1. Bookmark City http://www.startribune.com/1526/v-print/story/1354460.html
Bookmark City
Star Tribune writers and critics tip you off to their favorite arts and
entertainment websites, and say why.
Last update: August 10, 2007 – 7:44 PM
It happens dozens of times a day in the newsroom. Someone discovers a video, comes
across a news break or reads a new blog outburst.
"You gotta see this," they shout to colleagues. From idle gossip to a fact checked to
news that must not be ignored, journalists spend a lot of time at computers and have
become familiar with websites that they check weekly, daily, hourly.
Here are some favorite sites of Star Tribune arts-and-entertainment writers in various
genres.
Giant music geek
There's a shelf of encyclopedic, fact-filled rock books collecting dust in the Star Tribune
newsroom (and most newsrooms), and the reason is Allmusic.com. They may not all
admit it, but music critics use the site daily. It's a reliable resource for verifying facts, far
more so than Wikipedia. Whether you're looking for the proper spelling of
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Mary J. Blige's age or what year Minor Threat split, you'll find it
there.
For those of you unburdened by facts, Allmusic.com also is a great place to turn before
you buy an album -- not so much current releases, but so-called catalog discs. It has
reviews and star ratings for most of the major efforts in an artist's discography.
Checkmarks indicate the best one or two albums to buy if you're just starting to dive into
a band's collection. Nine times out of 10, the staff is right-on. Local examples: Start with
"Tim" or "Let It Be" for the Replacements; skip Prince's "Come" or "Rainbow Children."
Call it your on-call music geek. At: www.allmusic.com.
Chris Riemenschneider
The aggregator
I check in each weekday at artsjournal, an arts-journalism aggregator that digests about
200 English-speaking newspapers mainly in the United States, Britain and Canada.
Founded by Doug McLennan in 1999, it's run by him and assistant news editor Sam
Bergman, a violist with the Minnesota Orchestra. The site is timely and easy to navigate,
with stories updated twice each weekday and classed by subject: theater, music, dance,
visual (art), people and ideas. I can tell quickly what interests me because the site neatly
summarizes stories that it links to. It also features posts by high-profile bloggers such as
CultureGrrl Lee Rosenbaum, who has written for the Wall Street Journal and New York
Times, classical music writer Greg Sandow, Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal
and influential visual-art writer Tyler Green. At: www.artsjournal.com .
Rohan Preston
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2. Bookmark City http://www.startribune.com/1526/v-print/story/1354460.html
Movies without mercy
Ingesting eight to 10 movies a week, most of them mediocre, is a media diet that tends
to discourage. A reviewer may be tempted to lower his standards so he doesn't sound
like a total grouch or an insufferable elitist. (Gene Shalit never gets hate mail.) Whenever
I feel my resolve weakening, I visit Pajiba, a website whose witty and merciless critics
offer "scathing reviews for bitchy people." They deliver creative, insightful and energetic
public spankings to hacks, and sing the praises of worthy work like an angelic chorus. It's
a reminder of how exciting good criticism can and should be. Not only are the staff
writers sharp (Dustin Rowles called "The Bourne Ultimatum"an honest to God action flick
with enough adrenaline coursing through it to burst the capillaries in your eyeballs"), their
readers weigh in with great stuff of their own. E-mailer Jameison put the dreadful
"Underdog" in perfect perspective: "The amount of money spent on producing this sort of
rubbish could save 10,000 Third World orphans." At: www.pajiba.com .
Colin Covert
The Playgoer
Garrett Eisler, an administrator and instructor at New York University, has lots of chatty
stuff about the New York theater scene on this blog. For example, Eisler recently poked
into the dust-up between "Gypsy" creator Arthur Laurents (who directed the new revival
with Patti LuPone) and Sam Mendes, stager of the Bernadette Peters piffle a few years
ago. He mused recently on Broadway grosses ("was it always news when a Broadway
show recouped its investment?") and, after panning a show in the Midtown International
Theatre Festival, asked, "Anyone see anything good there?" With his own musings,
newsy notes and links to stuff all over the place, Eisler lets you feel a part of the New
York street without actually being there. At: www.playgoer.blogspot.com.
Graydon Royce
Superheroes
Vying for the mouse clicks of geeks everywhere, Comic Book Resources and
Newsarama are the Web's two titans of comic-book chatter. The former gets the edge for
user-friendliness. You'll find daily news items on comics and comic-book movies,
exclusive interviews and an array of staff-written reviews. Most attention is paid to
superheroes, but its writers also keep up on the large number of indie comics by the likes
of Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware.
At: www.comicbookresources.com and www.newsarama.com .
Tom Horgen
Cool art
This pretty little site gives you a peek into all things cool in the young Minneapolis art
scene. Most useful is the colorful calendar, which lists events and openings at such hip
galleries as SooVac and the Soap Factory. No snobbery here. The site was started in
2005 by Emma Berg, a Target employee by day and self- described "art pusher" by
night. She relaunched a better version a year later with Robot Love owner Kristoffer
Knutson. The two now update a blog that offers musings on coolness happening here
and elsewhere. There are reviews, photo galleries from opening nights and parties and
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3. Bookmark City http://www.startribune.com/1526/v-print/story/1354460.html
even a "street art" section with photos of local graffiti and stencils. At:
www.mplsart.com.
Tom Horgen
Don't blame Canada
Fans of classical music, including disconsolate devotees of the late andante.com, should
get acquainted with La Scena Musicale, a free Canadian site that, Italian moniker
notwithstanding, offers content in English and French. Active for a decade, LSM
distributes a monthly magazine in pdf format, provides links to news stories and reviews
from around the world, and features a weekly CD review and a column by the gossipy,
razor-tongued London critic Norman Lebrecht. Don't be deterred by the cluttered design.
At: www.scena.org .
YouTube is terra incognita
for many classical types, but shouldn't be. On a recent visit, I watched Stravinsky
conduct "Firebird" and Elgar lead his "Pomp and Circumstance." ("Please play this tune
as if you've never heard it before," he says to the orchestra.) The copyright status of
such gems is often murky: see them while you can. At: www.youtube.com.
Larry Fuchsberg
Books: The inner circle
Book bloggers blog not just because they love to read, but also because they love to
write. The problem is that envy, jealousy and other (unedited) venal sins can creep in
and taint the medium, resulting in personality-driven diatribes. But some sites offer
substantive content for a wide range of readers. The National Book Critics Circle and its
venerable president, John Freeman, observe the highest possible standards. Go to the
site now, and you can read an interview with James Lee Burke on Katrina's impact on
writers or easily click your way around the global book world from well-selected links.
Others to check out are www.thebookbabes.com (consumer-friendly, pithy and timely
reviews), www.bookslut.com (great variety of reviews, columns and interviews) and
www.complete-review.com (amazingly comprehensive). At:
www.bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com .
Sarah T. Williams
Show tunes, a click away
Sure, musical-theater fanatics can get their daily doses of Broadway legend on YouTube
(my favorites include a grainy but thrilling Donna McKechnie from "A Chorus Line" and
Jennifer Holliday having a 'Screamgirls' meltdown in "Dreamgirls"). But searching
YouTube can be a drag, which is why I also bookmark Blue Gobo. Webmaster Jeremy
Aufderheide keeps the focus strictly on the pros -- in other words, no high school
sophomores belting "I'm Still Here" -- all neatly organized. With snippets from nearly 200
shows, the site's range is impressive, from the ubiquitous ("Cats") to the arcane ("Let it
Ride!"). Don't miss watching Savion Glover grow up on the Great White Way in a
dazzling triple-play (1984's "The Tap Dance Kid," 1989's "Black and Blue" and 1996's
"Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk"), ballerina Natalia Makarova putting a vampy spin
on "On Your Toes" and the hilarious Marilyn Cooper doing the impossible -- upstaging
Raquel Welch -- in "Woman of the Year." At: www.bluegobo.com.
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4. Bookmark City http://www.startribune.com/1526/v-print/story/1354460.html
Rick Nelson
© 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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