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Queen of the Nicht

Florence Foster Jenkins was many things. A teacher, a philanthropist, and a kind and generous friend, by many accounts. What she was not, was a gifted vocal artist, despite her unshakable belief to the contrary.

Possessed of a "sliding scale" and lacking any conception of pitch or rhythm—heck, she was barely capable of sustaining a note—what Jenkins had was the money to pursue her dream. She hired concert halls and passed out tickets to her recitals to her close circle of friends. She recorded records and gave them to her coterie. She sold out her 1944 Carnegie Hall recital.

…

The New Buffalo

Once united by poverty and marginalization, American Indians are now confronting success and wealth, thanks to their new casinos. How can that be a bad thing?

Mi Gente

I was in an elevator with several others, coming down from the penthouse floor of an ordinary building on 32nd Street. My companions for the ride spoke in Spanish, lovely currents of flowing sound like:

1. The secret beaches of Aguadilla
2. The shuffling and chatter of the smiling patrons at Rolon's Tavern in Jersey City
3. A game of dominoes in the garage of 852 Devon Street in Kearny

Though I only recognized a very few random words, I knew from their accents, from their rhythms, from the music of their speech, that these people were Puertorriquenos.

They were…

Soviet Poster a Day

Alexander Zakharov posts, well, a Soviet poster every day. Best of all, he provides a lot of useful historical and artistic context for them. I've always been fascinated by the visual bravura of these posters, now I get to discover the "hidden" meaning to them, which, of course, weren't hidden to the proletariat .

Bill On Will

Bryson writing about Shakespeare, that is. The Times offers an excerpt from Shakespeare.

How Memory Works

Or, in my case, doesn't. Gary Lynch thinks he has the answer.

What's Funny About the Iraq War?

Journalist Malcolm McPherson has become satiric novelist Malcolm McPherson. How come? Because the best stories in his reporter's notebook stayed in his reporter's notebook.

"What are you going to do with this anecdote? Time, believe me, doesn’t want to hear about it, because it does not easily illustrate anything and is not news. In the notebook it goes. And stays."

Thus, novels are born.

Maria, Maria, Maria

Sky Blue, Maria Schneider’s sixth album in 13 years, is at once her most ambitious and most fulfilled, a sweeping, gorgeous work about memory, dreams, love, life, death, the joys of birding…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Schneider is that rare creature these days: the composer, arranger, conductor, and manager of a working 17-to-20 piece jazz orchestra. She studied with Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer, and her work reflects their penchants for stacked harmonies and swaying rhythms. A jazz critic I know once said of some of her earlier pieces, “Too much vertical, not enough horizontal”—…

Mucho Amor

Hola Familia.
I hope you're all doing very well. It's an unusually cool and rainy day here in NJ/NYC.

I'm not sure if you all know, but part of my job at Stereophile involves keeping a blog. I'm supposed to write about my interaction with high-end audio, but I often extend the focus into my personal relationship with music and beyond into my everyday relationships with friends and family.

I think you all do know that lately, even more than ever, my relationship with my father has been under a lot of pressure. The good news is I've told him exactly how I feel, so there's…

Reading the Polls

According to an AP poll, one out of every four Americans hasn't read a single book in the last year. Okay, maybe I can believe that, but whenever I read articles like this, they inevitably include some guy (and yes, it is always a guy) who says something like, "I just don't have time for fiction, when I read I want to learn something."

Oh really? I re-read Huckleberry Finn this year. It's "just a story" and it wasn't even the first time I've read it. Did I really learn nothing? What I thought I'd noticed for the first time was Twain's finely nuanced description of a far-from-homogeneous…