding credit for the 8:01 NPR news this morning: The NPR Shop is hawking the “Nina Totin’ Bag,” an accessory decorated with Warhol-style images of NPR legal-affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. I guess you can use it to carry ...

PAYDAZE

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 9th 2007 at 7:41

    I wasn’t aware of this until an unhappy colleague pointed it out, but the Arizona Daily Star’s Eric Swedlund has posted a searchable online database of the salaries of University of Arizona employees (and those at the other state universities). There’s a small uproar in the comments ...

A DIVINE MADNESS

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, July 6th 2007 at 7:55

    For some reason, this week I haven’t been inspired to blog. What better time to dig into my archives and retrieve an essay I wrote about 10 years ago for a literary e-zine on the subject of inspiration?

LET ME SAVE YOU A FEW THOUSAND BUCKS and several years ...

I SEE THE LIGHT

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 2nd 2007 at 9:27

    It’s a little disorienting, after two and a half years of leaving home at 4:30 a.m. to start my KUAT-FM shift at 5, to wake up an hour later, leave the house at 5:30 in actual daylight, and arrive by 6. This was my first day ...