April 2005 Archives

Here & Now broadcast my Petra Haden piece today, everybody should run out and buy it.

Sure, Bernard Kerik and Judith Regan are easy targets. But last week's LAW AND ORDER had a spicy ex-police commissioner plot with Kevin Dunn doing a deliciously narcissistic Kerik, who was two-timing on publishing magnate Regan with a porn star. (In real life, the married Kerik was cheating on his mistress, a corrections officer...) Tape "Publish and Perish" next time it repeats… (NBC still hasn't updated for Annie Parisse, the new DA, on its web site.)

WE STILL DON'T GET OUT MUCH

Critical darling Mike Leigh blows hot (SECRETS AND LIES) and cold (TOPSY-TURVY), but Vera Drake is a MUST RENTAL. The only thing I didn't like about it was its anachronistic music.

"Imagine Something Awful," -- Phil Gallo in Variety (try bugmetnot).

THEY LIKE ME...

James Levine appeared on Charlie Rose a couple weeks back, and nobody seemed to notice his scathing subtext. The overall theme was how great his career is going, how beloved he is at the MET, how the BSO has rushed to embrace his leadership, and how shuttling between the two cities saves him all kinds of jet lag. But amidst Levine's descriptions of the good life, longtime BSO buffs heard pointed critiques of his BSO predecessor, Seiji Ozawa. To begin with, Rose asked him a very general question about his approach to conducting, and Levine responded with a description of how he strives "never to pantomime" the music. Elaborate gestures by conductors who "act out" the physical manifestations implied in the music tend to distract the listener, shift the focus from the ear to the eye, and get in the way of good listening. Levine argues that his focus is on the composer's intentions blah blah blah. This is a thinly-veiled swipe at Ozawa, one of our great podium dancers, and the key issue critics leveled against him all during his record-setting BSO tenure. (Ozawa could be fun to watch - the first dozen times -but he rarely passed muster when it came to the core repertoire.) The second point was about BSO's swift embrace of Levine's leadership, which is an enormous clue to any leader about the pre-existing LACK of same. He's not Simon Rattle (NYTIMES), but Levine's self-aggrandizing (all dressed up as humility) is clear.

What's the Matter With Liberals, the new afterword to WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS, details the subtextual class warfare that Rove perfected in 2004:

The only centrism to be seen on the Republican side was the parade of GOP moderates across the stage of Madison Square Garden, an exercise clearly intended more to pacify and reassure the press than to win over actual voters. When the cameras were off, it was a completely different affair: what Karl Rove called a "mobilization election" in which victory would go to the party that best rallied its faithful. What this meant in practice was backlash all the way: an appeal to class resentment and cultural dread that was unprecedented in its breadth; ingenious state-level ballot initiatives on "values" questions that would energize voters; massive church-based get-out-the-vote efforts; and paranoid suggestions from all sides inviting voters to believe the worst about those tyrannical liberal snobs.

Replete with intriguing source notes, including this doozy:

Then came what must rank as one of the most ill-conceived liberal electoral efforts of all time: in October the British Guardian newspaper launched a campaign to persuade one contested, blue-collar county in Ohio to vote against President Bush. The idea was to have Guardian readers in Britain write personal letters to voters in Ohio, whose names and addresses the newspaper had secured from registration rolls. Unsurprisingly, the Ohioans strongly resented being lectured to on the foolishness of their national leader by some random bunch of erudite Europeans. Indeed, the episode was so outrageous that there was almost no need for columnists and talk-radio hosts to sputter about the "pansy-ass, tea-sipping" liberal elitists who thought they knew best—the arrogance of the wretched thing spoke for itself.[8] The county had gone for Gore in 2000, but this time, like the state, like the nation, it chose Bush. And why not? Biased newscasters, conceited foreigners: to hell with them all.

Is it just me? Isn't the obvious pushback here: Bush gets away with this "brush-clearing," regular guy stuff only because he has this hired-gun Lucifer, Rove, pulling all the levers? How come nobody's made an issue of Rove's atheism, venality and cynicism? See also: Frank's magazine, The Baffler, and home page with clips.

INFOGLUT

NPR posts a whole page full of RSS feeds by category. Heck, in a few years they'll wake up to podcasting.

Elitism for Dummies: Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on DVD got picked up for the WBUR Arts Online pages.

CLICKTRACK

SNOBSITE

"John Lennon's ex-lover May Pang has slammed his widow Yoko Ono for erasing her relationship with the late Beatle from the Broadway, New York musical about his life." Starring Joan Collins as Yoko Ono, Linda Blair as May Pang, Tab Hunter as Peter Fonda, and Brian Dennehy as Leon Wildes (Lifetime, 8pm).

OOOOH...

More Lists

First saw this LONG EMERGENCY excerpt linked off Wolcott, then found Kunstler's own page of rants. (Is Rolling Stone trying to earn back our respect? If so, how come we still can't search by byline?) After we lock Karl Rove in a room with a laxative-dosed greased pig, this is our questioner...

I HEREBY DUB THIS A NEW GENRE: If Largely Novelty

Revolved

Claudine Longet singing "Here There and Everywhere" as indelible match of singer to song, form to content.

FINALLY

Obscured in death last week by the mighty Saul, Frank Conroy is best remembered for his memoir STOP-TIME. But the lesser-known BODY AND SOUL is one of the best musical novels I've ever read.

I LOVE HUCKABEES (DVD)

Reminds us how much we hate West Wing's TOTAL WASTE of Lily Tomlin…not to mention Kristin Chenowith… (John Spencer for VP? Can they Cheney-ize his broken ticker…?)

UPSIDE OF ANGER

Plenty of yucks, worth seeing for Pat Nixon, you'll forget it's Costner, daughters are thinly drawn, shocker twist should have come halfway, limps to a finish. Rental.

SUPER SIZE ME (Showtime)

Radicalizing. Favorite line: how at the end it takes him six months to burn off the last 4 pounds…

OUR RATINGS, OURSELVES (New York Times Magazine, April 10)

Missing graph: aren't both Arbitron and Nielsen in bed with the grocers and drug chains who graph every product on those "preferred customer" cards?

COVER OF THE WEEK

Train From Kansas City (Greenwich-Barry), Neko Case, THE TIGERS HAVE SPOKEN (Anti), original by the ShangriLas

WORDS ESCAPE ME

A reader sent this link from Zwecker's People, via CBS2Chicago.com: "Hard-working actor and Glenbrook North alumnus Jeff Cahill will be featured on next Sunday's "Deadwood" series on HBO -- though Jeff's mom and dad, Josie and Ed Cahill (and Josie's loyal customers at the George What's Cooking eatery in Deerfield) are about to see Jeff look "the worst I've ever looked," a crazy, ear-less character named "Crop Ears" on the upcoming episode of the critically-acclaimed show..." Reader continues: "Also got it from Jim Beaver, who plays Ellsworth on Deadwood. He's in a Yahoo group, and the question of Dillahunt's multiple roles was raised there. You're not the first one who had that idea, believe me. Some people say he played Bummer Dan too. Beaver says nope, just McCall and Wolcott. So far..."

GREAT MOMENTS IN RADIO...

"Earning your trust and asking your forgiveness, all at the same time..." Musical punch line (listener's choice?): "China Grove," Doobie Brothers (WROR-FM, Boston, Saturday night). Flip a coin.

WEST WING

They're not gonna hand over the reigns of this franchise to Hawkeye... which means we'll get a Hispanic President and TERI POLO AS FIRST LADY.

DEADWOOD

Would you say it takes BALLS? to have Bard Dourif shove a poker up Swearengine's johnson not once (for season premiere) but TWICE (for second episode climax)? And what is it about Ian McShane that keeps our sympathies aflutter... simply because he's the smartest guy in town? Because he DIDN'T kill Bullock when triple-dared...? Trixie's fatalistic longing?

Showed Hard Day's Night to the kids, who spent the day walking around the house saying "Give us a kiss!" and "I hereby declare this bridge... Open!"