Hey Guy, Where You Goin’ With That Mike In Your Hand?

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz is a music enthusiast with a wide range of interests, which are reflected in the segments he does on his weekly NPR programs.

Yesterday’s show included a story about the Monterey Jazz Festival 2011 that featured this exchange between Raz and correspondent Patrick Jarenwattananon (who was there writing for NPR’s A Blog Supreme):

Guy Raz: Patrick, give me a sense of  perspective – you were talking about 5000 people watching one show – how big is the festival? What are we talking about here?

Patrick Jarenwattananon: Around 40,000 people come through the entire weekend. That’s actually over all eight stages and all three days, so a lot of them, you know, do end up sticking to the main arena, just to see the headliners, you know, like Huey Lewis and The News played yesterday and a –

GR: Wait, hold on hold on hold on – Huey Lewis – the Power of Love Huey Lewis?

PW: Yeah, the Power of  Love Huey Lewis . . .

GR: Isn’t that a little weird?

PW: Yeah, oftentimes these days they’ll book musicians who aren’t necessarily jazz to fill in those times slots – I guess it’s kinda hip to be square these days . . .

Guy, Patrick – climb into the Wayback Machine with me and let’s swing by the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival, where Jimi Hendrix submitted this classic performance:

Admittedly, Huey Lewis and The News is a big comedown from Hendrix, but some historical perspective might’ve helped in this case, no?

UPDATE: From our Emily Litella desk

Actually, that Hendrix performance was at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

So . . . never mind.

(And apologies to Guy and Patrick.)

Still, always good to see that Hendrix clip.

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Facebook Is Stalking Me

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Much to the hardworking staff’s dismay, we recently received this message from (In Your) Facebook:

Hi [Hardworking Staff],
You haven’t been to Facebook for a few days, and a lot happened while you were away.

[A, B, C]  and 4 other friends have posted statuses, photos and more on Facebook.

Facebookinatrix then directed us to Go to Facebook or See All Notifications.

Coincidentally, the hardworking staff will be moderating In Your Facebook at Boston University’s Mugar Library Monday night, a forum designed to examine the cost-benefit ratio of social media.

Stop by if you can tear yourself away from Facebook long enough.

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Dead Blogging ‘The [Round-the-] Clock’ Opening At The MFA

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Saturday night at 7 o’clock, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts unveiled its new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art with a 24-hour extravaganza described this way in an MFA press release:

24-HOUR CELEBRATION SEPTEMBER 17–18 AT MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, MARKS UNVEILING OF LINDE FAMILY WING FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, CULMINATING IN 12-HOUR FREE OPEN HOUSE 

BOSTON, MA (September 15, 2011)—The first opportunity to see the new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art will be offered September 17 through 18 when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA ), unveils the Linde Wing for Contemporary Art with a 24-hour celebration.

Beginning with three ticketed parties starting at 7 p.m. on September 17, the festivities continue through the Museum’s free Open House, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., on Sunday, September 18.

Highlights of the celebration include the first chance to see the new galleries and exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Wood Sculpture, as well as opportunities to enjoy performance arts pieces by Boston-area and internationally acclaimed artists; the screening of Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video, The Clock; musical performances; and film shorts.

Those “ticketed parties” created a bit of a hubbub in advance of the opening, but that soon dissipated in a flurry of local goodwill.

So the Missus and I trundled over (she was working; I was arm candy) to check out the rare Boston 24/1 scene, which was jam-packed from the start.

Some observations:

• Line cutters are the lowest form of social life.

• The Ellsworth Kelly exhibit is worth seeing if only for the staggering variety of woods he employed: birch, walnut, teak, maple, mahogany, English elm, redwood, sycamore, red oak, and four woods I’d never heard of before: wenge, padouk, sapele, and zebrawood.

As for the totem-like sculptures themselves (of which there are 30), I’m not smart enough to get the difference between “Diagonal with Curve XV” and “Diagonal with Curve XVI.” But I did like looking at them.

• Josiah McElheny’s excellent hall-of-mirrors piece “Endlessly Repeating Twentieth-Century Modernism” occupies prime real estate in the new wing.

• Like a solar eclipse, never look directly at museumniks while they’re eating. Because: 1) It’s like they haven’t eaten in weeks, with no apparent prospects for food in the future; and 2) A staggering number of them bring to mind the old phrase “putting on the feedbag.”

• Good neon sign on the wall: “All Art Has Been Contemporary.”

• Even better sign: Malcolm Rogers is truly the MFA director. He’s done something quite extraordinary here – opened not one, but two new wings (the splendid Art of the Americas wing opened just 10 months ago) in the space of a single year, making the MFA the most dynamic museum in America.

As for “The Clock,” the Missus and I never got to see it because the line was too long.

Then again, there’s plenty of time.

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Yankee Fan Says ‘Go, Sox!’

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Pennant races are funny things, starting with they’re not really pennant races anymore – they’re postseason races. Regardless, once you begin scoreboard watching, you introduce a whole new geometry into the standings.

Take Saturday’s AL East games, for instance. The Yankees had already beaten the Blue Jays 7-6 (and can I get an Amen for the great Rivera and his 601 lifetime saves?) when the Red Sox and Rays went at it in the lyric little bandbox.

So Made Yankee Fan in Boston gets to wondering, what’s the best result for me here?

1) If the Sox win, they remain 3 1/2 games back and the Rays fall 8 1/2 games behind the Yanks.

2) If the Rays win, they remain 7 1/2 back, the Sox fall to 4 1/2 back.

3) Seven of the Yankees’ last 11 games are vs. the Rays.

MYFiB  thinks, all due respect to the Sox, my best bet is for the Rays to lose.

But they didn’t.

Sunday’s games, of course, will usher in a whole nother equation, depending on whether the Yankees win or lose. But one thing remains constant:

Pennant Fever Grips Hardworking Staff!

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Who Is @BCSubpoenaNews? (III)

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The Campaign Outsider investigative unit has been hard at work trying to answer this question: Who’s behind the @BCSubpoenaNews Twitter feed and blog, both of which track developments around Boston College’s fight to quash subpoenas seeking material from the university’s IRA oral history archive. (See background here and here.)

By hard at work, of course, we mean clicking around, guessing, and reading any comments sent to us.

First stab (by the hardworking staff): BC’s Burns Library. Annhhh! I’m sorry, that’s incorrect – but thanks for playing.

Second stab (by splendid reader Ted Folkman): Ed Moloney, who directed the oral history project and has sued (separately from BC) in US District Court in Boston to quash the subpoenas from U.S. prosecutors, which seek information about the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10. (Moloney also produces The Broken Elbow blog.)

Not so fast, says splendid reader Digital History (not even gonna try to guess who that is), who writes this:

The Broken Elbow is Ed Moloney’s blog, and Ed Moloney did post about the BC Subpoena News site. But using Ted Folkman’s logic, it could also be said that as you have posted about the site, you are the one behind it. In both cases that would be wrong. Neither you nor Ed Moloney are behind the BCSN blog, although you have both drawn attention to it via your own blogs.

The BCSN is simply a reference site for people who are interested in, or should be interested in because of its impact or ramifications, the case and its outcome. All relevant material is collected at the site so that an informed opinion, rather than off-the-cuff, inaccurate and incorrect supposition, can be made on the subject. Court documents, affidavits, exhibits, news articles and a good deal of background information, is all readily available and updated regularly to help people not familiar with the case’s nuances understand all that is at play in this complex issue. The site is structured so it is easy to navigate and discover all the detail.

Except, of course, who is behind it, as the BCSN prefers to remain anonymous. ʘ‿ʘ

Anybody else wanna weigh in?

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Larry Summers Is A Bigger A**hole Than The Winklevoss Twins

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The always newsworthy Ron Suskind has a new book out – Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President – which, according to Friday’s New York Times, “quotes White House documents that say [Pres.] Obama’s decisions were routinely ‘re-litigated’ by the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers.”)

That’s interesting in light of this passage from Megan McArdle’s piece on Austan Goolsbee in last month’s Atlantic:

Steve Rattner, the former “car czar,” describes in his book a briefing where Summers told the president that they’d decided to provide $5 billion to support auto suppliers while they made up their minds about a plan for the automakers. Surprised, Goolsbee immediately broke in, even though he’d agreed he was just there to listen and not to speak:

“Mr. President,” he interrupted, “just be aware that the second we announce we’re going to save the suppliers, everybody is going to assume we’re saving the auto companies too. Have we really decided that?”

As soon as the meeting broke up, a furious Summers cornered Goolsbee in the hallway and “exploded”:

“You do not relitigate in front of the President!”

Not unless you’re Lawrence H. Summers, who has no trouble calling other people a**holes while being a bigger one himself.

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We’ve Had Our Fill Of ‘Fulsome’

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

WBUR’s David Boeri reported Friday on the case of former U.S. Assistant Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn, “who has been under a cloud of suspicion since 2003 when a federal judge accused him of outrageous misconduct” in rigging a case against Mafia lieutenant Vinny (The Animal) Ferrara.

Now in a significant but quiet move, a panel of federal judges has lifted the cloud for Auerhahn, who was facing disciplinary action while handing the court’s chief judge a rebuke.

That’s grating enough. But then there was Auerhahn’s response (through his mouthpiece, naturally):

On behalf of Jeffrey Auerhahn, his attorney Michael Ricciuti released a statement that, “We are gratified by this result and the due process afforded to Mr. Auerhahn in the district of Massachusetts. We deeply appreciate the panel’s careful attention to this case, its fulsome examination of the detailed record, and its thoughtful decision.”

Not to get technical about it, but the definition of fulsome is, “offensively flattering or insincere.” Which oddly does and does not fit this situation.

Don’t even get us started about noisome.

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Quote o’ the Day (Rick Perry Edition II)

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

(We told you this would be a series.)

From ABC News’s The Note:

PERRY ADVISER’S THEORY OF POLITICS: ‘IF SOMEONE HAS A BETTER IDEA, WE STEAL IT.’ In the October issue of Townhall Magazine, Dwayne Horner, a Texas political operative who previously worked on Gov. Perry’s state election campaign, profiles the current frontrunner in a piece titled, “Never Lost a Fight.”  The article features an exclusive interview with Dave Carney, Perry’s chief political strategist . . .

It details Carney’s election theory: “…if someone has a better idea, we steal it. The point of the campaign is to win, not relive the great hoorah . . . “

The hardworking staff thinks he means The Last Hurrah, Edwin O’Connor’s classic 1956 novel.

But with the Rick Perryniks, you never know.

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Who Is @BCSubpoenaNews? (II)

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff recently speculated about who might be behind the @BCSubpoenaNews Twitter feed and blog. We thought there were some indications it might be the work of Boston College’s Burns Library, which is involved in a legal dustup over its IRA oral history archives.

Several days later, an anonymous reader wrote in to tell us, rather sharply, that the bottom of the blog’s homepage says it’s not affiliated with BC, a detail the hardworking staff had clearly missed.

Now comes splendid reader Ted Folkman, who writes this:

 I am not sure, but I believe the Twitter feed belongs to Ed Moloney. The Broken Elbow blog, appears to belong to him, and it references the Twitter feed.

That’s the same Ed Moloney who directed the oral history project and has sued in US District Court in Boston to quash subpoenas from U.S. prosecutors seeking information about the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10.  (See Kevin Cullen’s recent Boston Globe piece for details.)

Okay. Glad we had this little chat.

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Simon Cowell To Hub: Let Them Eat Celery

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

From our Newsvertainment desk:

Boston’s Fox 25 has never been shy about using its newscasts to promote its programming, and Maria Stephanos has never been shy, period.

So when X-Factor cheese Simon Cowell started munching on some celery during a satellite interview, Stephanos pulled out some peanut butter crackers to keep pace while they chewed over the show’s upcoming premiere.

At least they make it amusing – not to say appetizing – while they’re tearing down the wall between advertising and editorial.

Video here.

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