"...I thought one of the rewards of becoming rich was not having to Warholinate your art..." I saw some of this, but checking the blogs, here's my favorite report so far: "White trash cred expires after the first award, Hils...." Where are the jokes about Sydney Lumet's daughters? Props to RW for … [Read more...]

To pay tribute to Johnny Carson, Rolling Stone reruns its 1979 interview by Timothy White. How's that for lame? Me, I come out somewhere inbetween Kenneth Tynan's New Yorker profile and Harry Shearer's Credibility Gap food fight. Which is to say, Thomson has the last word. And here's my favorite … [Read more...]

from the GRAND POOBAH OF THE DISMISSIVE FOOTNOTE, I give you Luc Sante on Dylan: "Chronicles works so well in part because in writing it Dylan apparently found a formal model to adhere to or violate at will, and if he did not have in mind any specific nineteenth-century account of callowness and … [Read more...]

Hooked up my new Airport Express downstairs, put it through the old Sony receiver and KLH bookshelfs I just had refurbished and it sounds nice and warm and cushioned. The drawback to AX is: it will broadcast only to your computer or to the remote location, not both. There will probably be a hack for … [Read more...]

Eat your heart out, Bill Flanagan. ALWAYS GOOD FOR A QUOTE: George Michael, in today's NYTimes: George Michael says pop music is dead. Speaking yesterday at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he presented his autobiographical film "George Michael: A Different Story," he said, "I think my … [Read more...]

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...]