The baseball season is underway and the six mature maples on my quarter acre of suburbia are filling with birdsong. Spring is here and it feels like a good time to check in.
I sincerely hope this message finds you well.
2024 has thus far been a good year for Media Room; since the relaunch subscriber growth has exceeded expectations and my editorial calendar is full. I am grateful.
Art Reviews
I confess that I was reluctant to publish art reviews because very few people write them anymore and I thought no one would read them. To my surprise, they are one of Media Room’s most popular features.
In January I published a review of the Keith Haring retrospective in Toronto closely followed by a review of Gregory Halpern’s Scenes of Buffalo photography exhibit at the Eastman Museum in Rochester. I have reviewed all of the current exhibits at the Buffalo AKG Museum, including yesterday’s review of a collection of new Scandinavian art, After The Sun.
My personal favorite is the Stanley Whitney retrospective at the Buffalo AKG Museum. It is on display until May 26, 2024. It’s worth the trip.
The next art review on the editorial calendar is a review of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s epic Africa & Byzantium exhibit. My visit to Buffalo’s Lake Erie neighbor included a Cleveland Cavaliers game and the best homemade pasta I have ever tasted.
Film Reviews
Although I have always loved film (I aspired to filmmaking when applying to college but chose failed classical musician instead) I had never published a review. My December 2023 review of Napoleon was an experiment; it led to reviews of Trân Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things, Drive-Away Dolls, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and Sarah Schwab’s independent A Stage of Twilight.
Music Criticism
Music criticism has always been the core of my work. I have published fourteen reviews of concerts and recordings since January and more are on the way.
Attaching labels to music (like people) is convenient but dangerous and limiting. I am a believer in what I call “musical universalism” a term which rejects the notion that one genre of music is “more important” than another, a prevalent and mistaken notion that has created a perverse musical tribalism.
I review everything, from experimental opera to Taylor Swift because opera isn’t “more important” than Taylor Swift any more than people who attend the symphony are “more important ” than people who love Led Zeppelin (I proudly count myself in both categories).
The Song of the Day
I have been posting “The Song of the Day” on Substack Notes for over a year. It is a little bit of everything: rap, pop, classical, jazz, country, and rock. Paid subscribers (a discounted annual rate of $24 is available through May) get access to the (trending) Media Room Song of the Day playlist on Tidal. As of today it contains 98 tracks and 7½ hours of music.
Book Reviews
I started my writing career as a book critic but you wouldn’t know it from my meager production on Media Room. Reasons for this include my service on National Book Critics Circle (Leonard and Barrios Prizes) and Stillwater literary awards juries and the development of my book The Moral Injury of Late Capitalism.
I can do better. On Tuesday May 7th I will publish my review of Catherine Hanley’s 1217: The Battles That Saved England; Susan Neiman’s Left Is Not Woke, Matthew Stewart’s An Emancipation of the Mind, Jim Morris’ The Cancer Factory, and Michiko Kakutani’s The Great Wave are in various stages of progress.
Coming Soon . . .
Look for a little less music and a little more film, art, and book coverage. Humor is always on the calendar and - speaking of - I will be part of a live comedy event on June 29th at my 40th High School Reunion.
I will be a guest on the hilarious podcast An Intro to Anthro Podcast With 2 Humans (now on Substack!) as we interview classmates and engage in sundry awkward social encounters.
As always, thank you for being a subscriber.