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Not so much, apparently.

Whenever I pass posters promoting the remakes of both 90210 and Melrose Place, I wonder who green-lit these nostalgia projects. Who brought the idea of updating these particular bits of nighttime TV soap to the table in the first place, and now that they’ve been made, who is watching them? And I wonder if much of this all hinged on the “imagine what stirring some Twitter and Facebook into the plot pot would do!” If only Heather Locklear had had a Blackberry. For those of us who grew up and moved out while the original shows were on air, it
seems like a chance to peek in on the class reunion to see that we haven’t
aged a day.

This thought line was iced over with a second one this week when I saw that Slate (okay), and then the New York Times (yeah), but then also the New Yorker (wha?) had all spilled ink over the recast of this trashy TV show from the ’90s.

And there’s plenty more, um, analysis, but Matthew Gilbert, writing for the Boston Globe, may have summed up the state of things best: “And so I “like” the new “Melrose Place,” in that I think it has the potential to be as addictive, and phony, as a can of Pringles potato crisps. The trashy CW series, tonight at 9 on Channel 56, has none of the hokey moral quandaries of the show that precedes it, “90210,” no lesson-learning unless you’re a student of chicanery and double-dealing. The new “Melrose Place” is just a mess of gossipy plotlines about adultery, murder, and secrets. If it has a moral compass, the arrow is stuck pointing down, to hell.”

Okay, yes, it’s a commercial for notebooks. The paper kind. But in my high school world, the day after Labor Day was the “back to school, hope you practiced some, orchestra auditions were coming to get you” signal. For as horribly nerve-wracking as it all was, I get all nostalgic for the work and pressure of that time around this time even to this day.

For those out there getting or giving out the education, best wishes for a great year.

More than any new string quartet or opera premiere, I confess that often it’s this kind of art that more deeply affects me. I don’t think I have any kind of ADD (I also love novels of the 2000-page, tissue-paper print variety) but expressions of the sort below, these kind of quiet, very personal, “glimpse and then it’s gone” peeks behind some very heavy curtains, have always worked their way much deeper into my psyche than more grand gestures seem to penetrate. In this case, a used and abused time-lapse video concept done absolutely brilliantly has me sending those “you have to see this!” emails and hitting replay.

Christoph Rehage, I hope you find your true home.

[via BoingBoing]

A t-shirt created for students in Sedalia, Missouri, to promote the Smith-Cotton High School Tiger Pride Marching Band and “portray how brass instruments have evolved in music from the 1960s to modern day” has devolved into controversy due to the shirt’s allusion to evolution. Students were asked to turn the shirts back in after parents complained.

Choice quotes from the story published in the Sedalia Democrat:

• “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” [Band parent Sherry] Melby said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school”
• High School junior Adam Tilley said he understood why the shirts were repossessed. “I can see where the parents are coming from,” he said. “Evolution has always been controversial.”

The issue has now attracted international attention and, as you might expect, some colorful reader comments.

In the follow up, the Sedalia Democrat reports that “not only has the public outcry over the T-shirts been a distraction to the students who are working so hard on their marching and music, but the school district has to eat the cost of the shirts, a total of $700.”

As a proud former member of a high school music ensemble myself, I feel for the kid victims in this story. But not to worry, the world now wants these shirts. Biggest band fund raiser ever?

(h/t Darcy James Argue for the link)

[If you have time for a second pass, watch the crawler for extra fun.]

This is not precisely arts related, but as particular students of human experience in our lives and work, I found it important. So if you haven’t read “Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices” yet (which cost an estimated $400K to report, if reports can be believed [and which leads to a whole other line of discussion]), you might want to set aside your lunch hour today.

Even some 13,000 words later, I still felt that I couldn’t fully wrap my mind around what had happened at Memorial Medical Center. At the end of the article, of course, there is no grand right/wrong resolution to the choices faced and made by the people in this story, so I found myself skimming on through the reader comments, as if I might find something there. I didn’t. However, some of the comments included additional anecdotes from that time, making it clear that even after reading $400K worth of reporting, there’s always going to be more information you don’t have. And so unless you were there, and perhaps even if you were, you never really could understand a situation so complex as this.

Maybe this is the point at which we rely on art and ritual to take our hand in such matters.

Like the guilt I feel whenever I glance over at all those documentaries I got from Netflix and still haven’t watched but yet refuse to return, I also thought I was alone in my strategy for “fixing” computer issues and learning new software in absence of a house tech guy.

I was wrong.

Brought to you by the brilliant folks at xkcd.com.

I came across an interesting article in the NYTimes about the identical-twin tennis super duo, Bob and Mike Bryan. Their dad, Wayne, wrote a book on how to foster talent in children, and the article includes this quote:

In 2004, Wayne wrote a book, “Raising Your Child to Be a Champion in Athletics, Arts and Academics,” which stresses, among other things, the importance for a parent of not stealing a child’s thunder. It reads as a manifesto for a sensitive and low-pressure form of hothousing. Wayne spells out very specifically how a parent should approach his child after a match. “First, let your child come to you . . . ,” he writes. “Remember, this is her gig, not yours. You say you want to share her glory? No! Let her friends go up to her and share her moment.” And win or lose, the script is the same: First question: Do you want water or Gatorade? Second question: Where do you want to get something to eat? Third question, if the child is 16 or older: Do you want to drive or should I? “It’s really that simple,” he writes. “If the child wants to talk about the match, you listen. But don’t critique. . . . Your role is to minimize pressure, not create it.”

I thought that would be pretty good advice for the stage moms and dads out there as well, with some obvious substitutions (Do you want a soy latte or shot of bourbon?), but is there anything you do/did for your talented offspring that would add to the “minimize not create” stress mantra? I would give space to the “add more stress” option, but frankly every kid I remember meeting in those competition hallways was already stretched to the breaking point.

No matter how many orchestras they guested with, I just never found the chance to check out any Grizzly Bear. This morning, however, I can’t stop watching Gabe Askew’s fan video.

Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

When it’s 95 degrees and a million percent humidity, the only thing to love about the NYC subway system may be that inescapable space it gives you to read all the articles in the week’s New Yorker. I probably would have skipped Sasha Frere-Jones’s piece on Leonard Cohen (“State of Grace,” 9/24/09), and missed out on the chance to revisit some favorite tunes and pick up some Cohen wisdom. But it was still 30 minutes to Brooklyn and comfortably cool in the car, and so I settled in.

On Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah,” for instance, the verse melodies ascend, and the open-throated singing transforms the chorus into a kind of earnest incantation that the songwriter probably wouldn’t attempt himself. Cohen may sing about transcendence, but he seems never to fully endorse it.

Later, I dug around in the virtual cupboard and played some tracks once committed to well-worn mix tapes. For a moment I was 19 again, and then suddenly I felt so very much older.

• Cohen’s version

• Buckley’s version