We take no satisfaction in intersecting the Dean's list with Youssou N'Dour and Courtney Love, but how could I totally space out SMILE? Just put him up top. The Langford is on my wish list, way behind there, and I'll have to check out Todd Snyder. BIG CLICKS in the order that I checked off the … [Read more...]

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEARFrom John Leland in the NYT: "If old songs create more profits than new ones, in a business that claims to sell newness as hipness, then the business is at odds with itself..." … [Read more...]

Nick Tosches on how "...glibberish kills": "Think about it. If a great writer's words are deemed to be worth nothing between the covers of a book, why should they be deemed to be of value on the back of a book?" "When writers and would-be writers asked him to read and comment on their work, … [Read more...]

See this entry, below: TR: What WAS the original context of connecting these pieces, silly boy? MR: DISSONANCE. i.e. heaven on earth MORE ON THAT PESKY WHITE HOUSE SCANDAL: So let us get this straight: The top Democrat in the Senate loses a race where the GOP sets up a phony blog that passes … [Read more...]

Bush committed fraud during the debates. Lindorff ran this story in Salon, but what I want to know is: why isn't this STILL a story? I can appreciate the broader factors weighing on the paper’s top editors, particularly that close to the election. But personally, I think that Nelson’s assertions … [Read more...]

MR writes: I mentioned "Day In the Life" in the same breath as "Rite of Spring," and the "Eroica" in class today. Free chicken wings if you can guess the context for all these... TR: Uh, context here is simple: false endings. MR: Neat idea. I've never thought of the Eroica's ending as false. … [Read more...]

ASSIGNMENT DESK A new White House house press corps scandal emerging, blurbed for today's Here and Now. On the heels of this, from pressthink, Jan. 19: Elliott reported again today on the furor in public relations circles caused by the Armstrong Williams corruption case, in which one of the leading … [Read more...]

HANDS I'VE SHAKEN (no particular order): Oscar Peterson, Eddie Albert, Andras Schiff, Stephen Bishop Kovacevich, Phyllis Diller, Marian McPartland, David Lindley, Rosanne Cash, Richard Thompson Zubin Mehta, Leonard Bernstein, Peter Guralnick, Greil Marcus, Vince Aletti, Joel Krosnick, Jan DeGaetani, … [Read more...]

Can classical music ever reclaim the populist influence of Leonard Bernstein? Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts (Kultur Video, 9 DVDs) The Joy of Music (Amadeus Press) Leonard Bernstein: An American Life (WFMT Radio Network, produced by Steve Rowlands for CultureWorks Ltd.) Leonard … [Read more...]

Why are Slate's "Today's Papers" heads so consistently awful? Do they simply let Umansky have his head since he probably turns copy in around 5 am? Just this past week we've had: Bishop Taken (for some Muslim cleric story) Rice-a-Crony (for Rice's testimony) Goodnight, Johnny (for Johnny Carson's … [Read more...]

I've been tough on Nancy Franklin, so to be fair here's a lead that made me chortle: "America is having a torrid love affair with “Desperate Housewives,” and I feel so left out..." [Greg's archives RULE.] GOOFY GOOBERS -- NOT: "...It is not the first time that children's TV favorites have come … [Read more...]

While waiting in the car yesterday, we came across "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen (actually a mashup of two songs by the Rivingtons. Adam (4) insisted on listening to it maybe 100 times in a row, laughing until he cried. The joy that bubbled out of him was delirious. None of the repetitions got … [Read more...]

Bow-tied neocon scuzzball Tucker Carlson, the guy Jon Stewart confronted on the sinking ship Crossfire? Turns out to be a major source for Sister Helen Prejean's death penalty piece (from NY Review of Books): ...In his autobiography, Bush claimed that the pending execution of Karla Faye Tucker … [Read more...]

Vexing how persistent these misperceptions are, long after the battle was waged, won, and consumerized. Talking about the pre-Beatle years in the early 1960s, Bruce Bawer writes: "Those years were America’s liberal moment, and a pivotal point in American history." But his lengthy article in the … [Read more...]

Would you take a $3.99 chance on this pay-per-view? "Evie, a wallflower in a dead-end job, is obsessed with a struggling musician. Through a fanatic event, Evie comes into focus and Casey capitalizes on the attention." -- listing for the film A Slipping-Down Life, starring Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce … [Read more...]