bell, curved

Commenter Roy links to a follow-up on the Joshua Bell article. The title of the post, by a subway musical saw player, says announces its flipped-perspective clearly: "Is Joshua Bell a good busker?". In any case, it's a welcome antidote to the "pearls before swine" view of most of the many, many comments appended to the original article. Take, for example, Friedlanderlaw's wisdom:

All cultural expression is NOT EQUAL. All cultures have an equal opportunity to produce works of genius, but all cultures do not produce it.

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I don't mean to keep on bringing up Metheny Mehldau, but I came across the mention that the album had sold 100,000 copies worldwide in six months.

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Has anyone ever listened to the New York Times's popcasts? Is it just me, or do written CD reviews sound particularly silly when read out loud?

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The Cinematic Orchestra is opposing the various forms of illegal file-sharing on its latest CD:

Before you copy, burn or upload these recordings please take a moment to think about what you're doing and what you're not doing. You are not 'sticking it to the man'. You are not 'striking a blow against outdated copyright laws'. You are not 'liberating content from the corporations'. Nor are you 'promoting our records for us'. You are making it much harder for the musicians in Cinematic Orchestra to make anything like a living wage for creating the music which is good enough to give to friends and associates.

The Guardian's Dorian Lynsky goes on to say that he knows "passionate music fans with decent wages who have never paid for a legal download and haven't bought an album in years." To me, that's wrong - people who are "passionate" and can afford to be, put their money where their ears are. Ninja Tune lose me when they say "by all means pirate the latest corporate spew from major central," though.