Short Takes
May 11, 2010
Josh Ritter. NYC. 5/20. Coming?
The 5/20 show was sold out well before the CD was released. (Some tickets are available for the 5/19 show.) If you’re one of the lucky and/or smart people with tickets for the 20th — the night my wife and I are going — and want to make some kind of Head Butler field trip out of the evening, let me know. (If you live in a city that hasn’t seen Josh this time out, here’s the concert schedule.) Below, for those who still are unconvinced, what you could call an audition video.
May 9, 2010
Michael Gross vs. the Metropolitan Museum
When last we checked in with Michael Gross, author of Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret Story of the Lust, Lies, Greed, and Betrayals that Made the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he was being flogged by the Museum and its trustees for writing such a cheeky book. The Met wasn’t selling the book in its gift shop; Annette de la Renta had the vapors. I thought this was pigheaded, so I wrote about it. Now Gross has unearthed a new development: Oral histories of Met employees that he would have liked to have read — histories that were to have been made public — have been buried by the Museum. Okay, so Michael Gross is stirring the pot just as his book is published in a paperback edition. But when is the Met going to grow up?
May 9, 2010
Cancer: Save Yourself!
Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times that the President’s Cancer Panel is releasing a disturbing report. The key finding: “Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety, Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated.” Don’t look to industry to seek more regulation. So what can you do to protect your family and yourself? This suggestion leapt out at me: “Filter drinking water.” After researching the convenient methods, my wife and I chose the PUR 2-Stage Dispenser.
May 5, 2010
Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us
The CD’s been out for two years, but every time I hear Raising Sand — the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collaboration — I’m floored all over again.
