In the news

Gianmaria Testa's United States début was a great success. Here are concert reviews from the Los Angeles Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as well as my review from USItalia, which recently re-launched. If my review seems familiar, it's because my editor specifically requested a reworking of this post, given that he was putting together a spread devoted to Torino 2006. (*ka-ching!*)

Lisa and Steve offer links to and commentary on a recent New York Times piece that struck me as vile. The article is a tease, a heap of speculation, about the health of an artist who is described therein as "extremely private." If she is indeed battling cancer and opting to do so out of the public eye (as is her absolute right), to deny her that right seems to me the journalistic equivalent of rape.

If she had wanted to "share," she could have issued a statement, authorized associates to speak on her behalf, or (duh) started a blog. It's not as if she is, say, a commercial airline pilot, or a fictional President with MS, or a real-life President who is a drunk and a cokehead, in which case the public would have a compelling need to know about potential impairments. I don't see how such an article can do anything but compound the distress of a person who, one way or another, is ill.

Surely if "the community" had wanted to "express support," they could have written letters, sent brownies, said prayers, given tzedakah, whatever, instead of trumpeting this artist's presumed troubles to millions of people whom she clearly does not want involved in her personal affairs.

For my part, I wish her well and hope that she may be granted the space and time to deal with her challenges, whatever they may be, *precisely* as she chooses.

Comments

[M. C-]

aaaaaaaaMEIN, sistah. I was utterly disgusted by all that column space filled with useless, macabre speculation. I am glad you are calling them on it. Brava.