May 2

Today's Reno Gazette-Journal has a good article refuting the ridiculous story that traveled the wires last week, to the effect that the Donner Party did not engage in cannibalism:

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100502/NEWS/5020366/1321/news/Researcher--Donner-Party-did-cannibalize-the-dead-after-all

I have studied the Donner Party and taught it. The cannibalism is definitively attested to in the historical record, as the Gazette-Journal makes clear, and the fact that a "new study" found no human bone fragments at one of several Donner Party campsites -- big whoop. That this nonsense got play shows that (1) journalists are overexcitable, and (2) Gwen Robbins, the Appalachian State University anthropology (not history) professor responsible for the press release, deserves to be thrashed by her department chair and university president. (By now, I hope that sensible news consumers know that any journalistic sentence beginning with "A new study..." or "A recent study..." deserves a deep mental discount.)

As to the overexcitability -- it's only going to get worse. Journalistic departments across the country are slashing staff -- the national ABC News operation laid off one quarter of its workers this past week -- and none of the few, remaining, overworked bodies are going to have time to check much. As author David James Brown notes in the Gazette-Journal article. "The press release was riddled with inaccuracies, but newspapers and websites printed it without verifying anything." So p.r. folks out there can pump any kind of bilge in their press releases, and it will probably get printed. The Internet tends to ratify rumor as fact, anyway.

I enjoy io9's list of the best science fiction/detective novel hybrids, although I agree with the commenter who is puzzled by the omission of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man:

http://io9.com/5526900/top-10-greatest-science-fiction-detective-novels-of-all-time

Science fiction-wise, it looks like we're going to get to see more of Philip K. Dick's legendary Exegesis, although I expect it will fall into the same "borderline unreadable" category as Henry Darger's The Story of the Vivian Girls:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/books/30author.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis_%28book%29

Detectives-wise, Vince Keenan likes the recent "post-9/11" neo-noir The Missing Person, and I do too:

http://blog.vincekeenan.com/2010/04/movies-missing-person-200944-inch-chest.html

Director Noah Buschel has a sharp compositional eye, and he and cinematographer Ryan Samul combine to get some truly memorable images up on the screen. Michael Shannon's "quietly forceful" lead performance grew on me considerably as the film went along.

The latest print interview at JazzWax is an epic encounter with alto saxophonist Herb Geller that stretches over five posts. Geller was best pals with Eric Dolphy at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles and played in the school band with him, along with future jazz professionals Vi Redd (saxophone) and Bobby White (drums). That must have been some band!

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-1.html

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-2.html 

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-3.html

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-4.html

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/04/interview-herb-geller-part-5.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Geller

Like so many American jazz musicians, Geller couldn't make a real living here -- he talks in the interview about playing at strip clubs for extra money during the Fifties -- and has spent the last 50 years living in Europe and playing mainly there. We don't honor our own.

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel is leading an "Americas and Americans" festival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, highlighting composers such as the Venezuelan Antonio Estevez (1916-1988) and his Cantata Criolla:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/04/gustavo-dudamel-brilliantly-revives-forgotten-venezuelan-work.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Est%C3%A9vez

{feuilleton} brings us a striking large sculpture of Lucifer, El Angel Caido (The Fallen Angel), by the Spaniard Ricardo Bellver (1845-1824). It sits in a Madrid park:

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2010/05/01/ricardo-bellvers-el-angel-caido/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Bellver

If you're in the mood for more deviltry, check out Stefan Eggeler's illustrations for Gustav Meyrink's 1917 novel Walpurgisnacht:

http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2010/04/happy-walpurgisnacht.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Meyrink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgisnacht

Among notables born on this date are comic novelist Jerome K. Jerome, science fiction novelist E.E. "Doc" Smith, poets Novalis and Gottfried Benn, journalist Theodor Herzl, lyricist Lorenz Hart, composer Alessandro Scarlatti, conductor Valery Gergiev, rock guitarist Link Wray, pop singer Lesley Gore, and film directors Satyajit Ray, Stephen Daldry, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. In a lifetime of film-going in big American cities such as San Francisco and Boston, I have had fewer opportunities to see films by Satyajit Ray than by any director of similar stature. My sense is that the stewardship of his movies has been notably poor. Many key titles are not currently available on DVD (either here or in the U.K.), and probably most of the films need restoration. The Film Society of Lincoln Center did host a retrospective last year that programmed 19 of the 28 features, including everything up to 1971:

http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale09/satyajit/program.html

But much more needs to be done. Here is an interesting discussion of the situation at The Auteurs:

http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/2063