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Interactive forum: sign in now!
[Update: the real-time forum is over, obviously, but the summary is still online, and we are keeping the comments open. Feel free to weigh in as you wish.] I’m conducting a live discussion from the Columbia University symposium “Jazz in the Global Imagination” — you can log in from anywhere at jazzhouse.org, the website of the Jazz Journalists Association. The
On Amitav Ghosh
The Autumn 2007 edition of Democratiya is now available, and I’m proud to be in the Table of Contents along with Todd Gitlin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Barry Rubin and others. My review of Amitav Ghosh’s Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times is here.
“Intifada NYC”
To rehearse the details of this controversy: a Brooklyn organization called Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media (AWAAM) printed t-shirts with the slogan “Intifada NYC.” Debbie Almontaser, as principal of the soon-to-open Khalil Gibran International Academy, a Brooklyn middle school with no connection to AWAAM, defended the use of the slogan when asked about it by reporters. She
“Wiretap at Will”
I’m researching a complicated piece for the Philadelphia Music Project, so posting may be light for a little while. But I wanted to link to Patrick Radden Keefe’s important analysis of the disgraceful wiretapping bill that Bush just signed. Huge surprise: the Democrats knuckled under and gave the Decider everything he wants. “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is now dead,
The bridge
I have an old college friend from Minneapolis — checked in with him and found out he crossed the I-35 bridge about 90 minutes before it collapsed. The incident has sparked a nationwide discussion of bridge safety, and my thoughts go straight to the South Street Bridge here in Philly, which is very nearby. My wife and I cross it
Ingmar Bergman RIP
In “The Seventh Seal” (1957) there’s a scene in which the knight (Max von Sydow) sits down on a hillside with a troupe of traveling performers. They offer him strawberries and milk. The scene ends with the knight speaking these lines: “I shall remember this moment. The silence, the twilight, the bowls of strawberries and milk, your faces in the
Blogs of note
My colleague Howard Mandel recently launched a blog called Jazz Beyond Jazz. “Thinking about jazz leads beyond the jazz one is thinking of,” wrote Howard in his inaugural post. Sums up much of my life the past few years. Sometime ago I also added Larry Blumenfeld’s ListenGood to my blogroll. I’m doing the same now with Fred Kaplan’s Jazz Messenger.
Light posting
I miss blogging, I really do.I’m wrapping up a review of Amitav Ghosh’s essay collection Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times. It will appear in the next edition of Democratiya. And busy with a number of other things as well. And trying to enjoy the summer a bit. But I’m sure the blogging bug will hit