Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Are NYT Critics Losing It? Ratliff Mistakes Trombone For Trumpet, Pareles Gets A Song Wrong, And Stanley Hears "Oddball" As "Awful."

Of course we all know that any critic can occasionally get it wrong.

But from the string of flubs in today's NYT corrections column, it would appear that the NYT's aging team of arts critics might be having some trouble following along with the art forms they're paid to cover.

According to the corrections:

-- In a critic's notebook on a 92nd Street Y performance last week, Ben Ratliff mistook a for a trombone for a trumpet.

-- In a review of Keith Jarrett's Sunday Carnegie Hall concert, Jon Pareles misheard an encore as the song "Someone To Watch Over Me." (The song was actually "Someday My Prince Will Come.")

-- In her Tuesday Golden Globes recap, Alessandra Stanley mistakenly quoted Christian Bale referring to the "awful characters" who make up the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Actually, he called them "oddball characters."

Okay, so we'll be the first to admit that sometimes we find ourselves saying "huh?" in our Broadway balcony seats, or turning up the sound full blast when the characters on "Modern Family" mutter under their breath.

But it may be time for NYT critics to step it up a notch -- the volume, that is.

Maybe we're being a little greedy this morning -- the jet lag, and all -- but we're counting on the NYT's highly-paid, experienced team of arts critics to tell the difference between musical instruments, name tunes properly, and get the words right on television shows.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Er, assume you know by now that the nytpicker itself screwed up the correction to the jarrett piece...

Anonymous said...

http://ihatenyt.com/