Inundated
Islands
of Former Quality
 Steinway. The keyboard action is still the standard
of the world. The tone has over the past half-century become so piercing as to be shrill,
at times slopping over into downright tinny.
PBS.
Need we say more.
The
Bulls. A tear, please, for absent and departed friends.
IMAX.
Having worked their way up to near- mass- market, IMAX is now turning out cookie-cutter
mid-to-low-quality big-screen theaters. Take ear plugs, and just hope that the projector
is having a good day.
Rolls
Royce. It was mostly hype anyway. Now the hype has come home to roost. Compared
to an off-the-shelf Lexus, a Rolls comes in a weak second in any category you care to
name, except that of hood ornaments. The amazing thing is, the hood ornament is worth
$300,000 to some people.
NASA.
The
Novel, a.k.a., Serious Fiction. When was the last time the earth moved for you as
you read a new novel?
Bob
Dylan.
France.
Germany.
Italy.
In
fact, all of Europe, fast becoming a kind of World-of-Yesterday Disneyland.
Alfred
Knopf Publishing.
China.
A great culture whose creativity has been reduced to that involved in the culinary arts.
The New
Yorker, of course.
Monterrey,
CA, and environs. Cliff-to-cliff SUV’s. Big Sur is now Big Blur.
Car and
Driver Magazine. What used to be a hip, beautifully written, carefully edited
voice of car culture is now megacorp pablum.
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