Drop Tuning

An annual tradition at MIT: dropping a piano off of Baker House. (Reminds of this classic at Centre Pompidou.) My question: Did anyone record the audio?

Getting It

When the The Onion interview with Paul Rudd turned to the subject of critics and why they've been so cruel to poor little Julia Roberts, his Three Days of Rain co-star, I found myself nodding in agreement at this eminently sane approach:

You know, people are always quick to say the critics obviously didn't get it. Or the ones that gave good reviews, they obviously got it, but the ones who didn't, didn't get it. And I just think, "No, they totally got it. It's just that this is what they got from it."

That's a remarkably grown-up attitude. This, on the other hand, has a whiff of the schoolyard:

But I think that you have to look at a critic's physical appearance. Sometimes on TV or something, I see these critics, and the way they wear their hair… or they'll have a mustache without any irony, and I think, "This guy's aesthetic criteria is so completely different from mine. What I think is cool is so not what he thinks is cool." You go, "What kind of music is this person listening to?" And then I go, "All right, you know what? We have different tastes." So it just puts their critical analysis in a different light.

Ouch.

Movical Chairs

So Slate is covering theater, willy-nilly. Its latest piece, on the trend of movies being turned into stage musicals, mostly states the obvious: that musicals are devilishly hard to get right, and starting with proven source material is more than just box-office insurance or "branding." It's also practical and wise. After all, the best musicals were based on material that had a previous life, from My Fair Lady to Sweeney Todd. This is true even of great musicals cobbled together from sources other than well-made plays, like short stories or collections: Guys and Dolls, Cabaret, Fiddler. When I really think about it, I can't recall a truly great musical with an entirely original book. Some have pointed out to me The Music Man, but I'm not sure I'd put that in the top rank of musicals. Can you think of others?

Powers Pop

I'm so happy the LA Times finally has a pop music critic, Ann Powers, who writes about music, and whose explorations of lyrics and themes are not as literal- and simple-minded as a book report. It's about time.

Shooting School

My review of columbinus is here.

Plotz Thickens

I'm hooked. Slate's David Plotz is blogging the Bible. But will he stick with it to the end?

Real Breaker

My review of Christopher Denham's cagelove is here.