So, I've been doing a podcast with the writer Eva Hagberg called Recoup that has earned some attention from the LA Times. In this episode, however, I speak with my spouse, who is a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist. But the episode is really funny. It's not a pandemic / coronavirus episode, and I urge you to check it out. Thanks for all the positive attention and five star reviews on Apple. We're getting so many listeners from all over the world, and as terrifying and sad as this pandemic period has been it has offered me, as a homebound lifer of cancers and rare diseases, a lot of light and hope. If you don't want to head over to your podcast app of choice you can listen to this episode below with an embedded player. Thank you again, and please share. It's word of mouth that's really helped us so far, and we want to keep doing this to help people. You can always write in to us with your questions or concerns about uncertainty, chronic recuperation, disability, social isolation, and everything in between at [email protected]. -- Adam Baer
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April 23, 2020
May 24, 2016
May 14, 2016
J.S. Bach Violin Week with Gidon Kremer
Each of the six Bach sonatas and partitas for solo violin feels like a day of the week to me. Of course, there's nothing for Day 7; Bach was religious. I've thought a lot about this idea, and I've realized that the reason I feel this way has to with each musical work's key--for example, d minor is dark, serious and somber; C major pure; E major ebullient. But it also has to do with each piece's specific mood, the musical ideas, the harmonies, the statements. That they appeared in the Bach violin work manuscript in this order matters, too, although why start the first sonata on a specific day? Did the Bach pieces help shape the way I feel about days of the week or vice versa? I'll never know because I've been playing them since I was very young. Here, below, I've associated each work with each day of the week, as played by Gidon Kremer.--Adam Baer
Monday -- Sonata No.1 in G minor
Tuesday -- Partita No. 1 in B minor
Wednesday -- Sonata No. 2 in A minor
Thursday -- Partita No. 2 in D minor (including the famous Chaconne )
Friday -- Sonata No. 3 in C Major
Saturday -- Partita No. 3 in E major
July 07, 2015
June 16, 2015
Go to Music School -- Just Go to a Better One
A few days ago, an op-ed columnist in the New York Times wrote that he didn't think his kid should transfer into a music school. Today, Fred Bronstein, dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, responded in the Times. It's a strong, smart statement that takes the piece's headline literally, emphasizing "training" musicians "attuned to their communities" who should be "effective communicators, educators, entrepreneurs, audience development experts and citizen-artists." But there's more to be said on that issue.
I'm a former Peabody student, and I say that if you have the talent and determination, you should go to music school. It's one of the best things that I ever did with my life. It filled my soul and trained my brain to accomplish many other things, including serious writing projects. I'm a big believer in the humanities, and as a musician from a family of musicians, I wanted the immersion in music that they had enjoyed beyond the pre-college music conservatory. But I simultaneously attended Johns Hopkins' separate Arts & Sciences undergraduate program, and I graduated in 2000, a bad time to go to music school. Back then, the older classically oriented ones like mine (Peabody is the country's first conservatory), weren't designed yet to teach students what they really needed to know as the Internet was growing. They were experimenting. But schools that emphasized popular genres like the Berklee College of Music were leaps and bounds ahead, especially with respect to getting students fluent with digital and business.
The issue now isn't really whether or not you should go to music school. It's how strong is the school you want to attend? How well will it train you to be a musician-plus today? Sure, you can go to music school, study an instrument, composing, history, and theory--and you can learn the practical stuff on your own. But you really ought to ensure that you have your sights set on the realities of our time and that the music school you choose really does teach all of its students (maybe even as a "core") the following: business (especially entrepreneurship but also management, marketing, arts administration, contract negotiation, and financial skills); technology (app development, coding, UX, digital production for all genres [hip-hop, pop, songwriting, etc.], recording, video, engineering, music and sound editing for media/entertainment); music education; writing; arts advocacy; film/media composing; and IP/copyright law, as well as perhaps public health (!).
I have long appreciated Columbia University's "core curriculum." Music schools have always had a version of their own, consisting of theory, ear-training, lessons, etc. But now they need new ones full of required courses and skills assessments--it's not just about supplementing music classes with languages and the humanities or intros to the good things that Bronstein mentions (Peabody is lucky to have him). Courses in these subjects need to be authoritative and leave students with strong skills. They need to be practical and effective. I'm asking for a lot, but that's what the world asks of you as a musician, or as any kind of creative professional. So, schools: Please partner with media companies, music publishers, tech startups, small businesses, independent artists, more community schools. Add incentives. Stress the requirements beyond music skills. Stress that these are music skills.
I studied the violin at Peabody while attending Hopkins, but I live in Hollywood now, consult on music and work as a writer, journalist, and editorial content strategist. My first job out of college was at NPR; they hired me to be a cultural producer with a specialty in digital, but getting that gig was a bit of blind luck (although I knew how to code), based mostly on the fact that I'd published music criticism in the Washington Post. I would have benefitted so much from even a few of the aforementioned extra classes. Recording was available at my school, but it was a highly specialized degree program track. So, too, music education. These things were not stressed as necessary for everyone. But they were, and they are critically necessary now. A student at a great music school shouldn't have to learn Logic in an Apple Store.
What's great, though, is that Peabody is now poised to do this as an entity owned by Johns Hopkins University, and Bronstein says he's devoted to the cause. But it should be reiterated that I graduated from college 15 years ago, and Peabody was not moving on these things nearly quickly enough, even though it had been owned by Hopkins for a while. I have great hope for future music students, but also some words of advice: Double-degree program with a university. Or, even better, something new and singular that blends two types of schools like Hopkins and Peabody more seamlessly. That's what I tried to do with my program, and eventually I only took one degree (my Arts & Sciences B.A.). The Music School as a template for higher education needs to evolve more quickly and comprehensively for the sake of all musicians as well as those who will move into other fields while using their music skills. The great music that we love will be thankful.-- Adam Baer
June 03, 2015
May 20, 2015
Are Riptides and Currents as Dangerous as We Think?
Saw something online that blew my mind about how to deal with riptides, so I wrote this quick thing for Men's Journal. I'd read it and watch the video if you ever plan on going into the ocean.
April 22, 2015
Beyond the Boundary Principle, A New York Times "Couch" Essay -- by Adam Baer
When I first heard that the New York Times was running a series of Opinionator essays about psychology and psychotherapy called "Couch," I was pretty sure I'd have something to submit. I've not only a seen a few professionals in this field over the years, but the woman I married eventually became a stellar clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist in Los Angeles. I like to kid that she's never had the good fortune to be my doctor, but that's of course true: I was never her patient, and she wasn't in this line of work when we met. She first started as a scientist, a researcher. At any rate, I decided that I'd write a piece about the key psychologists in my life, especially because two of them had massively differing approaches, and in fact, one passed away while seeing me with the same disease as me -- and never told me she was sick (such are boundaries). If you've made it this far, here's the link to the story that ran in the New York Times Couch series. Have a read and tell me if you still don't approve of strict boundaries like those which the selfless cancer therapists live by. I hope this honors them in some way. -- Adam Baer
p.s. Some people upon reading this piece don't get the sense that I had tried to honor these people in my life while still being truthful about my experiences with them. The very act that I have told these stories is an act of honoring them, and one can't change a couple of intriguing non-fiction stories into pure praise when one is composing this sort of journalism piece. I also did leave out a lot of info about my experience and both characters (as well as my wife). I don't want to have to say this -- I hope that some people get it -- but the piece itself is in a way a commentary on what we should share and what we shouldn't. And that every case is different, so hard and fast rules may exist but must like music be interpreted with good taste (for example, I could have shared my wife's name and advertised for her, but I didn't; nor did I want to intrude on the life of someone else's family). Thanks to all who read and corresponded with me about this essay. It wasn't easy to write but I felt that it could do some good to share it, and I hope it brings attention to the clinical psychologists (Ph.D.s) who work with cancer patients and their families while continuing to contribute to important research. If you want to donate to a cause look up the good people in your area who do this, and help them.
November 03, 2014
My Rare Disease, and the One Guy Who Might Erase It -- by Adam Baer
A lot of you know I've had cancer(s). That it's been tough, that I've been given the chance to write about it. And that I am lucky to have great health insurance. However, what many readers may not know, even if you've read my work, is that buried in a piece for Harper's Magazine that I published I talk about having a malignant tumor in the base of my skull (not my brain) called Chordoma. The piece makes it clear that I continue to live with it. But to make it more clear, this is one of the rarest diseases in America, and very few people, save for the generous experts who have to date saved my life with surgery and radiation and management, know what to do with chordomas, including a lot of doctors and researchers.
Of course, we're living at a time when a researcher might figure out an ever-better treatment. But a tiny portion of the population may not realize that this silent, fatal disease and its treatments force us to perpetually fight terrible side-effects (among them, the very serious condition of social isolation), and that if this is just one of the cancers you have/have had, life is never "OK," even if you do your best to make everyone around you feel like it is, lest you seem stranger, weirder, more of a reminder of everyone's mortality, a guilt-inducer. Rarer.
At any rate, the guy linked to in a few sentences is pretty much the only one of our generation, without an MD or PhD, working really hard to lead research and other programs that may help people with this specific rare disease. He and his foundation deserve serious support. His name is Josh Sommer, and his non-profit is called Chordoma Foundation. I'm ashamed that I haven't been more vocal about him and his work over the years, and that most times I don't want to read about this one of my diagnoses. But on a day like today, when I have questions about a certain drug that I need for one late effect of a previous cancer treatment, something that might make my chordoma worse, a question that cannot be answered, I feel lucky that Josh is doing what he does. This call for support is long overdue.
I hope that you read about Josh, and back his group. I learned that I have (a) chordoma because of an incidental MRI taken because of headaches. That means that many other people can have it, and that it can be less rare than we think, because who gets head MRIs for no good reason, and who looks into the heads of the deceased? I'd hate to learn of one more person suffering from this deadly problem, but it's highly possible, and that -- not any sympathy for my situation -- is why I posted this. People with chordoma are often told they may only live seven or ten years.
Some of us who've had the advanced treatments and surgeries are optimistic about living a lot longer, but we could be wrong. Josh, and the people he's working with, are not living in the vagaries; they are living and working for change in the now, and they don't feel their job is done with just one magazine article that appears to be a book review. I hope that I can help them more, and that you may decide to allocate some of your disposable income and time to help them, too. -- Adam Baer
November 01, 2014
"A Good Life in the Hollywood Hills"-- Holiday Magazine, April, 1970
An April, 1970 magazine article on life in the Hollwood Hills:
"The cliffdwellers cling precariously to the brush-covered slopes of the Hollywood hills, sharing the common perils of fire and flood. In the late fall, when the humidity drops and a warm wind whips through the canyons, the hills may suddenly explode with flame. In the rainy season, when the naked cliffs crack and slide, the mortgaged wickiups come tumbling down. But the true cliffdweller always returns to his wildlife refuge. He trades in his charred Porsche, patches his pool, rebuilds his house-with-a-view and again settles down to enjoy the comforts of his mountain lair." ...
"Laurel is Southern California’s semi-tropical version of Manhattan’s East Village. Mediterranean villas dating back to the first hoarse days of talking pictures are hemmed in by dilapidated shacks owned by absentee landlords. The canyon’s natural fire hazards have been intensified of late by shaggy young nomads who turn on in the blackened ruins of burned-out mansions where Theda Bara may once have dined. The daily life of the community swirls around a small shopping center, “The Square,” which boasts the old-fashioned Canyon Country Store and a pleasant cafe, the Galleria."--1970 article from Holiday magazine on what it's like to live in the Hollywood Hills.
October 22, 2014
The Believer Interview with a Luthier (who makes guitars for Arcade Fire, The National, Beck, Cat Power, Fred Armisen) -- by Adam Baer
A number of years ago, well before this subject was written about elsewhere, I learned about, met, and began interviewing, the Silverlake-area guitar luthier and music-shop owner Reuben Cox who uses found materials to make equisite instruments that harken back to a period of American guitarmaking that has slipped away. Reuben, a photographer with credits from The New Yorker and New York Times, had opened a place called Old Style Guitars on the eastern/southern edge of the neighborhood -- before it had become hip. Still, bands like The National would drop by and play secret shows in his driveway. And quickly, the place became a node, a scene, for some of the best elite rock musicians in the country: You could see Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire there, Chan Marshall, Devandra B., Bobby Womack, Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Alexi Murdoch, Andrew Bird, tons of studio players, even Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. It was something like a micro Laurel Canyon for our time, inside a little box with lots of wires and wood. But it's hard to place significant articles about such esoteric subjects in the focused, news-oriented consumer magazines. So, I waited, and then an option to do something creative came up with one of my favorite magazines, The Believer. Now, I have turned the piece, which at last ran in The Believer's 2014 Music Issue, into a multimedia digital thing, with videos of The National playing at the store, a fetishistic guitar slideshow, and even a video of Arcade Fire using one of Reuben's guitars in Helsinki. Check it out at this URL, where I hope that it will live for a long time. http://logger.believermag.com/post/100588053844/interview-with-a-luthier-i-e-someone-who-makes
My thanks for reading, watching, waiting, and listening.
July 01, 2014
The Day Paul Mazursky Changed My Life (RIP)
"What are you talking to me for?" asked Mel Brooks. "You need to talk to more Jews. Younger JEWS. Call Paul Mazursky."
Brooks was speaking to me for a Rolling Stone magazine piece about funny studio-executive notes. I'd heard of Mazursky's name, knew some of his movies, but had not connected that identity to the guy who had acted in recent episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the character "Larry David" would eventually kill via stress.
Mazursky had directed various important films about romantic relationships, had shared my New York background. I didn't know if the magazine would use his quotes, but I'd thought they'd appreciate me trying to get some good stories from someone who had been around some amazing sets.
I went to Mazurksy's Beverly Drive office, told him that Mel Brooks had sent me.
"What does he want?" Mazursky asked. "Oh, right. You're the kid."
"I'm the kid," I said. I was in my late twenties.
Next, Mazursky asked me about my background. He wanted to know everything. He'd said that he'd read something about me, something about cancer that his assistant had showed him. He told me very funny stories about the author Isaac Singer. Oh, and did I have cancer?
I said that it was hard to answer that question: Does anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer ever stop having it?
He laughed.
"My daughter," he said. "My daughter--"
Silence. Then tears.
Mazursky broke down in front of me. He bawled. His daughter also had a tumor, he'd said. She'd just been flown to a top hospital near us. He didn't know what to do. He was looking into "the guy who worked on Ted Kennedy at Duke."
Did I have suggestions, connections? What could they do?
The phone rang. Mazursky answered, gestured at me to stay.
"Yes, OK, that's the guy," he said on the phone. Then to me: It's Jeff Berg, you know him?"
Mazursky was speaking with one of Hollywood's most powerful talent agents who had been helping him make contact with a specific surgeon. He kept me in the office while he spoke with him. Then we talked some more.
I gave him the best contacts that I had, including one top neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai who had graced the cover of Time magazine.
He asked me to stay. "Let's talk," he said. "I'm sorry--"
"Don't worry," I said.
Then I sat in Paul Mazursky's office for an hour while he asked me more about my various medical problems related to surviving multiple cancers, the people I knew, the doctors, the therapies. He was suffering.
Eventually, he got a call from the hospital doctor that the agent had recommended. He answered the phone but asked the guy to hold before thanking me, saying that I should come see him again.
"I have so much to tell you about my career," he said.
I have this entire experience taped on one of my many old Olympus voice recorders that doesn't work with my Mac.
I shook Paul's hand, thanked him, reassured him that his daughter would be OK (as if I could know).
Then I went home and watched three Mazursky movies in the next couple of days.
I would not write about this experience until now, the day that I learned of Mazursky's death. His daughter had, in fact, died sometime after our meeting. But I am thankful that I got a chance to spend time with Paul, perhaps lend a hand in the moment, an ear, whatever.
I should have called him back to check on him and his family, but I kept putting it off. He had help, I told myself.
I don't put things like that off now.
May 03, 2014
October 05, 2013
A Los Angeles Autumn, Raymond Chandler-style
So many silly faux-facts in this LA Weekly listicle about Autumn in LA, so let it be said, this naturalized Angeleno born in New York longs not for "the seasons" or Autumn in New York" but rather for the winds Raymond Chandler mythologized in the following quote the Weekly is so smart to remember: "There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Ana's that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen..."
August 08, 2013
August 04, 2013
July 31, 2013
September 07, 2012
Beastie Boys' ‘Paul’s Boutique’ Remade by Cheeba, Moneyshot & Food
‘Paul’s Boutique’ remade [music link].
Description: "3 years in the making, 3 DJs working with over 150 tracks to recreate one of the seminal sampling albums of all time, at last Cheeba, Moneyshot and I can reveal ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’. Our tribute to the classic Beastie Boys album ‘Paul’s Boutique’ remixed and re-imagined from all the original samples plus a cappellas, period interviews and the Beasties’ own audio commentary from the reissued release. Add to this a custom illustration from Paul’s Boutique super-fan and all-round great guy Jim Mahfood, taking time out from recent art duties on Tank Girl, and you have an alternate version of the album. The mix was over half way finished when we heard the tragic news of Adam Yauch‘s passing this May so this is also our nod to his memory, RIP MCA."
April 22, 2012
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) on Her Funniest "Note" [Exclusive, R-rated]
A few years ago, Rolling Stone kindly published a piece of mine about the funniest "studio notes" actors, writers, directors, and comedians have received from Hollywood producers and network execs. It was intended to be an oral history about receiving chortle-worthy criticism, a way to use these "notes" to tell some of comedy's best secret stories, and I hope we accomplished that goal, to some degree. (Note: the headline was not my first choice, but I am a team player, and I had a lot of fun working on the piece and eventual pride seeing it in RS.)
It was a dream assignment: I interviewed a score of hilarious celebs, producers and directors--from Mel Brooks and Garry Shandling to younger talents like David Wain ("Wet Hot American Summer"), Paul Scheer ("The League"), and Nick Stoller ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "The Five Year Engagement").
Everyone cracked me up, and the piece generated serious interest from one of the world's biggest book publishers. So I took some of the quotes from my many funny interviews that Rolling Stone had not picked for inclusion (page-space is limited at magazines), and my agent and I went out with a book proposal about how this could be a hilarious narrative project, especially given my access to so many people in the entertainment industry. Eventually, and ironically, the senior publishing exec didn't think the book would make money (I still disagree), and the project, which could now be a brilliant multimedia thing with video, great for iPads, was tabled.*
Alas, one of the many funny things Rolling Stone could not include--sadly rendering my collection of interview subjects 100% male--was my unforgettable, if short, interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who stars tonight in HBO's new series "Veep." I share this gem with you now. Word, for word, and I have this on tape, this is what one of the funniest actresses in comedy told me, on the record. Addendum: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a lovely, generous woman, with guts of steel, and I don't doubt she will continue to be a hit with audiences everywhere -- and to reiterate, I would not have posted this if she had not given me the quote on the record.
FUNNIEST STUDIO NOTE: JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS
"I have only one story that comes to mind, and I leave out names because that's a better idea.
But when I was very young and had just started on “SNL”--I believe I was 20--I did a sketch in which I played John DeLorean's wife...
In that sketch, my hair was blown out straight -- because her hair is straight.
So, we did the show, and the following day, I was called into one of our producers' offices (as a side note, I should say that I have naturally curly hair), and he said to me, “Julia, I got a call from a bunch of NBC executives after last night’s show, and they said that after seeing your hair straight, they all wanna fuck you.”
This was apparently his way of trying to entice me into straightening my hair for the rest of season.
Needless to say: I was young and naïve, but I was so shocked that anyone would say anything like that, I just burst out laughing in a hysterical way. I didn't know what else to do.
Years later, when "Seinfeld" was becoming somewhat of a hit, I ran into the same producer at NBC again.
And he said to me, “Hey, Julia, I see they're letting you do your hair the way you want now."
That's apparently all he took away from my “Seinfeld” contribution.
The irony of it was that not only did I make my hair curly on "Seinfeld," which may have been a huge mistake now that I think about it, but I enhanced the curl and made it HUGE!
I wonder if that hair wasn't some kind of reaction.
I was saying: 'Not only is this hair going to be curly, it's going to be crazy curly. Take that, motherfucker!!'"
*Tabled in this case means I stopped pursuing it. I'm open to pursuing it again, though, especially with a new class of today's funniest people.
February 02, 2012
June 01, 2009
September 01, 2008
August 01, 2008
Oh, My Word: Omaha's "Whatevs" Disaster. News as it Breaks.
The news is slowly creeping out of Nebraska Methodist Hospital. But apparently three ordinarily healthy septuagenarian Omaha librarians are still in critical care after suffering simultaneous cardiac arrests this morning when they were struck by news so grammatically and linguistically abominable that they could not maintain homeostasis. Margaret Dubrovic, 71, head librarian at Omaha's central library system, was reportedly enjoying a routine morning when her latest copy of The New Yorker magazine arrived in the mail. Allegedly, Dubrovic looked forward with great verve to the arrival of her private subscription copy and had been rumored to read half of the entire periodical well before the end of morning on delivery days with friends and co-librarians Betsy O'Neill, 74, and Edith Cooper, 76, both of whom also suffered cardiac arrests. But this morning the group happened upon what junior librarian Thomas DeBouef, 23, could only call "literary blasphemy of the highest proportions." The insidious word "whatevs," a slang term for "whatever" used by the so-called Britney Generation and the blog whatevs.org, apparently found its way into music critic Sasha Frere-Jones's recent review of the latest Coldplay album. And while the estimable writer had likely used the term in the most tongue-in-cheek manner, it even appeared as a one-word sentence--capitalized, of course. "He didn't have to go that far," said DeBouef, whose grandfather Eli, 89, also works in the library as a volunteer and suffered minor whiplash from today's events. "There's no doubt in my mind that the act of literally seeing such a word, if you can call it that, printed in the magazine these ladies have held so dear to their literary hearts for so many years caused their simultaneous tragedies. It's a damn shame." Of course, one Generation X reporter cannot help but wonder, in the words of character Carrie Bradshaw from the HBO show "Sex and the City," what septuagenarian librarians were hoping for from a review of a Coldplay album in the first place. "They weren't as shocked as many of their friends were that The New Yorker had taken to reviewing popular music so substantively over the last few years," added Debouef. "They rather liked Coldplay, and as the article said, they often played the album 'Parachutes' during their afternoon tea sessions as a means to relax from the stress of their jobs." For now, however, the implicit danger posed by a simple unsubstantiated slang term such as "whatevs" is all an entire community can cling to for some explanation as to why their best librarians are on leave from the city's hottest reading room. More news as it breaks. In the meantime, get better, girls.
July 22, 2008
funniest press release of the week
These actually get sent to me. Say hello to this week's winner:
"Hi Adam,
I have a great story idea for you: Exotic Beauty Norms!
The standards of beauty vary tremendously from one culture to the next. So how does one know what exactly defines Exotic Beauty? Enticingly different eyes, fascinating faces, sexy, glamorous, mysterious?
Dr. [NAME REDACTED], who recently returned from Dubai, is an A-list surgeon who has traveled around the world and owns over 24 clinics in more than 15 countries. For him to succeed, it’s extremely imperative to understand the different beauty norms for each country that his patients strive to achieve. For example, what one girl in India deems “beautiful”, another in Shanghai may find repulsive.
As a specialist, Dr. [NAME REDACTED] answers to women with a variety of different requests on a daily basis. As such, he’s developed a keen eye for international beauty. We’d love to put you in touch with him to discuss these trends. For more information about Dr. [NAME REDACTED] or to set up an interview, please contact me directly at: [PHONE NUMBER REDACTED].
Best,
[PR REP NAME REDACTED]"
What I don't think this doctor has realized is that he's far behind the times. Ideas of beauty changing from country to country are so last month. These days it's from street to street. I call it "Micro Community Beauty Norms" (TM). For instance, you're no longer drop-dead-hot on Beverly Hills's Beverly Drive if you're drop-dead-hot on Rodeo, which is just one street over. So, too, for Sunset and Hollywood Blvds. And I hear that pretty soon beauty is going to vary from block to block within micro communities, eventually even perhaps landing in the Eye of the Beholder, an ultra-exotic place with so much Otherness that apparently Indiana Jones has only read about it. But don't worry, PR rep: That's at least a month away. It's hard to forecast these things.
July 16, 2008
May 23, 2008
an even trade: la farmers' markets for campo dei fiori?
How different are Italy's farmers' markets from California's? Having
morphed into an Angeleno over the last few years, it's a tough question
to answer, especially comparing swank Los Angeles and central Roma. In
Larchmont, land of Yuppified Hollywood, you can find, on a Sunday
morning, some of the freshest farmers' purple cauliflower, blood
oranges (well, no longer this week), meyer lemons, and fava beans. But
today, in Roma's Campo dei Fiori, all was alive and well even if I
could not find blood oranges there either. I admit that I moved to
California from New York after a decade-long love affair with Italy.
For me, it was an escape from Washington Heights to America's Italia. I
found even Hollywood (well, its hills and lemons) Italian. Still, while I didn't
today venture so far into the unvisited Roma as my T+L colleague Gary Shteyngart
did last year in Testaccio (Campo dei Fiori is, after all, one of Roma's most famous
markets, filled with tourists and lame ristorantes selling everything
from panini to "real, Italian" pizza and gelato as well as an amatriciana and carbonara
for the Carmella Sopranos of the world), it was nice to be in the
company of some fresh zucchini flowers, yelping fish salesmen, and
plant seeds that honestly declared their status as "semi-Italian." What
that means, I am not sure. But how many people in Los Angeles are from
Southern California? And just where did they get their blood orange
varietals? Allora...--AB
May 15, 2008
January 16, 2008
Stop Mattel from Scrabulous Facebook Raid!
[Cross-published on The Huffington Post]
Though I've somehow ended up as a professional writer, I never
enjoyed
Scrabble as a kid. I found it too wonky, or maybe I just had too small
an attention span—when I had free time from music or words, I preferred
to let my mind rest. Figuring out the exact place to drop a word
like "fanworts" so that I could "achieve a righteous bingo," as my
school's Scrabble fanatics liked to say, didn't seem like fun to me. I
preferred smashing tennis balls. Or figuring out my taste in film.
But then, a few months ago, I began writing an article about social networks, which led, of course, to joining Facebook. I don't blame anyone else for what ensued. But yes, like most of America, I became quickly obsessed with the devilish social network, rife with time-wasting "apps," especially because I had a lot of time on the road, in isolation. Far be it for me to read more than I had to read for work: I could figure out what German philosopher I think like—well, according to whatever college sophomore created the personality quiz of the day (these were and reamin hardly trustworthy exams of one's values, but that's what's kind of fun about them--OK, not fun, but pleasantly distracting).
But with Facebook came a more virtuous diversion: Scrabulous, an interactive way to play a "scrabble"-like word game--a take on the form--with your "friends" wherein you were also given a list of all the geeky two-letter words acceptable to the dictionary and a game board that wouldn't allow you to throw down an invalid word. As well as a way to look some words up should your vocab need a little jumpstart. In fact, you could even throw down a word you didn't know as long as it worked. Say, "amu": the name I gave myself as a toddler. Apparently, "amu" is a word, according to Scrabulous dictionaries, which are close but a little looser than Scrabble dictionaries. I use "amu" all the time now. And I still haven't bothered looking it up. I've also used the word "speedo" much to my editor-friend's chagrin. And I'm not cheating. This is the scrabble-like variation for me, I decided. I can play this. I can use it to reconnect with true, far-flung friends. And I can win at it! [S]crabble--the form, not the product--is finally fun for me.
But today I learned of an extremely sad if predictable piece of news. Reuters is reporting that Mattel, the corporation that has the rights to Scrabble, the product, outside the U.S. and Canada, has asked Facebook to remove its Scrabulous application. Hasbro, Inc., the company that holds the U.S. and Canadian rights wasn't mentioned in the story. But I'm sure they won't be far behind.
Surely,
the makers of Scrabulous, which can be played over the Internet or
through e-mail—i.e. you don't need to use Facebook to play it—were
aware of the inevitability of such a problem. But I don't see how it can't be
rectified much in the same way that a thousand companies make Tetris-like
clones. Does a company that owns the rights to Scrabble own the rights
to the idea of the word game?
According to Wikipedia—purveyor of all accurate information (ahem)—Scrabble is also known as: "Alfapet, Funworder, Skip-A-Cross, Spelofun and Palabras Cruzadas" throughout the world. In fact, when Alfred Mosher Butts invented the game in 1938, he created a challenge based on another: an older word-related game he had fashioned called "Lexico." It was then sold to a Connecticut lawyer, then to other game manufacturers. (Parker Brothers rejected the game!). And it's even been a daytime gameshow hosted by none other than Chuck Woolery.
My point? It's part of popular culture, a recipe that can be
reinterpreted like a pot pie. And now no one can own the idea of the
game.
Maybe certain companies own the rights to Scrabble's name and certain
words for techniques used in that official game product. But at this
point in time, this
word game we're discussing should be considered a public-domain
challenge. Much in the way a crossword puzzle isn't owned by anyone.
[S]crabble is a form—it has become a form. It isn't just something you
can buy. And you
can't claim ownership to a form. Well, you could try, but that just
wouldn't be cool. Intellectual property here is a rather vague matter,
and I'm glad in this instance.
Expectedly, upon hearing this news, many of my friends contacted me,
including one prominent computer software executive: What are you going
to do now? she asked. She knew of my obsession. My answer? Create a
Facebook group promoting a new way to play and to fight Mattel. Scrabulous has certainly
brought me a lot of time-killing joy over the last few months. But it's
also given me a whole new and improved way to procrastinate, which is
part and parcel of the writer's trade. In the past, when I was trying
to avoid work, I'd watch a film, play a sport, or sit by my pool
listening to music. I might even sit and do nothing. And that's not the
same as meditate. I'd rarely engage my mind in anything productive. But
Scrabulous has given
me a way to procrastinate that makes me a better thinker and writer. I
can now drop
"fanwort," "luteolin," or any of my recent lucky bingos into
conversation and yes, my current writing assignments. I also think it's
sharpening my logic at a time when the Internet and even some of my
work is dismantling it.
Sure, I'm the most unlikely Scrabble devotee you're ever going to
meet. But that's exactly why the scrabble-challenge-loving community
should heed my
call. It's the form we love, and the online version of this game only
builds love for that. In fact, I now want to play the official board
game
with friends when I have free time. I'm more likely to purchase a
fancy, branded Scrabble set. But if Scrabulous leaves Facebook—leaving
me to answer one more ridiculous personality quiz (let's be honest:
these aren't making me happier or smarter) or to send one more
virtually hatching egg gift to a person I see every day--I may not want
to
continue this new love affair with word games. It's that tenuous, this
love affair. It's hanging by a virtual string.
Left to my own devices by the demise of Facebook Scrabulous, I may just retreat to the procrastination of yesteryear and rarely desire to do anything that a lazy writer didn't used to do when he was trying to avoid the next assignment. I may turn to some far-less self-improving activity. I may look for answers in the (pomegranate juice) bottle. In public conversations. Or in a Wii! So let's band together and fight. If we don't, it will be a longstanding shame. For my readers, Scrabble, and for thousands of other virtually social, procrastinating writers me.
January 02, 2008
oh, please offer us some...intelligent variety
I had a funny discussion the other day with another New Yorker living in LA. He said he felt like an "expat" here: a "big fish living in a small pond," in his telling--at least when it comes to meeting people who think beyond headlines. I didn't exactly agree or make the statement, but it wasn't the first time I heard it. Luckily, I've met tons of brilliant people in my new fair city. But I've sought a lot of them out. You don't always converse with new ones in line at El Pollo Loco. But my tales of serendipitous philosophical chicken-joint communion will have to wait.
Funnily, another friend just pointed out that Variety, Hollywood's glory trade mag (Ari Gold once called it the "school paper" on Entourage), linked to my Sweeney Todd piece earlier in December. The blog's quote? "Adam Baer claims that 'Tim Burton "re-invents the movie musical" with 'Sweeney Todd.' Really?'"
I had to laugh when I saw that. Did the blogger even realize that the actual subhead of the article--written by someone other than me--made it very clear that "re-inventing the movie musical" is what the filmmakers claim, and that I simply reported what they had to say? Probably not, because short-order blogs and especially movie-trade blogs meant for D-people aren't exactly the most accurate places to get your news.
Read the story that I wrote carefully. There's hardly any criticism in the piece, save for a very careful statement that reads: " [Sweeney's] as entertaining, artistic and efficient as anyone could make a 'Sweeney Todd' film that might appeal to a broad swath of moviegoers." While I believe the movie is entertaining and a great shot at creating a Hollywood movie version of Sweeney, save for a lot of the singing, I don't go beyond that point. I'm not hired to be a critic here. And I'm actually pleased with that fact. So argue away with each other. I'm not jumping into the fray as a film or music critic on this one.
And that's the way it was supposed to be. I was paid to tell other peoples' stories in this case. Additionally, I write that: "The key, therefore, was not to produce a performance film like Ingmar Bergman's "The Magic Flute" but to create an original movie genre: a consciously present-day spoke-sung music-film with younger actors, no traditional singers and a cinema-grotesquerie style, full of viscous slashes of blood." But this isn't my opinion. It's implied that the "key" belongs to the filmmakers. This is the opinion of those interviewed--see forthcoming Steven Sondheim quote. It's factual reportage.
In Sondheim's words: "You can't just adapt stage musicals for the screen. You have to re-create them."
If I had been hired to critique the film, I might have printed all kinds of comments that discuss this recreation of genre and what Sweeney means to music and film. But I wasn't. And I'm not going to do it here and undermine my story. I stand by it. And if its sub-headline should read that the filmmakers' claim they've created a new genre--and if I should go on to give you those opinions--well, that doesn't mean I'm making the critical statement.
Frankly, after a childhood of conservatory composition, mainstream movie-loving, and a decade of criticism, I don't think Sweeney re-invents the movie musical; I think it adds new elements to it as filmic entertainment. As I wrote: " Sweeney's new Burtonesque world is a visceral, inflated experience only film can provide."
But please, Variety blog, read between the lines before misquoting
reporters on critical statements they, personally, haven't made. This
sort of reaction to a story about Sweeney Todd is exactly what worried
me when I learned such a meaningful and complex piece of music-theater
was going to be fed to the multiplex crowd--and those who
blog for those who feed them. Perhaps I should have asked the producers if they were worried about how the insider movie press would handle the movie and the primary press it might inspire--as opposed to how audiences across America would handle it. Happily, I left a midwestern theater the other day after seeing the movie in its completed version to find goth teenagers singing "Nothing's Gonna Harm You..." Sondheim doesn't need anyone's help connecting to any brand of audience.
December 16, 2007
A New Definition of Eco-Conscious
There was a time when Umberto Eco meant the world to me. I was a young college student, flooded with the "brilliance" of the postmodernists, and eager to lap it up. But I always found it sort of funny, all this meta-thinking about meta-thinking, all these linguistic symbolisms and academizing of pop culture. I even remember a friend and I mocking the titles of our new university classes: "Towards realizing deconstructionist comprehensions of the French fry's representation in popular culture as a symbol of both deliciousness and death." '"The Popular Semiotics of "Is": "To be" in our political theater." You get the idea.
At any rate, Umberto Eco was often our voice of reason. He took the postmodern movement somewhere sensible. He made us laugh, he laughed at himself, told great tales, and he qualified what soon became a rampant nonsense-parade.
So I wanted to like his new book: "Turning Back the Clock: Hot wars and Media Populism." That's why I reviewed it in today's S.F. Chronicle Book Review. But things didn't go exactly as planned.
Have a read: "Eco takes critical look at war, Mel Gibson in 'Turning Back'," San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2007
November 16, 2007
why journos don't just lack residuals but organized support of any important kind
Albert Kim has a nice blog post at HuffPo about how newspaper and magazine writers don't even get the benefit of residuals or the chance to strike like our Hollywood colleagues. One of his reasons are that journalists are notoriously hard to organize. I can't believe that when they make so little in comparison to what TV writers make, and when they're so undervalued. It's not that we're hard to unionize. It's that we don't have a powerful union to join. As Kim states, we currently have to sign over all of our rights to stories now, and many versions of our stories run in different publications owned by the parent companies. And yes, you can try to opt out of such an agreement, but it would never work unless you were Christopher Hitchens. And this is the portion of the story that Kim doesn't get. The reason is that magazines and newspapers don't value the work of their writers enough to care. Writers are a dime a dozen, even at the upper echelon. Especially freelancers. Especially now that magazines care more and more about visuals and chopped up tiny nuggets of text (thanks, Maxim). Anyway, supply outweighs demand, and since our articles don't make the magazines as much money as TV shows make a network (not even close), they don't have to pay us much to begin with--plus, the magazines seem to believe (funnily) that they can rewrite better anything we submit. So we're just sort of there out of respect--that's our gift from the media universe: we're preserved like endangered species, looked upon almost as artists who should be lucky we have Medici-like benefactors. Should we get residuals, especially if our articles are reprinted? Absolutely. But how about acknowledging the fact that we don't have one strong union representing our group who could make that happen. The National Writers Union, of which I am a member, does not seem organized or powerful enough to sway freelance journalists over to the member desks--perhaps because they let anyone who's written anything join. And the WGA doesn't let us in. Which is nonsense, considering we provide much of the content that leads to their content (remember "In Cold Blood" or how about "The Fast and the Furious"). Plus, so much of our content is devoted to promoting or "covering" their content for a national audience. We make Guild writers the big money they still aren't happy with. Plus, we write lots of literary non-fiction that's a lot more artistic than Guild-written dramedies. And don't tell me screenwriters don't read something in the newspaper and turn it into a script without paying the author of the article. I've been told on more than one occasion not to write certain stories that intrigue me in national outlets for fear of idea-poaching by a Hollywood scribe or producer. Nevermind the idea-poaching that has happened to me at our finest magazines. Sure, we need to rise up and change the business model, and refuse all magazines content until they stop as Jonathan Tasini has said this "plantation" business model wherein we just beg for the right to be screwed by the big media companies. Wherein if we don't beg to be screwed (I mean, assigned!), we don't eat. But that won't happen without the WGA letting us in. Instead we stand in Hollywood cafes as cheeky Guild writers--who we support!--kid around about their latest YouTube videos and the fact that soon enough this will all be over and they'll start collecting their already etched-in-stone residual checks--if only for reruns and such. What the Guild needs to do is to recognize that there's worth in unionizing the people who create printed and digital text media beyond just buying the rights to hit novels they want to adapt. If they included freelance writers, their dues profits would rise, and we would have access to some great health insurance and solidarity. At the same time, we'd have some protection against the big media companies for whom we have to lay down every time we're offered a story. Perhaps magazines wouldn't steal our pitches anymore. Perhaps we'd be able to establish some fair working rules--such as getting paid for extensive rewrites. But the Guild, as far as I can tell from my stance in LA, is simply not that kind of union. It cares more about supporting its $1 million and even $200,000 a year TV writers than its $50,000 a year TV writer (who thanks his lucky stars he hasn't yet been kicked out due to a lack of work). So why should it want to open its doors to the latter's group of bastard cousins--freelance print and online media writers who kill themselves to crack six figures? Being able to write a long series of complex, textual paragraphs that tell a story linearly--a talent that eludes too many screenwriters without the help of their directors--is far too esoteric a gift to entice Guild higher-ups to want us. Instead, we'll just keep working for hire and providing you with the ideas you need to create the next lame sitcom or digital download. You know, the one for which you'll probably start collectings residuals in two months when you look back on the strike as a hoot and go back to your $200,000 job while your boss still feels discontented with his eight figures. After all, how *is* he going to buy a yacht to compete with Paul Allen? [via HuffPo]
p.s. The Shallot supports the writers. Especially the WGA writers who haven't been on a series in a while. But this point needs to be made, alas.
p.p.s. This isn't an anti-editor post. Most editors I know just follow the rules and end up quitting their jobs eventually to freelance. So get on the train even if you're afraid of upsetting the balance. The climate of fear should stop. We're needed.
November 15, 2007
would you like a little jew in you?
I think it was John Stewart (did you know his real last name: Leibowitz?) speaking to a supermodel years ago on MTV when I first heard the joke. The model discussed her ethnic background: she had "a little Native American in her," some Indian, some Scottish, some Brazilian. Stewart then asked her if she had a little Jew in her. The model said no. Stewart countered: Would you like to?
It was a funny moment, and it was a joke that Stewart could make, being Jewish, or at least of Jewish heritage. I, too, am Jewish in that it's my cultural makeup. I'm agnostic but still identify as a Jew because it's a culture even if it's not one specific race. (Plus, I'm wholly Ashkenazi, and we have our own genetic diseases, which I consider a rule for determining whether or not you belong to a race or ethnicity. If you're at risk for something that can kill you because of inbreeding that led to you having one cultural makeup, well, welcome to the "having a race" club. Or something.)
But I digress. Recently, while writing a story about direct e-mail publicity and marketing, I took notice of an e-mail I frequently receive from a PR firm representing Nextbook.org, a great magazine concerning Jewish culture. I respect this publication but don't know how they found my address. Perhaps it's because I'm a writer or blogger, and they just have a good PR team that looks for coverage under many stones (including blogs where the writer might post schmaltz recipes). That's probably the case. But I also have Jewish friends who receive notices from synagogues when they move to new cities. How do congregations know when new Jews move to town? Odd.
As for Jew-on-Jew humor, I'm usually in favor of it, especially from purveyors who share a somewhat common sense of gravitas: Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, even Sacha Baron Cohen (who definitely isn't anti-Semitic by acting as an anti-Semite and showing scenes of people in America offering glimpses of their fucked-up social views). I have never felt that these jokes about Jewish life are anti-Semitic, though some of the more conservative Jews definitely get cranky about them. In fact, I make fun of what being Jewish in 2007 can be like, too--for instance, needing to eat salted cured meat on a regular basis because my body chemistry requires it to produce a specific kind of irony-fuel. Or the fact that I'm glad I didn't marry another Ashkenazi, so my children might actually have good musculature. You get my point.
One team of writers and directors who cross the line in my opinion, however, have a new biopic-spoof movie coming out soon about a Johnny Cash-like character. I'm not allowed to discuss the film before its release, so say the PR people. But I have to say something without mentioning it, and I'm sure you'll put the pieces together.
October 10, 2007
ladybug and the lion
So a new colleague has entered the blogosphere, and it's my duty to tell you about her intriguing virtual effort. Lara Loewenstein's The Ladybug and the Lion has just gotten off the ground, and in her first few posts, the endlessly curious writer--with current assignments charting neurological mysteries as well as plant cycles from the Jurassic era, to say nothing of social mores--explains her unlikely role as UCLA's former college sex columnist and how Playboy magazine assigned her an article and then "creatively" edited her quotes into a college-sex-columnist roundtable. She links to the article as a PDF. But my favorite Loewenstein comment (was it hers or an editor's? ask her!) will run here as an appetizer: "Slut is still an insult. But then so is virgin. Sex can be empowering, but it can also be demeaning. It's all about context." Sounds like the mag world, no?
August 26, 2007
quote of the week
"The things you think are a big deal are not so big. I’ve won the Nobel Prize. And so?”"--"Blindness" author Jose Saramago, speaking in the New York Times Magazine.
If only the scribe were the next guest judge on Top Chef. Talk about injecting a little necessary existential inquiry into the ultimate postmodern competition. And yet, sadly, I also learned from this interview that: "Five years ago, [Saramago] managed to create a worldwide scandal when, on a tour of the West Bank, he compared the situation in the Palestinian territories with 'Auschwitz.'"
And you thought only Stockhausen was among the international genius-artists with strikingly immature political vision. Maybe, then, for all of his allegorical brilliance, Saramago knows a lot more about blindness than even his sought-after book makes clear. Gael Garcia Bernal, you genius development exec, you were definitely onto something, even if after your unsuccessful attempts at purchasing the rights to the book, you'll just be acting in the adaptation.
Why Glass Shallot?
Because commas can serve as periods (just ask Jose).
March 30, 2007
upright citizen regresses further
After having seen numerous shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade theaters in both NY and LA, I have to say, it's pretty sad knowing that Amy Poehler, one of the founders, is so far along in her career, and that the other three guys, who can be funny, aren't. One of the things that strikes you when you first see a UCB long-form improv show--especially a free one--is how many very young college kids come out for it. And how well, these aging middle agers--the three guys who founded the troupe with Amy--play to them (Amy is always somewhere else, though I have caught her a number of times, and she's delivered the goods, ratcheting up a performance as long as coked up Seth Myers isn't a guest, or worse, the unfunny Horacio Sanz). Now, from Joystiq, however, is a video from the chief UCB man-child Matt Besser, doing shtick on gamers. I'm not offended. I'm not a gamer. But Besser, man, come on: You don't have to keep skewing young to get a laugh. As the sharpest tool in the UCB box, it should be evident that hitting the right comedic note by now is no longer just indulging the USC freshmen. Hell, look at Conan. He's found a way to stay college-funny but age, brilliantly. For now, that is.
[via Joystiq]
March 01, 2007
January 24, 2007
wincing the voice away
Wow, it's sad that Robert Christgau received the fate he did at the Village Voice (via Alex Ross). But look what's happening at Rolling Stone since that crazy day: This is the most in-depth review of the Shins I've ever seen (hell, it even mentions indie-prog's obsession with imitating basic Bach and Debussy!). And it's dead-on. So what if the trippy rain droplets and multi-tracked guitar pitch bends of "Red Rabbits" from the band's new "Wincing the Night Away" render me hopelessly winsome in a way the epic B-Minor Mass never could. Oh, inverted taste...
January 07, 2007
lessons learned
December 30, 2006
new york times glosses up crazy david lynch
If enlightenment and, well, Bliss, overtook you as you read this weekend's New York Times story on David Lynch and his "shockingly peaceful" life as a proponent of Transcendental Meditation, I'm sorry to say that the puff piece completely missed the mark on this extraordinarily creepy marriage. Instead, it chose to gloss over the Absolutely Cultyclimate of Mr. Lynch's attempt to snatch the brains of young people--especially those with means--who just perpetually want to learn a little about their favorite movies. Want a trustworthy first-person account of Inland Empire's finest and the cool buddies he's mind-melded with over at the Maharishi's? If world peace is the only thing driving David Lynch, Tom Cruise is, in fact, my long lost alien Messiah.
You read it here first: Lynch Mob.
October 23, 2006
little by little
I don't know how (alcohol? smack? that drinking chocolate they sell at Whole Foods?) Glassshallot compatriot Sacha Zimmerman managed to get both Bill Clinton and George Bush V1.0 to write forwards to her new Reader's Digest book, "For America: Simple Things You Can Do To Make The Country Better," but onion-skins off to her. Sacha's written "a call to action,volunteerism, and passion in a country where citizens are the life blood of a prosperous nation--not politicians and not celebrities." I might disagree with her on one point. Sacha: Don't tell me Beyonce isn't the vital, nutrient-rich plasma of that sexy hematologic soup called Hot U.S.A. Red.
February 10, 2006
fowl cover
This article about Vanity Fair's new naked cover is right. A clothed male juxtaposed against naked women does suggest dominance, and that's a sad, certainly new twist on things, no? My one beef with the piece, however, is that I'm not sure Scarlett Johanssen looks "baby chubby" in the VF picture. I think she looks more like a boiled chicken. The question now is: What does a clothed man juxtaposed against one naked young woman and one boiled chicken symbolize? I think the answer, at least to some of my descendants raised in the fowleriffic Yiddish quarter of Lodz, Poland, is a romantic -- and sa-sa-savory -- Friday night dinner. Le Chaim.
January 23, 2006
getting sirius (or xm)
Not that long ago, satellite radio seemed like a solution in search of a problem: why get it for free when you can pay? But, with names like Stern, Snoop, and Dylan now available only via satellite -- not to mention the slow death of quality broadcast radio, thanks to behemoths like Clear Channel—$13 a month is pretty damn reasonable. If you're interested in trying to make a decision about which network is right for you -- or if you're curious about how set up your new satellite radio life -- I've got a casual guide up at the GQ/Details site, Men.style.com. Check out the FAQ (sadly, it contains references to bodily functions I didn't write), and then take a look at the radios you may want to invest in. My one tip is to forget the entire enterprise if you're interested in finding quality classical music that rivals what terrestrial has to offer. Both networks are sadly behind the curve (unless, of course, you can't get NPR where you live) mostly because they're invested in trying to make money and gain more subscribers from different pools of people. Sad but true.
January 13, 2006
January 10, 2006
critical condition
So I made the mistake of landing on the Critics' Choice Awards last night, after more than a week of non-blogging (and hence not giving much attention to the side of my brain that critiques stuff). Yet after landing on the frighteningly intimate show--like the Globes, it had some of the biggest stars sitting close together at cocktail tables--I couldn't quite change the channel. It was sort of fascinating to watch the stars take everything so nonchalantly. To be sure, it's exciting to be given an award from the people who critique your work all year. But let we forget, Anthony Lane, J. Hoberman, and Andrew Sarris aren't exactly the reviewers doling out the prizes. The Critics' Choice Awards, as one might have surmised by morning show lightweight Joel Siegel enjoying the honor of presenting the Best Picture award, is governed by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Which means, essentially, that Joel Siegel was likely the most adept critical mind on the panel, as anyone who has ever watched a review of a movie on their local TV news will agree. It was pretty funny to watch, in fact: One could sense Mr. Siegel's awareness that everyone really knows he's a mental lightweight--with Spielberg, Clooney, Ang Lee, Paul Haggis, and Jim Mangold in the room, it was finally the star's chance to feel intellectually superior. And as each accepted his or her award, it was as if he or she was acting excited--if not terribly casual. Clooney's speech--he received some sort of Freedom Award for the important work he's contributed over the last year--was strikingly articulate, humble, and off-the-cuff (and he's the son of a newsman). Of course, as Mssr. Siegel reminded his audience, five of the past six winners of the Critics' Choice award for best picture have won the Best Picture Oscar. (Does that mean the Academy watches their local news reports too much?) Still, it was hard to escape sensations that the stars knew the broadcast critics only matter insofar as they promote ticket sales. "I love critics!" exclaimed Reese Witherspoon, who then went on to qualify her statement saying that that's at least how she felt this year--well, one half of this year. I just wish the camerapeople would have cut-away from the stage more. It would have been interesting to see Clooney and Spielberg chatting about an NYT Op-Ed one of them was reading on his smartphone. Next year, how about the real critics get together to dole out awards? Then we might get to see how Hollywood creatives feel about the critical voices that matter.
December 20, 2005
so jewtastic
So, surprise, Bar Mitzvah Disco fans: Jews are "hip," as well as "creative, neurotic and brainy." And oh yeah, they play heavy metal, and Rrrap. Or so the latest VH1 list show would have it. Remember that one week, many years ago, when "I Love the '80s" was actually comedic? Remember when it was so, so shameful to be a Jew that everyone thought all the studio heads and top writers were "goyim"? Get the lowdown on VH1's most tired attempt at pop cultural classification yet from THR's Andrew Wallenstein. And Happy Hanukkah.
December 17, 2005
November 04, 2005
Lynch Mob
David
Lynch has frightened the living hell out of me again. This time, though, his
tool isn’t a crazed movie monster-man living behind a Hollywood dumpster. No, David Lynch is
terrifying in real life. Possibly simple and a lot less interesting than any of
us ever thought, or possibly maniacal and as up to no good as those on the good
ship Sea Org. Or so his
appearance at USC last night made clear.
David Lynch has started his own foundation dedicated to raising $7 billion so he can make transcendental meditation (TM) available for students, and help build in Washington, D.C. a university for world peace. Sounds pretty evil, right? Well, that’s the point. On the surface it sounds completely beautiful, if the work of a wackadoo -- something only a right-wing conservative would have the guts to criticize (God forbid there exist some sensible, conformity hating democrats who feel raped by any organization that tries to control their minds).
Surprise: There is nothing wrong with meditation, yoga, expanding
one’s consciousness, and promoting peace. There is nothing wrong with
emphasizing our global connections to each other (except for the fact that all that lack of hate will result in movies that bore us to death). And Lynch is clearly as right as ever, as he said to a hall full of cultish filmschool
followers: George Bush could stand to do a little meditation. For all of the
institutions we have erected to explicitly produce soldiers, we should devote some to creating peacemakers. Um, ok.
But David
Lynch, and his colleagues, including this man and this man (and please visit the Web site for their
Maharishi University of Management to listen to their unusually creepy podcasts), aren’t exactly
going about their agenda the way qualitative yogis or emotionally mature and centered
cultural leaders with smart political ideas should. No, the team--which is
traveling around the country’s richest universities and hoodwinking students
with bad neurological science to promote the TM practiced by the same Maharishi who
both taught and swindled the Beatles (according
to the Beatles!)--is using Lynch's already cultish following to
build what seems like plans for a cult. A band of calm young meditators with money who will do
(and fund) anything he wants. Like, for instance, sending Mssr. Hagelin
(linked to above) to the White House as a devoted instrument of the Maharishi. I know that would never happen (and that it would still probably be an improvement), but still.
Lest we forget, the event was also obviously being filmed and photographed by people who could have been Lynch’s staff, smiling stage-bound onlookers who looked like they had focused on numerous audience members for large amounts of time as the man spoke (images of Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute, in which audience shots cut from one to another, were impossible to ignore).
Was this all a stunt? Part of a forthcoming film? A giant performance
art project Lynch will continue to perform until the purple box known as his life is closed for good?
More disappointing, Lynch wouldn’t really answer any questions about his films or filmmaking except for offering superficial comments--he did admit to being excited about creating a virtual-world video game, and he did flaunt bliss about new giant flatscreens with perfect resolution. But whenever someone asked a scientific question, he either deferred to his doctor friends or spoke in Vedic code. When asked what the monster-man behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive symbolizes, he said very little. He explained how opening up his consciousness brings him ideas, which baits other ideas and strings them together. His belief about why film matters? It allows us to tell stories. His answer for why he includes so much disturbing matter in his films despite being a peace-loving TM devotee? If there's struggle, let it be in your films, not your life.
Is Lynch just an
ex-hippie who’s tired, as he said (and I paraphrase), of $7 billion going to the production of
three-and-a-half B1 bombers that can’t even protect us on a day like 9/11?
Is he just a yoga-toting Hollywood creative who got hooked on TM, and let the Maharishi's men
convince him it is his duty to change the world? Is he a live-action Abstract Illusionist who's laughing at us right now (doubtful)? Is he Ringo Starr?
Watch the show he’s
touring with from an appearance at Emerson College and decide for yourself. All I know
is that no one in last night’s audience (including me) had the guts to get up and
ask this man anything sensible, and the whole thing felt so violating I
couldn’t sleep last night. If Lynch is really just trying to spread relaxation
and peace among students who he worries are bound for lives devoid of
creativity and rife with tension and war-making and right-wing politics, then
fine. But why the cultish presentation? Why the secrets? Why the pseudoscience
to prove something everyone already knows about the benefits of meditating? Why
the pyramid-scheme-style manipulation? Why the desire for the princely sum of $7 billion if not for a plan to try to amass national power and build a society of followers?
And why ask for it from impressionable young people who attend ritzy colleges? What in God’s
name is going on here?! And why hasn't Katie Couric [editors note in December 06: This was written awhile ago], the Serious Journalist Du Jour interested in getting some Real Hard Facts about the country's kookiest religions, lined up an interview with Mr. Elephant Man? David Lynch Bliss Resources created after this initial post: Beliefnet interview: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/184/story_18457_1.html SF Chron: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/06/LVG9MFIG9L1.DTL&hw=David+Lynch&sn=001&sc=1000
September 30, 2005
new jack city
Admit it: You just read Wired for the articles. Right. Uh huh. Well, then, you of all people, Shalloteer, should know deeply this post's sheer lack of necessity. Of what do I speak? Oh, you mean you don't know? Well, in this month's cover story, Variety editor/author Jonathan Bing doesn't just give Peter Jackson and his "King Kong" remake effort the full Wired treatment, replete with active verbs and long-form insight. He applies some of the "philosophy of marketing" magic that he dishes weekly in his column, Hard Sell. The gist? That Jackson's finally got enough power to teach virtual PR seminars to the Hollywood flacks collecting good corporate benefits packages on the assumption that if they simply smile, kiss journalist's asses, and hock one-sheets out of the back of their Beemers, they're doing their jobs. No way, say the online "making of Kong" diaries Jackson posts regularly from Weta, his personal New Zealand movie city. Good PR can actually come from substance, authenticity, enthusiasm, and a little insight about online community-building. Especially when you're dealing with a director like Jackson, whose dutiful fans just need a few regular content feedings to keep them alive and well enough for Kong to hit it big on opening weekend.
September 20, 2005
real genius
There's just so much genuis here, the *glassShallot staff often has to nap every 30 or 40 minutes just to remain fresh enough to take it all in. Don't believe us? Be gone! For the reverent, however, we couldn't help but notice how many bonafide GENiuses we were able to cover this year. Geniuses, at least in the estimation of those who dole out the $500,000 MacArthur grants. In no particular order, this year's *glassShallot/MacArthur geniuses are:
1. Marin Alsop (see Brahms CD, second from top, reviewed in LA Times)
2. Jonathan Lethem (who got a great *gS review in the SF Chronicle)
3. Aaron Dworkin (ok, we never wrote about this influential music educator, but he seems to be a genius to us!)
4. Ted Ames (an uncommonly virtuous assistant in the Great Gefilte Fish-off)
5. Joseph Curtin (a luthier who makes violins far too great and expensive for the virtual factory workers bringing you this enlightening Web content to ever slack off, lest they never upgrade their instruments to wooden boxes of the sweetness-caliber that Mr. Curtin produces).
6. Claire Gmachl (the subject of a forthcoming lead profile article to run in Stuff Magazine's new babe-a-liscious quarterly scientist-shopping insert, "Laser!")
Other geniuses [MacArthur]
