BS Review: Real World Series Is Cubs-Angels!

We’re all pumped for tonight’s Game 5 1/2, no? The Phillies only have to outscore the Rays over 3 1/2 innings — the Phils even get one more time at-bat — and they’re World Series champs.

Yes, we are this close to a professional sports title in this town. For years we’ve had to settle for celebrations after minor league hockey and indoor lacrosse wins. We’ve had to settle for indoor soccer titles in a league that no longer exists, though I’m happy to report that not only have the Kixx found a new league that begins play next month but they also helped Kyle Korver set a new world record for longest kickball game ever. We’ve had to settle for a USFL title.

And, so, the Phillies are now just 2 half-innings, a God Bless America/seventh inning stretch combo, and 4 more half-innings away from a World Series title. Natually, then, it’s time for the Broad Street Review to complain about baseball’s current playoff system.

BSR Editor Dan Rottenberg’s writes about the old days of baseball, where there were eight teams in each league and the one with the top record moved on to the World Series. Then the league added some teams in the 60s — such a turbulent era in every aspect of American life! — and eventually split into divisions. And now it’s the two teams with the top record in each league don’t get to meet in the World Series anymore! This means the Phillies’ possible impending World Championship isn’t as awesome as it would have been in, say, 1950, when baseball was real and black players were a newfangled introduction to the sport.

The time this change-over took place? Why, 1969, the first year of divisional play. At the time, Albert Barnes was a 15-year-old building a house or something in the suburbs. More »

Broad Street Review Doesn’t Mince Words

When the Broad Street Review writes about art, we get Hitler and slavery references. When the Broad Street Review writes about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, as Reed Stevens did today, we get comparisons to Juno (obviously) and calling her future child “essentially unwanted.”

Then, this to end:

Yes, Granny knows there are worse problems. Children are starving because resources are scarce. We don’t need more children; we need to love the ones we’ve got at home and around the world. Put a fucking sock on it, Bristol and Juno. Until you understand resource management, you are expensive, selfish sluts. Your parents are fools.

And you have no story to tell your daughters.

She knows the one (Juno, I think) is a fictional character, right? I’m really happy somebody just came right out and called Bristol Palin a selfish slut. Thanks, Reed Stevens, for brightening up everyone’s Wednesday.

A Few Questions for Bristol Palin [Broad Street Review]
Thanks, RJ

Barnes Backers Dead Serious About It

Although the Barnes Foundation is pretty much set to move to Philadelphia — at this rate, I expect it to be in Philly just in time for the tricentennial — those rapscallions at Broad Street Review are still protesting the move.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but apparently people are writing letters to editor Dan Rottenberg — or stopping him on the street, maybe — saying it’s a done deal so his publication should stop writing about it. Let’s take a look:

Why debate moving the Barnes Foundation? It’s a done deal! But so were slavery, segregation and the Soviet Union, once upon a time.

I expect future columns in the BSR on why the United States should not re-instate slavery. And maybe we can get some sort of “underground railroad” to sneak the Barnes paintings back to the suburbs.

‘It’s a done deal’ [Broad Street Review]

Bodies, Bodies Everywhere

The Broad Street Review has a new piece about Bodies… The Exhibition, and if you’re wondering if the author has confused Body Worlds with the knock-off, you’re in luck: It appears he has.

You’ll also no doubt note there is a reference to the Nazis in the second paragraph. This is a journal of arts and culture, after all! “It did not reassure me that the show’s promoter is a German. Displaying corpses in amusing poses, with witty props and paraphernalia, put me in mind of Nazi lampshades made out of human skin.” Yeah, way to not hold that exhibition, Franklin Institute. (If you’re wondering, Body Worlds was run by a German; Bodies… The Exhibition was run by Premier Exhibitions, Inc., an Atlanta-based company.

Finally, Somebody With Some Guts

About effing time.

Can we get real, please, about Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand? [Broad Street Review]

Your Insta-Updated Hitler Scorecard

Who knew that the exact same day as my Broad Street Review Hitler reference scorecard there would be another one to write about?

“The Contemporaries, as they called themselves, were a lively group, stimulating each other to experiment with new modes of expression and enriched by the artist refugees fleeing Europe and Hitler.” Anne Fabbri, art review, Feb. 19. Rating: One Godwin. Fair reference in this review of the new Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Art Museum.

Come on, guys, this is getting a little too sensible. Can’t you call the Kimmel Center design “worse than Hitler’s sense of style” or something?

Hitler Continuing To Make Pages Of Phila. Arts & Culture Journals

Since Hitler came up twice this morning, I figured I’d take a look at everyone’s favorite Hitler-referencing publication was doing. The Broad Street Review has a handy search function; so far in 2008, Hitler has been referenced five times. It’s only February 19!

I gotta keep a running tally. Here’s the current score, with ratings measured in Godwins:

• “It’s astonishing, watching The Rape of Europa in a Philadelphia theater, to think that one of the world’s great collections of art is endangered in our own community by the sort of arrogance that Hitler and Goering displayed in extremis more than 60 years ago.” Robert Zoller, movie review. Rating: Four Reverse Godwins. Movie is about the Nazis’ art destruction, but is compared to the Barnes Museum’s Parkway relocation.
• “When he started the composition, Americans didn’t yet know of Hitler’s systematic plan to kill all the Jews.” Steve Cohen, review of Philadelphia orchestra, Jan. 22. Rating: One Godwin. Referenced in a play about Jews.
• “In words and pictures alike (for Miller had become a published journalist as well as a photographer), she documented the flaming end of Adolf Hitler’s dream.” Andrew Mangravite, photography review, Jan 27. Rating: One Godwin. The artist photographed hitler.
• “Conversely, the French tradition of rigorous critical analysis is actually an excuse for inaction— a good thing in some instances (the French avoided our current Iraq trap) and a bad thing in others (the French failed to stand up aggressively to Hitler).” Dan Rottenberg, play review. Rating: Two Godwins. Eh, he coulda done without the Hitler reference, but it’s not too bad.
• “My parents, born in 1916 and 1917, were the exact contemporaries of Arthur Miller and his fictitious Victor Franz. They belonged to the so-called “Greatest Generation,” the one that licked both the Great Depression and Hitler.” Rottenberg, play review. Rating: Two Godwins. The same applies here.

I’ll try to keep updating this as the references roll in; there are more on the letters page!

Broad Street Review Back On The Nazi Beat

Never more have I been convinced the Broad Street Review is a parody of a cultural criticism website (sort of like a refined The Onion with McSweeney’s) than when I read this article comparing the moving of the Barnes Foundation to the Nazis stealing art. Bravo, good sirs.

Checking In On The Culture Scene Echo Chamber

The Broad Street Review, the online complaining about the Barnes Foundation journal, recently updated, according to an email I got earlier today. This reminded me about Dan Coren’s review of electronic music, where he attended the Electro-Music Festival in Cheltenham. Or, rather, he was going to, but:

We figured we’d take in the Sunday session. Alas, the Fates had other ideas. While dressing on Saturday morning, I got my foot caught in the leg of my underwear and hopped left when I should have gone right, throwing my back into spasms beyond anything I’d experienced in years. As soon as it happened, I knew I was in for a weekend of three-I’s time— ice packs, Ibuprofen and immobility.

Fortunately, he was able to watch online and write the article anyway. Whoo!

After the jump, comparisons of the Barnes Foundation move to slavery and the death of Jesus. Double whoo!

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Nazis Infiltrating City’s Classical Music Scene

Dan Rottenberg’s arts-and-culture online magazine, Broad Street Review, is quickly becoming a daily read for anyone interested in the Telenova-like plotlines of classical music aficionados, i.e. “Please tell Mr. Zaller, that Christoph Eschenbach has been sacked for crimes too egregious to enumerate.”

But, recently, I keep seeming to see references to Nazis in what one might assume was relatively a Nazi-free zone (the Philadelphia arts and culture scene).

Editor Rottenberg:

The power of critics to make or break performers is vastly overrated. Eschenbach is a big boy who’s been through a lot worse than bad reviews. He was left a speechless orphan at age five after witnessing the death of his grandmother and great-grandmother, for goodness’ sake. If after surviving the Nazis he can’t handle hostile critics wielding pens, he has no business conducting a major-league orchestra.

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