BY BEN WINTERS
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Most people were still too busy discussing Halle Berry’s ululations and Gwyneth Paltrow’s breasts to notice the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes on April 8; but Andrea Peyser of the New York Post was paying attention, and she was less than pleased. Why? Because the Pulitzer committee gave the award for news photography to the New York Times, dissing the famous shot of three NYC fireman raising the Stars and Stripes over the World Trade Center site. That firemen photo was taken by a guy from the New Jersey Record named Thomas Franklin, and published (of all places) on the front page of the New York Post.
Calling Franklin’s shot "the first great photograph of the 21st century," and noting that it’s been compared to the iconic photograph of the marines at Iwo Jima, Peyser’s April 9 column derided the Pulitzer committee as a bunch of leftist hacks. "Yesterday, the Pulitzer for the year’s best spot-news photography was awarded to the dependably politically correct New York Times," she fumed. "Was it the American flag that spooked the current gaggle of Pulitzer committee members? Or was it that the firemen were all white guys?"
One hopes Peyser is not as annoyed that, for the first time ever, the winner of the Pulitzer for Drama was neither white nor a guy: Susan-Lori Parks, an African-American, got her prize on the day her play, Topdog/Underdog, opened on Broadway. Ticket sales spiked accordingly. But Peyser’s fellow Postie, theatre columnist Michael Riedel, pointed out that a Pulitzer does not a hit show make—as he made clear by comparing the financial status of the well-reviewed but cash poor Topdog with the critically loathed The Graduate, which has earned the largest advance for a straight play in Broadway history. In said column, Reidel joined his colleague in spitting in the eye of the PC police, saying of Graduate star Kathleen Turner that she looks "so much like a linebacker, she should be wearing a number."
ORE-GONE CRAZY!
The Pulitzers weren’t the only awards dogged by controversy recently; so, too, was the creative writing contest sponsored by the Willamette Week, an alternative weekly paper in Oregon. Arts & Culture editor Caryn Brooks tapped local authors to join her in judging the competition, and they agreed, albeit with the crazy idea that their opinions would be honored. But when it came time for the awarding of garlands in the fiction category, Brooks discarded their assessment, giving top honors and the $250 prize to a story the judges had written off. The aftermath included a nasty column about Brooks in another Oregon paper (The Portland Observer), and, in the Week, a heated letter-to-the-editor from the scorned judges.
"After independently comparing our scores, we have come to the conclusion that the scoring was weighted so heavily to favor Willamette Week’s judge, Caryn Brooks, as to amount to a selection by fiat," wrote the unhappy literarti, Myrlin Hermes, Kief Hillsbery, and Jody Seay, all published novelists. "In particular, the first-place story, 'Creative Thought 414’ received such low marks from the two independent judges scoring it…it appears our input was discounted entirely."
In the same issue of the Week, Brooks published her response, arguing incompetence ("This is the first time WW’s current arts staff has put on a writing contest. We had no idea what to expect, and we definitely approached things slapdash"), and, conversely, omniscience ("Besides me, none of the judges read all the submissions, nor did any of the judges read the same exact group of finalists"). The best part of the whole sordid affair is Brooks’ back-handed compliment to one of the angry judges, "Myrlin Hermes (with whom, by the way, I enjoyed working when she was an intern at Willamette Week last spring)…"
PJ O’FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE
There are certain cultural critics who take extra pleasure in setting their sights on sacred cows. The targets of Vanity Fair/Nation stalwart Christopher Hitchens, for example, have included Henry Kissinger and Mother Theresa. Noted satirist P.J. O’Rourke found plenty to note and satirize in the text of a plea for compassion towards the world’s unfortunates from 110 Nobel laureates, released last December (on the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize) and simply titled "Statement-the Next Hundred Years." In the March issue of Atlantic Monthly, O’Rourke reprints the entire text of the Nobelists’ call-to-put-down-arms, breaking in every sentence or so to richly mock the smart kids.
Laureates: "The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world’s dispossessed."
O’Rourke: "'Irrational’ is an interesting word choice. Aren’t Nobel Prize winners supposed to understand how rationalization works? Maybe they mean 'bad.’"
By way of conclusion, O’Rourke casts aspersions on past literature winners ("Ernest Hemingway but not James Joyce? Toni Morrison but not John Updike? Dario Fo? Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf?"), lists the suspicious characters among the Nobelists for Peace (Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres, Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho), and adds "for all I know, the lists of prizewinners in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics are just as wack."
SF CHRONICLE ARTICLE ON COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
In his April 8 San Francisco Chronicle article about a proposed law meant to prevent against file-sharing technology, Benny Evangelista quotes California Senator Dianne Feinstein: "Peer-to-peer file-sharing programs like Morpheus allow 'you to almost instantly copy a movie or compact disc,’ [Feinstein says.] 'This is such a violation of patent rights that it could destroy the entire recording and movie industry unless there is some copyright protection involved,’ she said."
And if America’s 12-18 year olds were reading the San Francisco Chronicle that day, they’d all be saying, duh. What Feinstein doesn’t get—unlike any high school kid with an iPod and BearShare—is that the music and movie industries as we know them have long since entered twilight time. But here comes "The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act of 2002, introduced by Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.," as reported by Evangelista. The new measure "would give the entertainment and technology industries up to 18 months to agree to a technological standard that would halt the spread of unauthorized copying of digital video and audio."
Good luck, Ernie.