MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been reading, watching, listening to?

I haven't seen a movie in forever. Anything out there?

Sweet Irony
Alex Ross did a pretty unexpected thing: he wrote a best-selling book about 20th Century art music. "The Rest is Noise" is now not only a good book, it's also an engaging blog on the same subject. Yesterday, he pointed out that the stimulus bill managed to include $50 million in funding to support jobs created in the arts that may be threatened due to the economic downturn, and slippage in support for the arts by communities and philanthropists. This money made it through, he notes, despite the efforts of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who never met an arts appropriation he liked. I will let Ross describe the irony from there:

Sen. Coburn is the father of the outstanding young soprano Sarah Coburn, who has appeared many times at opera houses supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Last year the younger Coburn went home to Oklahoma to sing in Lakmé at the Tulsa Opera — a production made possible in part by a $15,000 grant from the NEA.