[If you have time for a second pass, watch the crawler for extra fun.] … [Read more...]

This is not precisely arts related, but as particular students of human experience in our lives and work, I found it important. So if you haven't read "Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices" yet (which cost an estimated $400K to report, if reports can be believed [and which leads to a whole other line of discussion]), you might want to set aside your lunch hour today. Even some 13,000 words later, I still felt that I couldn't fully wrap my mind around what had happened at Memorial … [Read more...]

Like the guilt I feel whenever I glance over at all those documentaries I got from Netflix and still haven't watched but yet refuse to return, I also thought I was alone in my strategy for "fixing" computer issues and learning new software in absence of a house tech guy. I was wrong. Brought to you by the brilliant folks at xkcd.com. … [Read more...]

I came across an interesting article in the NYTimes about the identical-twin tennis super duo, Bob and Mike Bryan. Their dad, Wayne, wrote a book on how to foster talent in children, and the article includes this quote: In 2004, Wayne wrote a book, "Raising Your Child to Be a Champion in Athletics, Arts and Academics," which stresses, among other things, the importance for a parent of not stealing a child's thunder. It reads as a manifesto for a sensitive and low-pressure form of hothousing. … [Read more...]

No matter how many orchestras they guested with, I just never found the chance to check out any Grizzly Bear. This morning, however, I can't stop watching Gabe Askew's fan video.Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo. … [Read more...]

When it's 95 degrees and a million percent humidity, the only thing to love about the NYC subway system may be that inescapable space it gives you to read all the articles in the week's New Yorker. I probably would have skipped Sasha Frere-Jones's piece on Leonard Cohen ("State of Grace," 9/24/09), and missed out on the chance to revisit some favorite tunes and pick up some Cohen wisdom. But it was still 30 minutes to Brooklyn and comfortably cool in the car, and so I settled in. On Buckley's … [Read more...]

"Young people's attitudes to music may be too complicated and fast-changing to measure." Read the full article. [passing giants, somewhere in Pennsylvania]I liked this piece mostly for what it was willing to acknowledge we don't know about what we don't know. Often when I read yet another article about changes in the distribution of recorded music, I tend to have a Don Quixote flashback sensation. A google search to make sure I wasn't mixing my metaphors turned up this apt quote from the novel … [Read more...]

Ever since submitting a proposal to the National Summit on Arts Journalism for NewMusicBox/Counterstream Radio, I've been scratching at the concept of "reinventing arts coverage" in my head. If we could close our eyes, click our heels, and start over, what would journalism about the arts look like? If we were just starting to produce it in 2009, would we still fall into the "profile and review" pattern of discourse, or would we get something radically "other" (besides the 2.0 Twitter review and … [Read more...]

I'm a little late to this one, but wow: My grandmother may finally care about what I do for a living. [via Tom Service/Guardian] And if you're still looking for procrastination material: Unrelated to music, except in the "Q: Where were you before you moved to Williamsburg? A: Oberlin." kind of way... [via Dial "M" for Musicology] … [Read more...]

If the narrative alliteration starts to grate, you can skip ahead to 1:45 for the silent show. I admit the nerd in me wondered if we could hire them to do a choral version of 4'33''. (I should probably have kept that one to myself, huh?) … [Read more...]