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Sep. 7th, 2003 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbAll I want to mention from the Style section is the full-page ad for New York Stories, and I want to mention it only to spread my alarm at the phrase "DKNY PICTURES PRESENTS".
In the Business section there's a bizarrely Pollyannaish article that says things aren't as bad as the unemployment rate suggests because actually a lot of people are employed illegally (or "off the books", as the article uniformly puts it).
Leading the Week in Review, how America has changed in the last two years. Instead of quoting the article I'll just quote Emily Biuso's summary in Slate:
Changes in American Muslim identity since September 11.
Passing for white in the 1940s. Promising things are said about the upcoming film of The Human Stain.
The Reading File points out David Hajdu's argument in Mother Jones "that the blues has become a feel-good soundtrack for white America." Best line quoted, from Chris Thomas King: "If you really knew what the blues were, you would not be trying to preserve that. The essence of the blues is, people didn't sing in the cotton field because they were happy." I loved Hajdu's biography of Billy Strayhorn; it's too bad his article isn't available online.
The Pentagon has been talking about The Battle of Algiers, a film beloved by radicals in the 1960's for its pro-guerrilla, anti-occupation sympathies.
You don't need to read the rest of the article that contains this paragraph: "It scans a product's bar code and sounds a click if the manufacturer is the subject of ethical complaints. Mr. Patten calls it the Corporate Fallout Detector."
Similarities between GE's NBC-Vivendi merger and its media-empire-building of the 1920s. Interesting, although you have to wonder, in what sense is the GE of 2003 the same entity as the GE of 1928?
Japan loves aging rock bands. In addition to Cheap Trick, the article disses the Ventures (!) and Chuck Berry, who looks exactly like a cardboard cutout of Chuck Berry in the accompanying photograph.
A defense of negative book reviews.
The Arts & Leisure section, in which none of the above arts and leisure articles appear, is the quarterly "The New Season" edition, which I always find overwhelming; this week especially, I will probably not finish it, let alone summarize it. Maybe TMFTML will, though.
In the Business section there's a bizarrely Pollyannaish article that says things aren't as bad as the unemployment rate suggests because actually a lot of people are employed illegally (or "off the books", as the article uniformly puts it).
Leading the Week in Review, how America has changed in the last two years. Instead of quoting the article I'll just quote Emily Biuso's summary in Slate:
scholars and talking heads offer engrossing tidbits on the ways in which their lives have changed. (Steven Brill doesn't let his son ride the subway during alerts! Michael Maltzen won't go to Disneyland!) True, changes in the American psyche are profound two years later, but the story reads like a man-on-the-street query of the New York Review of Books subscriber list.
Changes in American Muslim identity since September 11.
Passing for white in the 1940s. Promising things are said about the upcoming film of The Human Stain.
The Reading File points out David Hajdu's argument in Mother Jones "that the blues has become a feel-good soundtrack for white America." Best line quoted, from Chris Thomas King: "If you really knew what the blues were, you would not be trying to preserve that. The essence of the blues is, people didn't sing in the cotton field because they were happy." I loved Hajdu's biography of Billy Strayhorn; it's too bad his article isn't available online.
The Pentagon has been talking about The Battle of Algiers, a film beloved by radicals in the 1960's for its pro-guerrilla, anti-occupation sympathies.
As the flier inviting guests to the Pentagon screening declared: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film."
You don't need to read the rest of the article that contains this paragraph: "It scans a product's bar code and sounds a click if the manufacturer is the subject of ethical complaints. Mr. Patten calls it the Corporate Fallout Detector."
Similarities between GE's NBC-Vivendi merger and its media-empire-building of the 1920s. Interesting, although you have to wonder, in what sense is the GE of 2003 the same entity as the GE of 1928?
Japan loves aging rock bands. In addition to Cheap Trick, the article disses the Ventures (!) and Chuck Berry, who looks exactly like a cardboard cutout of Chuck Berry in the accompanying photograph.
A defense of negative book reviews.
The Arts & Leisure section, in which none of the above arts and leisure articles appear, is the quarterly "The New Season" edition, which I always find overwhelming; this week especially, I will probably not finish it, let alone summarize it. Maybe TMFTML will, though.
