“One could argue that some controversy was inevitable no matter what. Memorial sculptures for King have long been lightning rods for racial resentments, black and white. The importance of this one — the first representation of an African-American and nonpresident to be so honored on the National Mall — would make it particularly fraught.”
Tag: 07.20.08
The Man Who Forged Masters
“Yesterday this picture was worth millions of guilders, and experts and art lovers would come from all over the world and pay money to see it,” he declared after his exposure. “Today, it is worth nothing, and nobody would cross the street to see it for free. But the picture has not changed. What has?”
When Does a Reporter Become a Copy-Editor?
“Though an intrepid A-section reporter might be able to turn up names, ranks and serial numbers by pushing sources and insisting everything be said on the record, in proper English and for attribution, I’ll never accomplish all that with the crazy stuff on boards.”
Following Near-Fatal Accident, Young Singer Flourishes
“Gardot’s work, for all its stylish veneer of Joni Mitchell-ish pop and occasional twang of country-and-western romance, contains a deeper strain of jazz. Like the footloose Madeleine Peyroux, she is winning over the kind of listeners who probably never thought they liked jazz.”
Why “Multi-tasking” Is Killing Us
“Chronic distraction, from which we all now suffer, kills you more slowly. There is evidence that people in chronically distracted jobs are, in early middle age, appearing with the same symptoms of burn-out as air traffic controllers. They might have stress-related diseases, even irreversible brain damage. But the damage is not caused by overwork, it’s caused by multiple distracted work.”
Artists AWOL In Digital Issues Over Their Work
“With digital distribution of entertainment as the focal point, the TV/film and music industries are embroiled in several disputes between those who create the content and those who distribute it. But while those disputes in Hollywood are well-documented — with powerful unions like the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild staging high-profile negotiations and, in some cases, strikes — the perception in the music industry is that artists are largely left to themselves to fight for whatever they can get on their own.”
Superstars Of Chinese Classical Music
“One hears, again and again, the same complaints about Lang Lang and Tan Dun — that two supremely gifted musicians have succumbed big-time to celebrity. And both do manage to frustrate even those of us who admire them enormously.”
When Everybody Has A Home Media Server
“Most digital media today is stored on an individual computer and then synched to one device or another or streamed through a home network to an entertainment system or other appliance. The drawback with such a system is that all files will be lost should the hard drive crash, and it’s very difficult to synchronize files across multiple computers, devices and users without overlap. By contrast, a home server acts as a central storage hub for all the content in the home, and multiple devices can link to it in order to stream or otherwise access music, video or other content.”
HD Radio Is Hard Sell With Public
“Four years after the first HD radio receivers hit the U.S. market and two years after RadioShack became the first retailer to start rolling them out nationwide, sales are still miniscule compared with the broader terrestrial radio market. In addition, consumer awareness continues to lag and such competitive options as satellite and Internet radio are complicating efforts to make the digital radio standard a mass-market phenomenon.”
The End Of Ebert And Roeper At The Movies
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper announced Sunday he is leaving the nationally syndicated show “At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper” after eight seasons.