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Covering the expanse of arts featured in The Times, from orchestral music and museum exhibitions to video games and hip-hop, this Reader makes no hierarchical distinction between the pop arts and the fine arts. Don McLeese explores both critical essays and reviews (by genre) as well as profiles and trend pieces to help students sharpen their critical instincts. How we respond to the arts reveals as much about us individually as it does about the art being evaluated. Seasoned teacher McLeese, who has worked both as a critic covering a wide range of arts and as a magazine editor, adeptly weaves his insightful commentary to show there are no right or wrong opinions, just stronger and weaker arguments.

MORE ABOUT TimesCollege . . . a series from CQ Press
Whether it is the arts or science, medicine or business, you’ll find stories that inspire while providing readers an insider’s look into the rewards, challenges and everyday routines of beat reporting. The carefully selected pieces in each Reader cover the spectrum from news to features to analysis to blogs and other online innovations. Each volume also features these elements: 

• Conversations with Times writers take readers behind the scenes to learn about their goals for the beat and how they got their jobs, as well as practical nuts-and-bolts information on how they report and write for a global audience in the multimedia age.
• Story Scan disassembles stories into their component parts, labeling and analyzing the elements that make good beat stories work.
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Foreword by Scott Veale

Preface                                                          

Introduction                           
1.1 Video Game Review/Grand Theft Auto IV -- Grand Theft Auto Takes On New York                    

Seth Schiesel

1.2 Art/As Seen on Television: Sealed With a Simpson 

Roberta Smith

Part I - Opinion: Critical Essays and Reviews   

1. The keys to quality criticism           

1.1 Books of the Times -- First Time for Taxis, Lo Mein and Loss
Michiko Kakutani

StoryScan

2. Popular music   

2.1 Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist: 20-year old Singer Is Bright New Face at Gerde’s Club                         
Robert Shelton

2.2 The Rap Against Rockism    
Kelefa Sanneth

2.3 Pop: The Sugar Hill Gang                 
Robert Palmer

2.4 Pop Review – Pop Review; Suburban Listlessness As Caught by Green Day            
Jon Pareles

2.5 Critic’s Notebook – Critic’s Notebook; Pop Godmothers, Burnished by Experience
Ann Powers

2. 6 Three Faces of New York Rock: New York Rock             
John Rockwell

2.7 Critic’s Choice -- New CDs: Cassandra Wilson “Loverly”   
Ben Ratliff, Nate Chinen and Jon Caramanica

2.8 Music -- Songs from the Heart of a Marketing Plan  
Jon Pareles

A conversation with . . . Jon Pareles  

MakingConnections                

3. Classical music, opera and dance   

3.1 Connections -- Classical Music Imperiled: Can You Hear the Shrug?            
Edward Rothstein

3.2 Music Review/‘Satyagraha’ -- Fanciful Visions on the Mahatma’s Road to Truth and Simplicity                      
Anthony Tommasini

3.3 Music: Stravinsky, a Rare Bird Amid the Palms; A Composer in California, At Ease if Not at Home  
Bernard Holland

3.4 Dance Review -- What Audiences Haven’t Seen Before      
Alastair Macaulay

3.5 Dance Review/Los Vivancos -- They Are Men, Hear Them Roar (and Stomp, Tap, Break Dance and Pirouette)          
Alastair Macaulay

3.6 Tenor of the Times   
David Hajdu

3.7 Music -- In Charting Its Future, City Opera Chooses an Adventurous Path   
Anthony Tommasini

3.8 Mining Pop for Avant-Garde Inspiration                   
Allan Kozinn

MakingConnections                

4. Visual arts   

4.1 Art -- In the Gloom, Seeing Rembrandt With New Eyes       
Holland Cotter

4.2 Art Review – Art Review; In Joyous Colors, a Hint of Joys Lost      
Michael Kimmelman

4.3 Art Review/William Eggleston -- Old South Meets New, in Living Color       
Holland Cotter

           
4.4 Big but Not So Bold; Trade Center Towers Are Tallest, But Architecture Is Smaller Scale     Ada Louise Huxtable

4.5 An Appraisal -- A Tower of Impregnability, The Sort Politicians Love           
Nicolai Ouroussoff

4.6 Art Review/Roy Lichtenstein -- The Painter Who Adored Women   
Roberta Smith

4.7 Public Art, Eyesore to Eye Candy    
Roberta Smith

A conversation with . . . Roberta Smith  

MakingConnections                 

5. Theater         

5.1 Waiting for Godot                
Brooks Atkinson

5.2 Theater Review/'Waiting for Godot' -- Tramps for Eternity              
Ben Brantley

5.3 West Side Story      
Brooks Atkinson

5.4 ‘Utopia’ Is a Bore. There, I Said It  
Charles Isherwood

5.5 Stage: ‘Dreamgirls,’ Michael Bennet’s New Musical, Opens             
Frank Rich

5.6 Stage: ‘Moose Murders,’ A Brand of Whodunit                   
Frank Rich

5.7 Theater: ‘Private Lives,’ Burton and Miss Taylor      
Frank Rich

5.8 Again, for the First Time      
Ben Brantley

A conversation with . . . Ben Brantley           

MakingConnections                   

6. Film              

6.1 Defending Goliath: Hollywood and the Art of the Blockbuster           
Manohla Dargis

6.2 Film Review – Film Review; The Sorcerer’s Apprentice                   
Elvis Mitchell

6.3 Movie Review/’Star Wars’ -- A Trip to a Far Galaxy That's Fun and Funny             
Vincent Canby

6.4 The Godfather         
Vincent Canby

6.5 Orson Welles’s Controversial ‘Citizen Kane’ Proves a Sensational Film at Palace — “That Uncertain Feeling’ at Music Hall — ‘Great American Broadcast’ at Roxy       
Bosley Crowther

6.6 Bonnie and Clyde                
Bosley Crowther

6.7 Film – Film; You Won’t See My Detroit in the Movies         
Elvis Mitchell

6.8 Review/Film; On the Run with 2 Buddies And a Gun             
Janet Maslin

6.9 Film View -- Film View; Lay Off ‘Thelma and Louise’          
Janet Maslin

6.10 He Found a Bundle of Money, and Now There’s Hell to Pay         
A. O. Scott

StoryScan         

6.11 Critic’s Notebook -- Avast, Me Critics! Ye Kill the Fun: Critics and the Masses Disagree about Film Choices             
A. O. Scott

A conversation with . . . A.O. Scott   

MakingConnections                

7. Television                 

7.1 In the ‘24’ World, Family Is the Main Casualty        
Ginia Bellafante

7.2 The TV Watch -- Not Speaking for Obama, Pastor Speaks for Himself, at Length               
Alessandra Stanley

7.3 The TV Watch -- Gross Out and Knockoff, but Hardly Any Sendup            
Alessandra Stanley

7.4 TV Review/ ‘The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,’ -- ‘We’re not Dating’: A Morning Show With Sex on the Brain            
Virginia Heffernan

7.5 Addicted to a Mob Family Potion                
Caryn James

7.6 Reporter’s Notebook -- American Idolatry: If Only Reality Were This Well Organized         
Edward Wyatt

7.7 Elvis Presley: Lack of Responsibility Is Shown by TV in Exploring Teen-Agers         
Jack Gould

MakingConnections   

8. Books           

8.1 Books of the Times -- Beloved, by Toni Morrison    
Michiko Kakutani

8.2 Essay -- In Search of the Best           
A. O. Scott

8.3 Essay -- Beyond Criticism   
Sam Tanenhaus

8.4 Books of the Times -- Post 9/11, a New York of Gatsby-Size Dreams and Loss       
Michiko Kakutani

8.5 Books of the Times -- A Pynchonesque Turn by Pynchon    
Michiko Kakutani

8.6 Books of the Times -- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov  
Orville Prescott

8.7 Aw, the World’s a Crumby Place                
James Stern

8.8 Books of the Times -- Story of an Unfinished Story    
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

8.9 Not Funnies              
Charles McGrath

8.10 Critic’s Notebook -- Bending the Truth in a Million Little Ways      
Michiko Kakutani

8.11 Books of the Times -- Unraveling the Labyrinthine Life of a Magical Realist             
Janet Maslin

8.12 Books of the Times/’One Shot’ -- Action Hero Travels Light and Often Takes the Bus       
Janet Maslin

A conversation with . . . Janet Maslin           

MakingConnections                   

Part II - Reportage - Profiles and Trend Pieces

9. Profiles 

9.1 The Music Man        
Lynn Hirschberg

9.2 A Higher Calling      
Lynn Hirschberg

9.3 At the Met With: Cindy Sherman; Portraitist In the Halls Of Her Artistic Ancestors   
Michael Kimmelman

9.4 Music; Down From the Mountain, Singing With More Serenity          
Ann Powers

StoryScan         

9.5 Myths, Dreams, Realities–Sam Shepard’s America  
Michiko Kakutani

9.6 Television – Television; How Does Seinfeld Define Comedy? Reluctantly      
Glenn Collins

9.7 Film -- Mike Nichols, Master of Invisibility   
Charles McGarth

9.8 Yale Senior, A Vietnam Memorial and a Few Ironies            
B. Drummond Ayres Jr.

MakingConnections                 

10. Trend Pieces    

10.1 Are Book Reviewers Out of Print?              
Motoko Rich

10.2 Radiohead to Let Fans Decide What to Pay for Its New Album      
Jeff Leeds

10.3 The Media Equation -- Live Music Thrives as CDs Fade     
David Carr

10.4 Will Theater in Los Angeles Fade to White?            
Margo Jefferson

10.5 When Reality TV Gets Too Real    
Jeremy W. Peters

10.6 How Inner Torment Feeds the Creative Spirit         
Samuel G. Freedman

MakingConnections                

Epilogue: How publication in The New York Times changed my career          

Three-Chord Music in a Three-Piece Suit          
Don McLeese

StoryScan      

Don McLeese has been an award-winning critic of the popular arts at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Austin American-Statesman, and has written for dozens of national publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone (where he was a frequent contributor and columnist), the Oxford American, Entertainment Weekly, salon.com, and many others. He is the author of Kick Out the Jams and has contributed to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone’s The Decades of Rock & Roll, The Encyclopedia of Chicago History, The Best of No Depression: Writing About American Music, the Country Music Foundation’s Country on Compact Disc and its Encyclopedia of Country Music. He is associate professor of journalism at the University of Iowa, where his courses include arts and culture journalism.

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