By Jan Herman With the second anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, we’re about to be inundated again by television documentaries on the World Trade Center, the attacks on it and the Pentagon, and even by a fictionalized replay of those events–although public officials and the news media have made less extensive plans to mark the […]

“The intelligence community has imperfect visibility.” That’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld assessing U.S. confusion on the terrorist threats in Iraq, as quoted today in The New York Times. Doncha love the way he slaughters the language? He doesn’t just drain it of meaning, he sucks the life out of it. And how about his judgment on security in Iraq? […]

Simon Beaufoy, the British producer who wrote “The Full Monty,” is bringing out his new movie “This Is Not a Love Song.” The big deal about that is, it will be “the world’s first Internet premiere,” as the U.K. Film Council terms it. The flick, written by Beaufoy and directed by Bille Eltringham, is being screened […]

Maybe I shouldn’t have doubted Tom Friedman when he claimed that “Superstar,” the Arabic version of “American Idol,” was a force for democracy in the Middle East. Today comes word that another reality TV show, “Big Brother Africa,” has roughly 30 million viewers in across that continent. From Nigeria to Botswana, Kenya to South Africa, the […]

The Latin Grammys looked so quaint, it was < STRONG>almost endearing. Here are some photos. … Theater producers in London are looking to do some good: They’re about to put the British inquiry into the death of weapons expert David Kelly on stage. … Keep your shirt on, Britney: Bare midriffs are over. … 

Is prescience in the eye of the beholder? You decide. “The Silver Castle,” a novel by my favorite literary critic, Clive James, tells the story of a waif from the Bombay slums who dreams of becoming a movie star. Toward the end of the novel — which, by the way, was published in 1996 — there’s a […]

Few paragraphs capture what has become of the culture better than this one from the Washington Post: “Back in its heyday, Playboy ran interviews with such luminaries as Marshall McLuhan, Martin Luther King Jr. and Allen Ginsberg. Now it runs interviews with Lisa Marie Presley, Jimmy Kimmel and Tobey Maguire. [Hugh] Hefner blames this editorial […]

This morning, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman hailed “Superstar,” the Arab version of “American Idol” that aired on the satellite channel of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, as a possible stepping-stone to democracy in the Middle East three ways to Sunday — that is, politically, culturally and technologically, no kidding. (Free registration required.) At the same time, […]

A few weeks back I posted a reader’s e-mail letter to Arts Journal editor Doug McLennan which objected to the “political invective” in Straight Up. That posting, “Thou Shalt Not,” prompted several more e-mails from the reader, this time to me. He explained he “did not object to [my] writing about the mixture of art and politics.” He objected to […]

It’s time for the Labor Day Weekend. But don’t leave just yet. In a minute-by-minute rundown of last night’s ultraslick, ultraridiculous, ultra-important MTV Video Music Awards, Ryan McGee has again demonstrated his encyclopedic knowledge of, and appropriately cynical attitude to, the kulcha of pop. His real-time review, a race “against the clock and Meta Carpal Syndrome,” is a circus feat […]

Let it not be said that this column ignored the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream” speech. About 200,000 people assembled at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to hear King and other civil rights leaders on Aug. 28, 1963. If you have Real Player, you can listen to King’s speech in full on the History Channel Web site. The speech lasted […]

Now for really serious things: a magazine swimsuit issue starring Albert Einstein, which needs no further comment, and tonight’s broadcast of the 20th MTV Video Music Awards, which has starred so many media-made creatures that the ever-reliable celebrity site MSNBC.com insists on offering them more free publicity. Ryan McGee, a former Harvard man with a beautifully named Weblog, Wading […]

What are they thinking? It has me flummoxed. Four out of five Americans disapprove of removing the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of Alabama’s state judicial building. I know America is populated by weirdos. How else do you explain TV shows like Fox’s “Miss Dog Beauty Pageant“? But have we gone so completely nuts that we […]

Somebody must have turned back the clock. The iconic image of Allen Ginsberg, recalling his “Pentagon Exorcism” days circa 1967 (stars-and-striped stovepipe hat, black-framed eyeglasses, full beard and riveting, innocent eyes), stares at me from corner newstands all over Manhattan. His face is on the cover of Time Out/New York, which dubs him “the spiritual […]

Since this column is about the arts, as well as media and culture, may I recommend three art shows? One, which has the advantage of being online, is “the bauhaus at the busch-reisinger.” It comes to us from Harvard and offers details of Bauhaus design — the thingness of things — in five categories of what […]

By Jan Herman The New York Times finally caught up with us and ran its obituary about David Jiranek. The Jiranek family put on an unforgettable memorial service Sunday at Lucas Point Beach in Old Greenwich, Conn., where he grew up. Dubbed “The David Show” by Todd Hoffman, one of his four half-brothers, it was both touching and irreverent — so much so that […]

Yesterday’s item asking about the design of the granite Ten Commandments monument that was ordered removed from the rotunda of Alabama’s state judicial building brought a response from blogger Mac Diva that may help clear up the mystery. He writes: Jan, it appears the design of the monument was worked out between [Alabama Chief Justice Roy] Moore […]