Artist, Critic, Beauty and Truth

How many times have you gone to the movies, or to an art exhibit or read a book and not really felt that you’ve completed the experience until you’ve talked about the movie or show or exhibit with someone else? Either the person you went with, or somebody who read or saw the same thing.

This is at once both the most primal of social media and also emphasizes the importance of opinion and criticism. Both give art context and, through the process of discussion or even argument, the ability to sort out, to understand and process what we saw.

This is and has been the job of critics and criticism in our society. In this why criticism is like legal thinking. It marshals and structures ideas, in ways that give art its power and forward thrust.

But in today's society, where everyone can have a platform, where our respect for expertise seems fragile at best, where the long tail of confirmation bias seems to drive everything from our politics, to musical and artistic taste, what role is there for the critic. This is what NY Times film critic A.O. Scott writes about in Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth

My conversation with A.O. Scott:

The Man Who Changed The Way We Eat

Restaurant reviews, foodies and food criticism have all become a major part of the culture. I sit here writing this, at the epicenter of American Food, Wine and Celebrity Chiefs. But this wasn't always the case. There was a time before food critics, before the rise of quality ethnic food, before celebrity, before Craig Claiborne came to the New York Times.

Craig Claiborne invented professional restaurant criticism, and was also the man who introduced the American palate to arugula, balsamic vinegar and chef's knives; leading us out of a vast culinary wasteland. Thomas McNamee, who previously wrote about Alice Waters, takes us inside The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance

My conversation with Thomas McNamee:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

The War Logs

Earlier this week we saw the release of some 92,000 reports that make up a six year archive of classified military documents.  These documents offer a raw picture of the nine year war in Afghanistan. While many have said these reports are but punctuation on what we already know, they paint a portrait far more damaging than anything we have hereto for been told by the administration or by the American military.

The documents were released though the controversial website WikiLeaks and released here in the US, exclusively to The New York Times. One of the lead journalists on the The New York Times team on this story, is two time Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Schmitt.

My conversation with Eric Schmitt:

Powered by Podbean.com

The responsibility of command

In the entire history of the US, only forty-four men have known exactly what it feels like to have the full weight of the nations security on their shoulders. Even fewer have assumed that mantel in a time of war.  As Barack Obama took office, the terrorist threat swirled around him. A year later, the failed Christmas day attack refocused Obama and the country on the threat of domestic terrorism.  Suddenly it wasn't just policy papers or briefings, but lives hung in the balance. N.Y. Times White House correspondent Peter Baker writes about this as the cover story in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

My conversation with Peter Baker:

Powered by Podbean.com