Remembering Peter Schjeldahl a Consummate Critic HEAD TOPICS

Remembering Peter Schjeldahl a Consummate Critic

10/22/2022 6:51:00 AM

A voice is what he always had distinct clear funny A poet s voice—epigrammatic nothing wasted

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The New Yorker

Peter Schjeldahl, who died on Friday, wrote for The New Yorker for more than two decades. “A voice is what he always had: distinct, clear, funny,” David Remnick writes. “A poet’s voice—epigrammatic, nothing wasted.” A voice is what he always had distinct clear funny A poet s voice—epigrammatic nothing wasted Save this story for later.Sometimes a writer, an artist, a human being is so defiant of mortality that you begin to take him at his word. Just a few weeks ago, Peter Schjeldahl, who has beenThe New Yorker’sart critic for a generation, handed in a review of a newly translated biography, by Hans Janssen, of the Dutch modernist Piet Mondrian. To Peter’s mind, Mondrian and Picasso were the “twin groundbreakers of twentieth-century European pictorial art: Picasso the greatest painter who modernized picture-making, and Mondrian the greatest modernizer who painted.” In this longish essay (longish for Peter, more a sprinter than a miler), he is at his very best—his most incisive, insistent, and personal: Read more:
The New Yorker » 'Voice biomarker' tech analyzes your voice for signs of depression Interview: Elizabeth Lail on the Themes of Mack & Rita and Voice Acting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Google again, this time over facial recognition and voice data Rest in Power: Loretta Lynn—A Legend, an Icon, a Voice for All Women

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The series returns to Philadelphia tied up 1-1. Read more >> RIP Mr. Peter Schjeldahl! RIP. Such an amazing writer and seer. Loved reading him. Condolences to his family, friends, colleagues. May peace be his destination. ring wear solve Master Classes 'Voice biomarker' tech analyzes your voice for signs of depressionCan you *sound* depressed? Yes, according to proponents of 'voice biomarker technology' — which they say can detect mental health problems by analyzing speech. Immediately my brain is having flashbacks to the notes in my chart when I was -inpatient- for mental health treatment that the doctor 'didn't think I looked depressed' Isn't that gonna put a lot of moms outa business? Interview: Elizabeth Lail on the Themes of Mack & Rita and Voice ActingComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Elizabeth Lail, who plays Mack in this year's comedy film Mack & Rita. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Google again, this time over facial recognition and voice dataTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google claiming the search giant violated Texans' privacy without getting their consent to do so. The five recessions we’ve experienced since 1980 have all been under Republican presidents: Reagan (1981-82), George H.W. Bush (1990-91), George W. Bush (2007-09; inherited by Obama in 2008) and the 2020 recession, which happened under Trump. Smh… Sounds like someone’s on that stuff and just being paranoid over social media stuff.. So “Texans” instead of just him are feeling like that huh? Hmmm… ok whatever Paxton Rest in Power: Loretta Lynn—A Legend, an Icon, a Voice for All WomenWhen country music star Loretta Lynn died on Oct. 4, the world lost a powerful voice—not only due to Lynn's divine musicality and acclaim in the realm of country music, but because of her genuine ability to portray the intimate thoughts and frustrations of women of her time. Texas accuses Google of collecting people's facial and voice data without their consentTexas is suing Google, claiming the internet company illegally collects facial and voice-recognition data on millions of residents of the state without their consent Texas sues Google for privacy violations over biometric dataTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday sued Google, alleging it violated privacy laws by illegally capturing and using the biometric data of millions of Texans' without their informed consent for almost a decade. Save Story Save this story for later.respiratory ailments such as COVID-19, asthma and COPD.October 20, 2022 (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for NeueHouse) ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Elizabeth Lail, who plays Mack in this year’s comedy film Mack & Rita .The suit claims Google collected millions of biometric identifiers, like voices and face geometry, through apps like Google Photos. Sometimes a writer, an artist, a human being is so defiant of mortality that you begin to take him at his word. Just a few weeks ago, Peter Schjeldahl, who has been The New Yorker’s art critic for a generation, handed in a review of a newly translated biography, by Hans Janssen, of the Dutch modernist Piet Mondrian. "Their speech is generally more monotone, flatter and softer," she said. To Peter’s mind, Mondrian and Picasso were the “twin groundbreakers of twentieth-century European pictorial art: Picasso the greatest painter who modernized picture-making, and Mondrian the greatest modernizer who painted. “When 30-year-old self-proclaimed homebody Mack Martin reluctantly joins a Palm Springs bachelorette trip for her best friend Carla, her inner 70-year-old is released — literally,” reads the synopsis.” In this longish essay (longish for Peter, more a sprinter than a miler), he is at his very best—his most incisive, insistent, and personal: Critical attention to him may rise and fall." How it works: Unlike Siri and Alexa, vocal biomarker systems analyze how you talk — prosody, intonation, pitch, etc. For anyone undertaking to pay it, though, there can be no ups or downs in Mondrian’s importance, relative to other artists past, present, and to come. There is only a steady state of inexhaustible meaning, beggaring comparison and defying definition. Your voice sample is run through a machine-learning model that uses a capacious database of anonymized voices for comparison. A sparkling comedy with a magical twist, Mack & Rita celebrates being true to yourself at any age. Even the critically consummate Janssen, with his magnum opus of a biography, can merely dance around, and not penetrate, the adamantine conundrum of the Dutch magus’s dead stops in lived time. As we were going to press this Friday, word came that Peter had died. That figure comes from comparing the results of Kintsugi's tech to a mental health professional's clinical assessment. It’s hard to imagine what he must have summoned to write like that in his last weeks. What about that theme really hit home with you and made you wanna be a part of this? Elizabeth Lail: Oh my goodness. In 2019, Peter learned that he had advanced lung cancer. Before it's activated, patients are asked if they consent to having their voice analyzed for health screening purposes. He had started smoking when he was sixteen. When I asked if he was going to give up the habit at last, he said, “I’ve smoked a million cigarettes, and I’ve enjoyed every one. Where it stands: Kinsugi is seeking Food and Drug Administration clearance for its product to become a recognized diagnostic tool. I resonated with … Mack really hides herself; she hides what she wants, what she needs, what she loves, in order to be easy and accommodating and fit in.” The wisecrack became part of a routine, a performance of insouciant defiance, and then part of an entirely serious philosophy. “I know about ending a dependency,” he wrote in his essay “77 Sunset Me,” published not long after he received the diagnosis. "We are an early warning system — we are not a diagnostic device," Sonde CEO David Liu tells Axios. “I’m an alcoholic twenty-seven years sober. Her career opens up, her love life opens up, and she realizes how important her friendships are. Drink was destroying my life. "From a few seconds of 'ahhh. Tobacco only shortens it, with the best parts over anyway.” Even if you were prepared to argue the logic of this, you weren’t going to get anywhere.. What really impressed me is that the film doesn’t really work if you and Diane Keaton aren’t really giving off the same energy, but you really do. Peter was a man of well-developed opinions, on art and much else. He was someone who, after being lost for a time, knew some things about survival. Yes, but: Skepticism and ethical questions surround voice biomarker tech, which observers describe as promising but not foolproof — and ripe for potential misuse. We met more than twenty years ago. I didn’t wanna do like, a straight imitation of her, but that’s exactly what I wanted it to be, was more of an energy and essence. I was looking to hire a full-time art critic. "Better ethical and technical standards are required for this research to fully realize the potential for vocal biomarkers in the early detection of disease. I’d read him for years in the Village Voice . And a voice is what he always had: distinct, clear, funny. They would send me the dailies of the scenes from the movie and I would just keep checking back with Katie [Aselton], our director, and we would think of hand gestures and “isms” that she has that we could sprinkle out throughout my performance. A poet’s voice—epigrammatic, nothing wasted. We got together at the office on a Saturday in late summer. Someone had shut off the building’s air-conditioning. [laughs]. Peter was pale, rivulets of sweat running down his face. I asked about an empty interval of time on his résumé. “Well, I was a falling-down drunk back then. Oh my goodness, she’s so incredible. Then I fixed that.” He was harder on himself than he would be on any artist. Don’t misunderstand: in the many years of his writing for The New Yorker , Peter was perfectly willing to give a bad show a bad review, and there were some artists he was just never going to love—Turner and Bacon among them—but he was openhearted, he knew how to praise critically, and, to the end, he was receptive to new things, new artists. Every take is different. His list of favorites was vast: Velázquez, Goya, Rembrandt, Cindy Sherman, David Hammons, Martin Puryear, Rachel Harrison, Laura Owens. He took his work seriously—despite the cascades of self-deprecation, there were times when I think he knew how good he was—but he was never self-serious. He once won a grant to write a memoir. I hope to turn into her one day for real. He used the money to buy a tractor. “Well, it will just have to wait.” . Oh, thank you.