Michael Jackson was a pathetic and finally repulsive case of arrested development, marinating in his obsessions with lost innocence, which led him to violate the innocence of any number of children who often enough were all but thrown at him by their corrupt and greedy parents. Years ago I wrote a long piece on Michael’s…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Wolcott Gibbs
Wolcott Gibbs is practically unknown today, except to that small and no doubt dwindling band who know a great deal about the early days of the New Yorker. Founder/editor Harold Ross once told James Thurber “There wasn’t anything the three of you [Gibbs, Thurber, and E.B. White] couldn’t do. You could have got the magazine…
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDITING NEW YORKER ARTICLES
The average contributor to this magazine is semi-literate; that is, he is ornate to no purpose, full of senseless and elegant variations, and can be relied on to use three sentences where a word would do. It is impossible to lay down any and complete formula for bringing order out of this underbrush, but there…
The Customer Is Always Wrong
by Wolcott Gibbs Just as the advance agent for a circus is not likely to be disturbed by even the largest elephant, so his metropolitan equivalent, the Broadway press agent, can look on the most succulent actor and still remain composed. This is a natural condition, since both actors and elephants, observed for any length…
Joe Lovano—“Lonely Woman”
Joe Lovano playing the classic Ornette Coleman tune. According to “derricksax,” “thats actually not a soprano saxophone, its called a tarogato, and I believe it is a Bulgarian instrument – cross between the fingerings and wood construction of a clarinet and the tone of a soprano saxophone.” With annoying voiceovers from bassist Esperanza Spalding and…
Garry Wills, also important
In his reminiscence of William F. Buckley, Garry Wills writes the following: Later, he sailed or skied with John Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Cronkite (I sailed with both), not because they were celebrities but because he liked them and admired their minds.
Very Clever, Those Armenians
Back in the day—way, way back in the day, in 1960—I first saw It Happened One Night, at age 15 on a 17-inch TV. When the walls of Jericho finally fell, I wondered to myself “Well, since they know how to make good movies, why aren’t they all like this?” Forty-nine years later, I’m still…
Musette Explosion—“Gitan Swing”
The Musette Explosion performing at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture on October 30th, 2008. “Gitan Swing” composed by Tony Murena. Will Holshouser, Accordion, Matt Munisteri, Guitar, and Marcus Rojas, Tuba. Django, one might say, lives. Afterwords Not enough tuba, eh? And what’s with the ragged cut-off, Brooklyn Public Library? Anyway, it’s…
Just think of it as the digital equivalent of spitting
William Saletan, who must have just a bit of a nicotine jones, gives an extended if not long-winded thumbs up to the latest thing in club gear, electronic cigarettes. I’m not interested enough to actually figure out how the damn things work, but Saletan, who earlier waxed eloquent on new smokeless tobacco products that “consist…
Early Monk—“Blue Monk”
The famous “Sound of Jazz” clips of Monk. The show aired December 8, 1957. This is the earliest footage I know of Monk, and he’s still wearing period “bebop” attire. Monk was mightily irritated that Count Basie decided to insert himself in the proceedings. I reviewed an early, cheap version of a “Sound of Jazz”…