{"id":454,"date":"2003-12-04T11:01:17","date_gmt":"2003-12-04T19:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2003\/12\/connect_the_dots_1\/"},"modified":"2020-12-22T09:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T14:12:00","slug":"connect_the_dots_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2003\/12\/connect_the_dots_1.html","title":{"rendered":"CONNECT THE DOTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seems the U.S. State Department is bringing the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to\u00a0Washington, where it’s booked at the Kennedy Center <\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a>for a free concert Tuesday evening with D.C.’s own National Symphony Orchestra, featuring\u00a0Yo-Yo Ma. … Didn’t know Iraq had a big band, did you?\u00a0Must make our\u00a0Maximum\u00a0Leader proud. Strange he hasn’t talked it up.\u00a0Or maybe you thought it was\u00a0called the Occupied Iraq Symphony Orchestra, given that the Iraqis lack sovereignty<\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a>. …<\/p>\n

What puzzles me, however, is where did they get all the visas? You may recall the visa wars<\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a> the Bush administration has been waging,\u00a0making it difficult or impossible for foreign artists from “enemy” nations to enter the United\u00a0States. Did the State Department decide to give the Iraqis all the visas they’ve been withholding\u00a0from the Cuban musicians\u00a0or the\u00a0others they’ve turned down? …<\/p>\n

Now that Tom Cruise is playing Nathan Algren in “The Last Samurai,” <\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a>maybe he will start aHollywood trend of naming all film heroes and heroines for American novelists. … For starters,\u00a0how about Joe Updike and Fani Morrison, to star in a movie titled “The Human Saint,” based on\u00a0a novel by\u00a0Phyllis Roth with a screenplay by Paul Bellow, Ashley Tan and Tommy\u00a0Kushner, to be directed by Mark Nichols? …<\/p>\n

Speaking of the real Kushner<\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a>, Tony by name, has he been\u00a0sanctified yet? Except for Andrew Sullivan’s rank demurral<\/span><\/em><\/b><\/a>,<\/em> the tsunami of publicity<\/span><\/b><\/a>\u00a0in the run-up\u00a0to Sunday’s\u00a0HBO version<\/b><\/a> of “Angels in America”<\/em><\/b><\/a> would make you think so.\u00a0I love the play as much as anyone. Well, maybe not as much as Frank Rich — nobody could — but\u00a0does Kushner really want to be seen wearing a halo? …<\/p>\n

We will rue the day: “People the law forgot.”<\/em><\/b><\/a> Read it and cringe. …\u00a0And let’s not forget to color Tina Brown purple<\/em><\/b><\/a>: Her lede this\u00a0morning — “It’s odd how fast grandeur becomes gloomy when the miasma of misfortune sets in”\u00a0— sets some kind of record for awful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seems the U.S. State Department is bringing the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to\u00a0Washington, where it’s booked at the Kennedy Center for a free concert Tuesday evening with D.C.’s own National Symphony Orchestra, featuring\u00a0Yo-Yo Ma. … Didn’t know Iraq had a big band, did you?\u00a0Must make our\u00a0Maximum\u00a0Leader proud. Strange he hasn’t talked it up.\u00a0Or maybe you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43867,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/43867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}