TASTY
posted by James Reel
Apropos of nothing, I have just read television writer Jane Espenson's description of what she ate for lunch on July 26, 2006: "tongue sandwich from Art's Deli. It's exciting because it tastes you back!"
Apropos of nothing, I have just read television writer Jane Espenson's description of what she ate for lunch on July 26, 2006: "tongue sandwich from Art's Deli. It's exciting because it tastes you back!"
Regarding the silliness of the “death of the classical CD” stories, Alex Ross offers a reality check: He finds that the number of new classical releases listed in Gramophone magazine has nearly doubled since 1988.
And regarding my complaint about the journalistic laziness of parroting the numbers from campaign finance reports, there is one good story to tease out of those filings: Who is giving money to whom? That’s the real story. But it takes work, and the reporter has to be able to figure out which names are tied to which special interests. In Tucson, the late Chris Limberis was an expert at this. How many other reporters are so determined today?
The Guardian has published yet another hand-wringing article on the death of the classical CD industry. Please, let’s stop this foolishness. Yes, the major labels—Sony, BMG, EMI, DG, Decca and a couple of others—went lemming on us and followed each other over the cliff of corporate stupidity. But that’s only a small part of the story. Hundreds of small labels, with good American distribution, are still issuing dozens of classical CDs every month, most of which are much more interesting and necessary than the slop the majors have been dumping onto the market for the past 10 to 15 years. Evidence? For starters, go here, here, here, here and here.
And while I’m on the subject of non-stories, could the news outlets please stop devoting so much coverage to how much money various political candidates are raising? NPR tried to justify the obsession on a newscast this morning by explaining that fundraising is a barometer of a candidate’s relative political health. Well, in the first place, it isn’t. It’s a barometer of how much money a candidate can raise from fat-cat contributors, which is rather different from political health. Or it would be, if the news media didn’t take the lazy way out and parrot the numbers from the latest campaign finance statements instead of reporting on candidates' positions on actual issues of interest to the electorate. If news organizations insist on reporting on political fundraising, at least move that effort into the financial section, and stop pretending it’s real political coverage.
I’m scrambling to meet some writing deadlines, so in lieu of doing something original here today I’ll just point you to things I’m involved with elsewhere. If you’re a beginning to intermediate string player, you may have some interest in an article I put together on crossing techniques for Strings magazine. If you’re not a string player, the piece will be just too geeky and specialized for you. But you may find something more to your liking among the new reviews up at the Fanfare site, of which I’m the administrator. The first review on the page is even by yours truly. We’re working on a complete redesign of the site, because nearly everything you’ll see on that page is wrong in terms of contemporary Web design and ad display, but I didn’t design the site in the first place, so don’t blame me!
Now, please pardon me while I try to write two play reviews and finish an article about Friederich August Kummer's cello duets while jockeying CDs here at the radio station, before heading off to take over the Tucson Weekly while the real editor is trying his best to create an international incident in China. Just don't tell my boss I'm doing all this writing on KUAT time.
Douglas McLennan, mastermind of ArtsJournal.com, started his very own blog last year, to which he posts about once a month. His latest item is well worth the attention of anyone who is appalled by the rampant stupidity of so many user comments at newspaper sites and blogs. McLennan urges newspaper editors, especially, to take responsibility for their sites’ content, including reader comments. After all, they're selective when it comes to running letters to the editor in the print edition:
Online reader comments should hold to no lesser standard. But the comments need to be curated. Not censored. There ought to be a price of admission to the comments section, and that is: have something interesting to contribute. If you can contribute something interesting, you're in. Otherwise... This is the classic editor's job - pick the good stuff and separate out the nonsense.Please take a few minutes to read the entire post here.
In the newest Tucson Weekly, I pass judgment on three more-or-less new plays:
All three plays that opened locally last week show us women dancing with death: a Jewish teenager interned in Nazi labor camps, three graduates of a Catholic girls' school remembering a classmate who had been murdered years before, a lonely and self-destructive rock star.You’ll find the full three-in-one review here. (And, as proof that I don't write the headlines, consider the atrocious use there of "center around." This is a logical impossibility; it should be "center on," as I point out in just about every proofing job I get.)
The newest of the three plays is Letters to Sala at Invisible Theatre. … Sala's Gift was fast-tracked to the stage, and Hutton readily admits that the script still needs some work. She's right, but if you think of IT's production as a first public draft, the play shows plenty of potential despite its flaws. …
Meanwhile, the sometimes cautious Live Theatre Workshop is going out on a limb with an almost-new play by Tucsonan Toni Press-Coffman. In Holy Spirit on Grand Avenue, three successful and privileged women reunite many years after having been best buddies at the Bronx Catholic girls' school of the play's title. Eventually, the conversation turns to a classmate of theirs who was murdered more than 20 years before, when she was just 8 years old.
That girl, Diana, is a constant presence throughout the play, trying to understand the adult conversation of her former friends, chatting with an apparition of the boy who killed her, and venting her growing bitterness and frustration to the audience. …
Rock star Janis Joplin didn't quite grow up, either, although she had about 20 years more opportunity than Diana. Joplin is the subject of Love, Janis, the third offering in Arizona Theatre Company's current RepFest. Be assured that this is not just one of those smarmy jukebox musicals lionizing some popular singer of yore; oh, there's plenty of music here, but this is a serious and effective study of a figure who is very sympathetic, despite her outrageousness and personal failings.
James Reel's cranky consideration of the fine arts and public radio in Tucson and beyond.
