CENTRIST MEDIA

posted by James Reel

I haven't blogged in the past few days because the temptation has been too great to make some sort of political comment, and this is not a political blog. You can probably guess where I stand on many issues from the mere fact that I write for an alternative weekly--but it's not safe for you to make assumptions about anyone's politics just because they work in public broadcasting. Here at KUAT radio, I'd guess that the liberals and conservatives are pretty evenly balanced. (I count Libertarians and their sympathizers as conservatives: free-market Republicans who lean liberal on social issues.) So don't let me hear you complain about the "liberal media." What's the most talked-about cable news network? The arch-conservative Fox News. Which direction do almost all the talk-radio hosts you're likely to hear lean? Right. Have the nation's major newspapers gone easy on the Bush Administration after having obsessed over trivial and non-existent issues during the Clinton Administration? Obviously. There is a very strong, loud conservative voice in the American media, and only in comparison to that does centrist public radio seem to skew to the left.

SHELKO VS STAR

posted by James Reel

The Arizona Daily Star has been slamming the downtown Rio Nuevo project pretty heavily this year, documenting huge expenditures with few results. Now Greg Shelko, the director of the project, is fighting back with a response to the most recent Star article (now gone from the free part of the Web site). I don't know how much play Shelko's response will get, so I'll post it here (distributed by Ward 1 City Council member Regina Romero):

Many of you have read recent coverage by the Sunday, October 27, 2008 Arizona Daily Star of the City’s Rio Nuevo project has been inaccurate, misleading, biased, absent essential facts and fraught with the selective use of others to support the reporter’s opinions about the redevelopment of downtown. There are (4) key areas of concern. False Reports of Audit Activity The City’s financial management systems meet all professional governmental accounting standards (GASB; http://www.gasb.org/), withstand annual independent audit scrutiny, and are always deemed proper. The Star’s assertion that it has performed “the first public audit” (July 27, 2008) is false. The Star’s Arbitrary and Misleading Accounting The Star reports Rio Nuevo expenditures in ways that do not accurately reflect how funds were spent. The amount spent on construction is around $30 million- nearly twice what was reported by the Star! That’s a big difference and seriously misinforms the readers. The Star made much ado about “public relations” expenditures, implied wrongdoing and solicited harsh comments from members of the public. The Star failed to report that those “public relations” expenditures included legally required public notices published in the Star, neighborhood notification mailings, Spanish language materials, and workshops for Citizen Advisory Committee members- expenditures that are necessary to keep the public informed of meetings and enable public participation in the process. This reporting is dishonest and a disservice to the public. Biased Allegations and Purpose of the District The Star reported that we are spending money on “things that while not prohibited, aren’t what excited voters” in 1999. This recurring theme is simply not true. The stated purpose of Rio Nuevo tax increment multipurpose facilities district is to support multifaceted development including cultural and recreational amenities and improvements, historic recreations, new and expanded museums, mixed use development, and the Tucson Convention Center (TCC) Arena. These are quite clearly the purposes for which the money has been used and how bond authorization requires future funds to be spent. Lack of Information about Progress: The Star never reports in any meaningful (quantifiable) detail what private activity is taking place, the time it takes to revitalize a downtown, or the impacts of the financial markets and state of the economy on those efforts. We have spent $37.1 million on design and construction. We have spent $11.3 million on real estate acquisition and archaeological and environmental clearances. We have spent $3.6 million on planning activities. These are necessary predevelopment investments the City must make if it’s going to realize $2 to $3 billion invested in downtown over the years and decades to come. Although the Star repeatedly wants to use the 1999 vote as the starting line for measuring performance, (1) tax increment revenue (money) to support projects and planning did not start accumulating until 2004. (2) without the revenue extension approved the State Legislature in 2006, the City would not have the financial capacity to deliver on museums and other cultural attractions, hotels, an arena, and the infrastructure necessary to leverage private sector reinvestment. As we all know, the challenges to downtown revitalization are extraordinary and complex. The Star’s routine visitations to the past, and its consistently biased reporting on downtown affairs, are a disservice to the community, financially harmful to downtown stakeholders, and undermines years of planning and investment. The Star’s irresponsible journalism is not only replete with violations of the Star’s own ethical code. It is also a disservice to the community. And it is also financially damaging to property owners, businesses and investors in the downtown.

CD REVIEW: MUSICA SONORA/DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

posted by James Reel

The Day of the Dead is upon us, a fine time to call to your attention a CD by the local early-music vocal ensemble Musica Sonora. The group has available a CD recorded during a 2006 concert featuring Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum, or Requiem Mass, and it’s a perfect tie-in with Day of the Dead activities in the Spanish-speaking New World.

For a bit of background, let’s turn to the program notes distributed at the concert:

Día de los Muertos [is] a tradition celebrated particularly in Mexico and parts of Central America and the United States, in which the souls of the dead visit the living for a short time to eat favorite foods and commune with the living. In pre-Columbian times, the festivities were held for a month, but after the advent of the Spanish in the New World, the tradition was blended with elements of Catholicism and restricted to two days. Dead children return to their families on Nov. 1 (All Saints’ Day) and deceased adults visit on Nov. 2 (All Souls’ Day). Family graves are cleaned and altars prepared, decorated with marigolds, copal incense, candles photographs of the deceased, and special food. Children (living but perhaps dead, as well) eat sweets in the shape of skulls and _pan de muerto_ is found in local bakeries. To honor the dead and their living loved ones, we offer a performance of this Requiem Mass. In the Catholic tradition, the Office of the Dead is said on All Souls’ Day for the benefit of souls in purgatory and at other times for a particular dead person, and dates from the eighth or ninth centuries, actually predating the Requiem Mass itself. It includes psalms, passages from scripture and other elements, divided into Vespers, Mass, Matins and Lauds. The Mass for the Dead, also called the Requiem Mass after the first words of the introit (“Requiem aeternam”), dates from the 14th century. Unlike the usual sort of Mass of the Catholic liturgy, in which the lectionary changes with the church calendar, the Requiem Mass is fixed, with texts specific to the form. More joyful Mass elements, such as the Gloria and Credo, are omitted. With Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum as a centerpiece, our program extends back in time to include works from Requiem Masses by Cristobal de Morales and forward to instrumental composers of the 17th century.

One of those other composers is Francisco de Peraza (1564-1598, making him about a generation younger than Victoria and two generations the junior of Morales). This program includes two short organ tientos of Morales, played by Jeffri Sanders; the music sounds a bit exotic, suggesting at least a faint Middle Eastern influence (don’t forget the centuries-long Moorish domination of Spain, which had ended less than a century before this music was written). As for the Victoria Mass, it includes a great deal of lovely, smoothly flowing polyphony, as well as some segments of plainchant—including the famous Dies Irae, the “Day of Wrath” motif that would later find its way into several Romantic-era works, including nearly every major composition of Rachmaninov.

The Musica Sonora performances under the direction of Christina Jarvis are quite fine; I only wish that the group had been able to include program notes, rather than just track listings, in its four-page CD booklet. I assume the disc is available only at Musica Sonora concerts and through its members and director; you’ll find contact information at the group’s Web site.

ADVICE COLUMNS AND CHINESE MENUS

posted by James Reel

Time for links to my latest contributions to the Tucson Weekly. First, some advice about the latest ATC production:

Be honest: Would you really want to spend an evening with an advice columnist? By definition, she would be a know-it-all and maybe even a scold, dispensing opinions in such a steady stream that somehow, the whole encounter would revolve around her, rather than the people she would advise. Yet Ann Landers, or at least the version of her onstage courtesy of Arizona Theatre Company, turns out to be a more than tolerable companion. She's frank and extroverted and funny, but never so full of herself that she forgets that her job is to provide comfort and guidance to other people--people whose troubles may initially seem peculiar, but who have a great deal in common with each other, and with Landers herself. The famed, deceased advice columnist, whose real name was Eppie Lederer, is the subject of a one-woman show by David Rambo. ATC's production, which opened last week, is deftly directed by Samantha K. Wyer and boasts a splendid scenic design by Tom Burch, but the prime attraction is the woman on stage, Nancy Dussault. The term "veteran actress" is too often merely a euphemism for "old-timer," but Dussault is a veteran in the true sense: a deeply experienced performer who can slip into a role like this and bring it fully to life without displaying a single little actorly trick. Dussault is so engaging and believable that the play, _The Lady With All the Answers_, often seems more substantial than it really is.

The full review is here. Meanwhile, over in the Chow section, I scout out a Chinese restaurant:

I'd heard mixed reports about Ba-Dar Chinese Restaurant on East Broadway Boulevard. Ten years ago, Rebecca Cook, then the Weekly's able restaurant critic, paid one quick visit to the place and remarked, "On first impressions, the restaurant maintains a solid 'as it should be' with something extra in terms of variety." Since then, I've come across comments declaring that Ba-Dar offers the best Chinese food in Tucson, and that it offers the worst. Ethnic restaurants usually go wrong when they pander to bland middle-American tastes, so on a recent visit to Ba-Dar, my dining group (including a China-born friend) pretty much shied away from the standard menu (fairly extensive, but not overwhelming) and instead ordered items mainly from the Chinese menu, which is available only by request.

Find out what happened here.

WHY I'M A MAC

posted by James Reel

This has nothing to do with the blog’s usual subjects, except perhaps its broadcasting connection, but this article from that most indispensable publication, The Onion, reports that Microsoft’s notorious bugginess is reaching ever farther:

WASHINGTON—According to an FCC report released Monday, a new $300 million Microsoft ad campaign is responsible for causing televisions all across the country to unexpectedly crash. Enlarge Image Microsoft Ad Users have reported a number of failures resulting from the defective commercials, ranging from inability to change channels to "couldn't finish Heroes." The Microsoft ads, which began airing earlier this week, are being blamed for generating critical system errors in more than 70 million televisions. In addition, thousands of frustrated Americans said that the ads have caused their TVs to become unresponsive, their screens to turn blue, and a small box with the message "terminal application error" to suddenly appear. "I was in the middle of watching Monday Night Football when, all of a sudden, that stupid ad comes on and my TV freezes up," said Scottsdale, AZ resident Michael Chaplin, adding that he never wanted to see the commercial in the first place. "The next thing I know, all these numbers and symbols show up and I get an error message saying 'invalid file format' or something. Now my TV is ruined."

You’ll find the full article here. Perhaps I should point out to the uninitiated that The Onion is satirical.

NEGATIVE REVIEWS

posted by James Reel

The proprietor of Vineography, a wine blog I read, has explained why he rarely writes negative reviews. The world of wine criticism is rather different from that of performing-arts criticism, but there are times when I elect not to review something if the evaluation is going to be negative.

First, can the subject of the review, by its very nature, withstand critical scrutiny? Any professional performance is fair game, but student and amateur efforts can’t be held to the same standards. If I review an amateur performance favorably, I try to make it clear that I’m working on a sliding scale, and an impressive performance by a community orchestra wouldn’t be so impressive from the Tucson Symphony (unless the amateur performers really outdo themselves). But if the amateur performance doesn’t cut it, what’s the point of calling attention to this fact, rather than passing over the performance in silence? Amateur orchestras and theatrical troupes exist to give non-professionals a creative outlet; unless the artistic director is overly ambitious and misrepresents the company, these people aren’t trying to compete with the professional and semi-pro groups—they’re simply performing for their own amusement, for an audience dominated by their families and friends. If it’s clear that’s what the group is, and it isn’t putting itself forward as a real alternative to the pros, what’s the point of damning the results? Best to let them go about their worthy business without worrying about public criticism.

The case against negative reviews of books and CDs is quite different. There are a great many books and CDs coming out every week, and fewer and fewer venues for reviews. Space is limited, so why not focus on calling people’s attention to the best that’s out there, rather than condemning crap that they wouldn’t want to buy? In this instance, the focus is on the good of cultural consumer, not that of the producer. Of course, a book or recording by a high-profile artist deserves attention even if it’s bad, because of the heightened public interest. Otherwise, if space is limited, we should focus on the criticism that will do the public the most good.