It's A Big World Out There - And We're Ignoring It

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times recently blogged about the disappearance of foreign correspondents at major American newspapers, and held out hope that a new user-generated site, Demotix, might help to fill the gap. The concept is interesting, and I'll keep an eye on it, but as Kristof should know better than anyone, there is no substitute for the seasoned, experienced, and perspicacious foreign correspondent. As an American, I find that the best writing about foreign affairs comes from those who not only know the places they're writing about intimately but who can also understand and explain the relevance of the "local news" there to a U.S. audience. That perspective is critical -- when there's so much to worry about at home, why should I care what's going on there? What does this mean to our economy, our security, our global interests?

While we live in a world of exploding outlets for expression, this is a need that I simply don't see being filled. The decline in international news coverage on TV and radio (with the limited exception of NPR and, in particular, BBC programming carried on NPR stations) is not surprising, given how consumers prefer to use those media. The decline in international coverage in print is inevitable, given the dismal economics of newspapers in the 21st century. An Internet business model to support high-quality, objective, critical international coverage has not emerged, and I don't know who's looking for one. 

There is some quality international coverage available if you go looking for it.  The BBC's website (free to you, than to the large TV taxes paid by U.K. residents) is probably the most comprehensive, and there is no better source for world news and analysis with an Anglo-American perspective than The Economist. And while there is no shortage of website aggregators of international news (I've looked at the MacArthur Foundation-funded curated website NewsTrust, for example), aggregations generally provide no context and relevance for an American reader -- even when the reports are in English, they are often culturally incomprehensible in the absence of a bridge-building correspondent.

About five years ago, Joan Kroc, philanthropist and heir to Ray Kroc's McDonald's Restaurants fortune, made a $225 million bequest to NPR that allowed the network to add several dozen news staff and institute a news fellows program. There's little doubt that the extra $15 million a year or so flowing into NPR's news operations has maintained and upgraded their quality.

After reading Kristof's piece, it occurred to me that we need someone of similar vision and generosity (and even greater means) to close the yawning news and information gap between America and the rest of the world.

I believe that we need a not-for-profit foreign correspondents guild (for lack of a better term) dedicated to explaining the world to us in America. 

This organization should have correspondents on every populated continent (I'll suggest 50 full-time professionals in total), who understand the politics and culture of the nations they cover as well as they understand ours.  The organization should have a lean administrative staff headed by someone with impeccable journalistic credentials paired with a solid appreciation of how the Internet influences the way we read and think.  

While the correspondents should write from the heart and with personality, there should be the highest possible premium on objectivity.  Opinion would be welcome, but ideology should not drive the enterprise.  These professionals would not be expected to be the first with news, but they should be the first with a solid, substantive interpretation of what the news means to an American audience.  And this organization's stories should be made available free of charge to every commercial and noncommercial news outlet that will have them, as well as the organization's own well-organized, noncommercial site.

Assuming this is a $100 million a year enterprise, it would require something on the order of a two billion dollar endowment.  That's ten times what Mrs. Kroc left to NPR -- pretty immense, and arguably not the first thing on many people's lists for "what we could do for society with two billion dollars."   But I beg to differ.  A network of solid information professionals, helping to interpret the world to Americans -- and putting the political, economic, social, environmental, medical, educational and other achievements and challenges faces by nations around the globe into a practical context for a U.S. audience -- could vastly improve our decision-making here at home and rebuild our sense of community with other nations... something that, as the last eight years have demonstrated, will be essential to our continued success as a leader in the world.

The next great capitalist who wants to use his or her bequest to change the world -- and America's role in it -- could do worse than to underwrite such a foreign correspondents' guild.

Concert Event: Lidia Kaminska and Friends, December 7

In my July 16 post, I promised that Lidia Kaminska will change the way you think about the accordion as a classical instrument.

If her interview with Hugh Sung convinced you, I hope you'll join Ann and me at an Astral Artists concert event that Ann and I are co-sponsoring: December 7, 3:00 p.m., at the Trinity Center, 22nd and Spruce Streets, in the beautiful Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia .

She'll be joined by two other talented young Astral Artists, Jennifer Curtis on violin and Michael Mizrahi on piano.

Here's a sneak preview of the planned program: Lidia's transcription of the J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in A minor; Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor; De Profundis (for bayan) by Sofia Gubaidulina; Sonata for Bayan by Alexander Pushkarenko; and, following intermission, A Bird's Eye View for Violin and Accordion by Chiel Meijering; Jasmin for Bayan and Piano by Tatiana Sergeyeva; and Lidia's arrangement of Piazzolla's Muerte del Angel, Milonga del Angel and Michelangelo 70, featuring Lidia on bandoneon with the trio.

For tickets, visit the Astral Artists site. And while you're there, please take a few minutes to learn more about the great work that Astral Artists does in grooming superb young classical artists for professional careers.

Lidia Kaminska Will Change the Way You Think About the Accordion

If you grew up in central Connecticut in the Fifties with Polish and/or Italian parents (I had both), the odds were unusually good that you would wind up playing the accordion. I've been an amateur (in the good sense, I think) for nearly 50 years, playing just for fun mostly in neighborhood jam sessions and the occasional social function. I've also made an occasional hobby of tracing the historical and ethnographic journey of the instrument. I became especially interested in this after reading Accordion Crimes by R. Annie Proulx (best known for her book The Shipping News) back in the mid-Nineties, a rich and well-researched novel (and a movie waiting to happen).

As I've sought out who's making great music with the accordion, I have met a handful of true professionals, most notably New York-area jazz MIDI accordionist Eddie Monteiro who accompanies himself on vocalise. And I've encountered (and collected) music by such terrific artists as jazzman Richard Galliano from France and new-music pioneer Maria Kalaniemi from Finland, and by other jazz, folk and new-music accordionists in dozens of countries on several continents.

Last year, here in Philadelphia, I met a young accordionist whom I believe will change the way Americans think about the accordion as a classical instrument.

Her name is Lidia Kaminska, and she is the first person to have earned a doctorate in accordion performance from an American university. I've seen her perform on both bayan (a complex, all-button Russian instrument) and bandoneon (Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla's signature instrument). She's received well-earned attention in the press and on public radio.

If you take a few minutes to watch Lidia's performance and conversation with Hugh Sung, a faculty member at Philadelphia's incomparable Curtis Institute of Music, I think you will see what I mean. In the next few days, I'm going to post ticket information about a December 7 Astral Artists concert in Philadelphia featuring Lidia and two other terrific young musicians that Ann and I will co-sponsor. If you're open to new musical explorations, you'll want to join us there.

DVR Alert: Mad Men Returns on AMC

If ever there was a TV series deserving of the hype, Mad Men on AMC is it. A spot-on evocation of the culture of the early Sixties (at least as I -- who was 10 years old when JFK was assassinated -- remember it), with richly drawn characters, perfect sets and costumes, and constant reminders of why America went through such turmoil later in the decade - the racism, sexism, bigotry, and boorishness that lit a thousand flames of protest. The series returns for its second season on AMC on July 27. If you didn't catch up with the first season, use the next couple of weeks to watch it On Demand from your local cable provider or on DVD.

Food: Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar

Toronto is a festival city -- film, jazz, comedy, and lots of attractions on the Lake Ontario waterfront. If you find yourself in town with a small group, you will not come across a more perfect and more fun pre-theatre dining option than Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar at Church and Front, near the eye-popping wonders of St. Lawrence Market. At with many contemporary wine bars, Jamie Kennedy serves small plates paired with complementary pours. Recently, I hosted a group of six for a Friday dinner. While Jamie Kennedy doesn't take reservations, we arrived at 5:30 and copped a table in the rear surrounded by wine racks and separated from the restaurant by a low wall. We ordered all 17 small plates in order to share (skipping the soup), and we let the waiter choose three accompanying wines from their huge and fairly priced library -- a refreshing sparkling rose from Beaujoulais, a pleasant New Zealand white, and a really remarkable zinfandel from the Barossa Valley... the winemaker is Damien Tscharke, and while his produce is new to me, the waiter at Jamie Kennedy said that Australians visiting the wine bar go crazy over the stuff... I can understand why. Back to the small plates -- I tasted everything, and the kitchen batted 1.000. While I'm not a big fish eater, I have to say that preparations of pickerel and lake trout were rich and satisfying, and his take on poutine (the Quebecois melange of fried potatoes, cheese and gravy) with short ribs was pretty spectacular. Put this one on your list.

Segway... to... the... Rescue

Driving home through Center City Philadelphia tonight, I saw flashing red-and-white lights in my rear-view mirror. Turned out to be two EMS paramedics -- on Segway scooters. They looked cool -- bright red shirts, black shorts, "Paramedic" pouches on either side of their big wheels. I watched them as they tore up Ben Franklin Boulevard -- at about the same blazing speed that I walk the sidewalks of Philadelphia. As I rolled from red light t0 red light, they barely kept pace. Reminded me of an old Droopy Dawg cartoon, where Droopy rides to the rescue of a damsel in distress.... oooooooohhhh soooooooooo slowwwwwwwwwwly. I would not want to have been the Art Museum patron who had just had a seizure... concept 10, execution 2.

Archeophonist

My friend Dave is an archeophonist. He did not know that until this morning.

We were in Toronto - six of us, including Dave, Dale and our spouses - enjoying several consecutive sunny 80-degree days in this very walkable and pleasant international city.

Over Sunday brunch at a place on Church Street, we discussed an important contribution that Dave had made to the history of recorded sound. Earlier this year, he discovered the earliest known sound recording, dating from 1860. It earned a front-page exclusive in The New York Times, and he formally unveiled the recording to a roomful of experts and press at Stanford.

Finding Edouard Leon-Scott de Martinville's paper-based recordings, and figuring out how to coax sound from them, was an impressive feat of sleuthing, connecting the dots of history and science. (My wife played a tiny coincidental role in Dave's discovery -- it improbably involves the book River of Doubt, which tells the story of Teddy Roosevelt's post-presidential Amazonian expedition, but it would take a while to explain here.)

With this discovery, every text on the history of sound was immediately rendered incorrect. As Dave described the research that went into this discovery, I commented that there was something of Indiana Jones about it.

As we finished our coffee this morning, I said to Dave, "So, if someone asked you to describe in a phrase what exactly you do, what would you tell them?"

We kicked around a few thoughts. Then I picked up the CD of historic jazz recordings that Dave had given me when we sat down. It includes some rare recordings from his personal collection.

I noticed that the CD was on the Archeophone label. It is a specialty label, two of whose historical releases have been nominated for Grammys in the last two years, with a win for best historical recording in 2007. (Dave was a major contributor to these CDs.)

"Dave," I said, "I'm struck by the name of this record label. Obviously it has it roots in 'archeo,' meaning someone who digs into history and human culture, and 'phone,' meaning sound or hearing.

"So why don't you call yourself an 'archeophonist'?"

Dave loved the word. Having coined it, I'll take the liberty of putting forward the proper pronunciation: ar'-kee-OFF'-uh-nist.

So for my inaugural blog entry, as I recognize my friend's achievements in the history of recorded sounds, I'm pleased to have the word "archeophonist" appear on the World Wide Web for the first time.