I forgot how much I love the dry, talcum powder balm that is Suzanne Vega’s voice – Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and the other junior divas could learn a thing or three about the value of underplayed expression from Vega, who conveys more meaning and feeling in an inhalation than …
Read More »Eric Olsen
O’Reilly and Franken Come Out Swinging
CSPAN2’s Book TV sees itself as sober nonfiction book talk each weekend from 8am Saturday to 8am Monday – it is rare that participants nearly come to blows. But this little tiff proves the left-right gulf hasn’t closed any since the war ended: Unlike Ernest Hemingway’s encounter with poet Wallace …
Read More »Rudolph Caught
Sympathy for this murderous asshole is seriously misplaced. I am pleased law enforcement stuck it out for five years. We were there in Atlanta in ’96 – though not at the park at the time of the bombing – and it changed the entire mood of the Games. It took …
Read More »A Day That Will Live in Infamy
Today the FCC sucks Big Media ass through razor wire: An ideologically fractured Federal Communications Commission plans to vote along party lines today to relax or eliminate some key media ownership rules, allowing a newspaper to own a television station in the same city and broadcast networks to buy more …
Read More »Frankel’s Subversive “Waste”
Nullsoft leader Justin Frankel, now owned by AOL, released a new program last week, “Waste,” that makes it easy for groups of about 50 people to set up secure and private file-sharing networks – it also includes an instant messaging feature. AOL was not amused: Mr. Frankel, 24, went to …
Read More »Why Is MJ So Damned Weird?
For a while I thought he was possessed by the malevolent spirit of Klaus Nomi, but now I know it’s just dad, dollars and adoration my commentary on MSNBC: you can’t help asking yourself, what caused this whole, highly eccentric mess? The public was more than willing to forgive Jackson’s …
Read More »AOL-Microsoft Settlement Fallout
Steve Lohr has interesting analysis in the NY Times: The future involves using the Internet to deliver commercial program content, mainly movies and music, to consumers who are equipped with a growing array of digital devices to receive it, from personal computers to digital televisions to smart cellphones. And the …
Read More »Ye Olde Pharts Top Concert Draws
’60s and ’70s acts dominating the top-grossing list: Last summer, five of the top 10 grossing tours were artists that came of age in the ’70s, including Billy Joel and Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Neil Diamond and the Eagles. Three others were acts that debuted in the ’60s: Paul …
Read More »Paulie Rocks Liverpool, Accepts “Lennon and McCartney”
“It was 40 years ago today…” Paul McCartney returned to Liverpool Sunday for a hometown concert to cap a 14-month world tour. Some 30,000 fans were expected to attend the open-air show on the city’s docks, the final date of McCartney’s Back in the World tour. The 60-year-old former Beatle …
Read More »Instructive Edison
George Ziemann with some interesting history: Eastman Kodak agreed to sell filmstock only to authorised producers. The MPPC took over all but one of America’s film distributors. The courts upheld Edison’s claims that most of the film cameras in use infringed his patents. Then Edison got too pushy. The MPPC …
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