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Art moment
Walking through an Edvard Munch gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art recently, I was reminded of two images I saw displayed together at the MOCA in Los Angeles: Munch’s “Starry Night” of 1893 (bottom) and Rothko’s “No. 61 (Rust and Blue)” of 1953 (top). Just thought I’d put them up here.
Kamm on Atzmon’s reply
UK blogger and columnist Oliver Kamm reacts to Gilad Atzmon’s reply [PDF] to my column [PDF] in Jazz Times. Kamm also directs our attention to this piece at Al-Jazeerah, in which Atzmon endorses Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s call to wipe Israel off the map: This isn’t to say that the Israeli people should be wiped out. As far as I am
Today in Torture, continued
This afternoon I had an MRI done on my left shoulder. For those who’ve never had an MRI, what happens is you lay flat on a table and they roll the table into a narrow cylindrical space. You have to lay extremely still, in my case for about 12 minutes, followed by a second test of about eight minutes. At
Great videos of our time
Via email from the wonderful pianist/composer Noah Baerman, check out this insane video clip from Norway. And then there’s this from the Chicago band OK Go — I first saw it on a Paste magazine DVD compilation, and I’m happy to report it’s online.
Tarik Shah, continued
The jazz bassist who stands accused of conspiring to aid al-Qaeda is up for a hearing tomorrow. (See my earlier post for background.) Again, avant-jazz promoter Margaret Davis has emailed urging us to support Shah: I think we should all be there to show solidarity for Tarik Shah as well as for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom
Great minds, thinking alike
I’ve already remarked on “antiwar” activist George Galloway traveling for the second time to Damascus to grovel before the dictator Bashar Al-Assad. Turns out the neo-Nazi David Duke has just traveled to Damascus to grovel before Assad as well. Here are highlights of Duke’s speech: It is only in America and around the world, it is only the Zionists who
Fresh bylines
Please be sure to link to my latest article, in Slate, about jazz and hip-hop. And just out: Jazz Times, December 2005, with my profile [PDF] of guitarist Ben Monder, a featured CD review (Brad Mehldau’s Day Is Done), and a tense exchange of letters [PDF] with saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, who, you’ll be glad to know, is “a fierce enemy
“The manufacture and distribution of prestige”
Just as I’m turning in my “Best Of” jazz 2005 votes to various publications, I read this essay by A. O. Scott in the NY Times Book Review, about James F. English’s book The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value (Harvard U. Press). I’m ever more conflicted about the critics’ polls and such, not entirely