The Sick-Child Delayed Rebuttal to Dorfman's Rebuttal: Martha Stewart on trial is a media event, the same way communists "on trial" fifty years ago was a media event. Plenty of celebs got singled out fifty years ago who were no more traitors to the country than Stewart is an inside trader. Moreover, if Stewart were a Man, it would be difficult to reconcile the severity of the charges with the outpouring of disaffection for someone who built their own empire and sweated a long-term public profile. (I can't believe I'm defending Martha Stewart; … [Read more...]

If I weren't nursing my sick 3-year-old, I'd be all over this GREY ALBUM controversy. So let me toss up a few notes: Danger Mouse is an ingenious DJ, not quite an artist, but the record gives you a LOT to listen to, and a lot to think about. He should be celebrated, not persecuted. Because of "Grey Tuesday," the music has turned into a cause, and there have been a lot worse recordings turned into causes (remember AS NASTY AS THEY WANNA BE?). The flaws are less creative than aesthetic: the melding of Jay-Z and the Beatles doesn't really tell you … [Read more...]

David Denby, "Living in America," New Yorker (Jan. 12) Last fall, Denby, a film critic for the New Yorker, published "My Life As a Paulette," as in an acolyte of the late New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael. It was his exorcism of the spell the witch cast on him even in death: an account of how Kael befriended him, encouraged him, praised him, and one day called to tell him he wasn't really a writer and that he ought to do something else with his life. Well, he showed her--he got her job!--but as a critic Denby remains dead weight. His style … [Read more...]

From the Daily Kos. … [Read more...]

BRAHMS Four Hand Piano Music 10 (Naxos 2003), String Quartets Op. 51 Nos. 1 & 2 Silke-Thora Matthies, Christian Köhn SCHUBERT Piano Works for Four Hands 3 (Naxos 2003), Fantasie in F minor, Three Heroic Marches, Variations on an Original Theme Jenö Jandó, Zsuzsa Kollár ELGAR Symphony No. 1 in A flat major Opus 55 (AVM/DCC 1990), Karg-Elert's transcription for solo piano David Owen Norris LEON FLEISHER RECITAL Piano Works for the Left Hand (Sony 1993), Bach/Brahms, Scriabin, Strauss/Godowsky, Saint-Saëns, Takács, Blumenfeld Leon … [Read more...]

Tim: Michael Wolff has written a notably fatuous piece.  To equate Martha Stewart with the victims of McCarthyism; to make the case that the celebrity rich comprise an aggrieved class; to state, in other words, that the state's jackboot is crushing her without cause--this is rubbish, pure and simple, and an obscene line of argument.  If you'd never heard of Michael Woolf, you'd assume this piece is a parody.   But Wolff, who failed in his attempt to buy New York magazine, aspires no longer to be a mere journalist, but to join the ranks of … [Read more...]

"It is hard, of course, to feel all that sorry for the rich (nor was it probably so intuitive to feel sorry, in another time, for the communists), particularly the rich who yell at the help (which may be all of the rich). And yet, there is a principle here. We ought not to prosecute somebody just because the tide turns against him—or her. It seems obvious, then, what should happen. The rich and everybody else on the make in New York (quite an ugly mob) should head down to the courthouse to defend their self-interest." (From Free Martha in … [Read more...]

Pioneer DV-563A Befuddled at first to find that the optical connections that work for DVD surround don't work for either DVD-A or SACD -- instead, it wants ANALOG connections between player and receiver. Once that got set up, I played both DVD-A and SACD, which were both impressive, and then set up a side-by-side comparison with Fagan's KAMAKIRIAD. The difference was not exactly striking, but very telling in detail: more and better bass, it seemed, and acutely defined finger snaps jumping between channels in the opening bars. (The original … [Read more...]

Dick Gordon did a Connection show yesterday on personal ads in the NYRB and the LRB. Those are certainly the two publications to do: everyone is always tittilated to learn (?) that "intellectuals" have active sex lives, even consider the literate mind something of a kick. The LRB by contrast has the best personals ever, anywhere: "LRB readers. You are all just English lecturers who like Bjork. Get over it, then make love to me. Each and every damn one of you. Man, 98, Berks. Box no. 02/09" (click here, scroll down). It reminded me of something … [Read more...]

We're not so worried about getting swallowed up by lists as we are about blind lists in a room full of deaf musicians. Still, the Voice Pazz Jop is out, and here's a bunch that tend to overlap with mine, meaning those I'll poach for stuff to check out [alphabetical, since we're trolling for blurbs, ahem], meaning, these are all very close personal friends, we gab about music all the time. What's fun about it though is that you can browse around former disfavored editor's lists and curse them in the night for overlapping at all with your good … [Read more...]