Kerraway » United States

Peter Mandelson and Mark Twain

Michael Kerr — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:32:25 +0000

To the English-Speaking Union last night, after a day in which Peter Mandelson’s score-settling memoirs had been causing ructions in the Labour Party. The occasion was an evening dedicated to Mark Twain, to mark the release of his unexpurgated autobiography and its serialisation in Granta. The Canadian actor Kerry Shale, doing the readings, was thoroughly convincing in voicing both Huck Finn and Twain himself, while Twain’s role in American literature was discussed by John Freeman, editor of Granta, the playwright and critic Bonnie Greer, and Robert McCrum, associate editor of the Observer. Parts of the autobiography have appeared before, but Twain himself insisted that much of his most acerbic opinions on American life and politics be cut lest they damage his reputation. He effectively embargoed the work for a century. “Perhaps,” McCrum suggested, “Peter Mandelson should have done the same.”

Sam Cooke on the campaign trail

Michael Kerr — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 10:03:42 +0000

Music to lift the tone of an election campaign? Laura Barton, in her Hail, Hail, Rock’n'Roll column in The Guardian yesterday, suggested Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ and Robert Wyatt’s Shipbuilding (with music by Clive Langer and lyrics by Elvis Costello). I’d add Sam Cooke’s contribution to the Civil Rights struggle, which itself was inspired by Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind: A Change Is Gonna Come.

New York in miniature

Michael Kerr — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:26:06 +0000

Sam O’Hare wanted to show “the rhythms, pulses and movements” of a day in the life of New York, so he combined 35,000 still photographs, shot from rooftops, penthouses and balconies, into a single film. Watch out for the diggers, which seem less like machines than greedily pecking mini-dinosaurs. For all the technical details, see his Aéro Film blog.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Tiger Woods and a touch of restraint

Michael Kerr — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:03:45 +0000

You can still rely on The New York Times not to get carried away. Here’s a headline from today’s paper:

Web Site for Woods Is Drawing Attention
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Tiger Woods’s personal Web site has had an increase in visitors since he issued a statement about his car accident on Nov. 29.

Not a betting man, but still a winner

Michael Kerr — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:18:35 +0000

Lovely story in the New York Times today about a man who has earned half a million dollars over the past 10 years in the betting shops of Manhattan. But he’s not a bookie or a punter. He’s a stooper: he picks up the betting slips that others have thrown away.

Autumn in pictures

Michael Kerr — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:56:25 +0000

Boston.com, the website of the Boston Globe, has a great set of pictures on the theme of autumn.

Obama knows what he’s talking about

Michael Kerr — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:07:02 +0000

What a refreshing response from Obama! The US president was asked yesterday why it had taken him a couple of days to condemn executives of the insurance firm AIG for taking bonuses after ruining the company. He answered: “It took a couple of days because I like to know what I am talking about before I speak.” We in the media might learn from that. Reporters might be more fulfilled if they were allowed to be more considered; if they were asked to do less but do it better; if they were encouraged to exercise judgment about what really counts. But it won’t happen, of course, when the demand is for ever more “content” delivered ever faster. So on we’ll twitter.

Bags of artistry

Michael Kerr — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:15:17 +0000

Did you recycle carrier bags and bin bags in 2008? How? By using them twice or three times instead of once? You weren’t really trying. Look what Joshua Allen Harris, a New York artist, does with his:

All the news that’s fit to make up

Michael Kerr — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:07:12 +0000

The freshest news in New York today was not on TV, radio or the upstart web but in the inky pages of The New York Times. Maybe that alone should have tipped off commuters who were given free copies of the paper at some of the city’s busiest stations. “IRAQ WAR ENDS” said the splash. Also on the front were reports that George W Bush had been indicted on treason charges, that oil companies had been nationalised and that a free health service was being set up. The date at the top: Saturday, July 4th, 2009. Responsibility for the the elaborate spoof, with accompanying website, has been claimed — according to the real NY Times — by a group of liberal pranksters known as the Yes Men. One of the best — if least believable — bits was the corrections column, in which the Times castigated itself for its pandering to politicians and big business, promised never to review another new car, and declared that “no newspaper should concern itself with maximising profits”.

Flying start for traffic controllers

Michael Kerr — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:32:10 +0000

Think about this next time you’re on a plane coming into land in the US: there is such a shortage of air traffic controllers that the authorities are ”accelerating” the training of new ones, according to The New York Times. The good news: they start on a simulator — what one instructor describes as “a big Xbox”. And the bad? When they begin their apprenticeships in a real control tower they have to shift gears because “they’ve been kind of desensitised to the fact they’re actually dealing with real traffic.”