Drug Pushers

Just who is this woman with the strawberry locks and the glowing smile? She starts to sing and her workstation magically parts to reveal a chorus line of co-workers who turn their florescent-lit row of cubicles into a pizzazz-y production number—Busby Berkeley for insurance adjusters.

Did The Office produce an musical episode? Is How to Succeed in Business… back on Broadway? Has Kevin from accounting finally given in to his show-biz aspirations and staged a “little something” for the annual office party?

As any regular TV watcher knows, this extravaganza is an ad for Jardiance, or more precisely, “JARDIANCE® (empagliflozin tablets), for oral use.” And if it is familiar, that’s probably because C.H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co KG, the company who makes Jardiance, spent over $100 million last year to make sure you know to “ask your doctor,” about this medication.

I don’t have Type-2 diabetes, the condition often treated with Jardiance, but I’m not sure how I’d feel if my medical condition turned into a jazz-hands, song and dance. But this is the way it’s done these days. Strange, futuristic names—Verzenio, Vyvgart, Eloquis, Eylea-HD, Dupixent—intoned over shiny happy people hiking, barbecuing, stargazing and celebrating birthdays.

And while we’re watching these joyful scenes, we also hear the ominous, FDA-required warnings about each drug, which “may cause” everything from “life threatening lung inflammation“ to “unexpected bleeding or bruising” to “serious liver problems.”

According to a Johns Hopkins study from 2023, the United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world that allow this direct to consumer advertising. The same study found that 68 percent of the top selling prescription drugs “were rated as offering low added benefit.” But that doesn’t stop the drug companies from singing their praises (literally). By one estimate, U.S. drug manufacturers spend around $1.1 billion per month promoting and marketing their drugs. Only tech companies spend more.

That seems like an awful lot of money just to remind people to “ask their doctor.”

Out of the Picture

It’s no secret that arts journalism has been transformed in recent years. Or at least it’s no secret to me, a “former” arts journalist. Most people would say it hasn’t been changed for the better. The economic challenges have forced newspapers and magazines to gut their newsrooms and editorial offices. Arts journalists of all stripes—covering music, theater, visual art, dance, architecture—have been laid off by the hundreds. Online publications have stepped in. Some have survived due to the dedication and tenacity of editors and writers who believe in their mission.

What is that mission? I like the description I heard in Out of the Picture, Mary Louise Schumacher’s documentary exploration of visual arts journalism: “They help us think together about what matters.”

She knows the landscape. Schumacher was the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel art critic from 2001-2019, and in recent years she has explored other ways to help people think together about art and visual culture. Out of the Picture is a wide-ranging exploration of the changes in the field, featuring interviews with a host of arts critics and writers. A handful are still employed full-time at “legacy” media—Roberta Smith at the New York Times, Christopher Knight at the Los Angeles Times—but the most compelling stories come from others: Hrag Vartanian, who cofounded the online arts magazine Hyperallergic; Carolina Miranda, the former Los Angeles Times columnist who is charting a new direction after accepting a buyout from the paper earlier this year; Pulitzer Prize nominee Jen Graves, a former critic with Seattle’s The Stranger, who left the paper after it drastically reduced its staff. Devastated, Graves took a job cleaning offices for a time. One of the film’s most moving scenes shows the moment when describes her return to writing: “This was me,” she says. “It wasn’t a job. This was me.”

Out of the Picture is savvy and deep look into contemporary culture and media and a beautiful tribute to the people who believe that art matters. Schumacher will be present for a Q&A at the final screening at the Milwaukee Film Festival this week. Stay tuned for future screenings around the country.

Compact Concerti

The Fine Arts Quartet: Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, Niklas Schmidt.

The Fine Arts Quartet were back in their former home town last week, playing three Milwaukee concerts that included music by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and others. They were all steller, but I was most interested in its final program, part of the quartet’s years-long project with pianist Alon Goldstein. Since 2018, Goldstein and the quartet have recorded a series of Mozart piano concertos arranged for string quartet (or quintet) and piano by 19th-century German composer and conductor Ignaz Lachner. Naxos has released four albums to date and the pieces on this program will be recorded this summer. (You can listen to a movement from a previous recording here.)

Introducing the pieces, pianist Alon Goldstein explained that arrangements like these were fairly common in the era before recordings. Fans of Mozart’s music would gather some friends, perhaps rehearse for a bit, then play the pieces for themselves or a “salon” audience.

Why hear them today, with dozens of full orchestra recordings available to anyone? Goldstein hinted at the reason when he called Mozart a composer “for the voice,” even when he writes for piano, quartet or orchestra. I get it. Mozart’s melodies “sing.” Allowing a single instrument to play a part written for an entire orchestra section offers a chance to “sing” more freely.

You could hear Tuesday night at Milwaukee’s Zelazo Center, where the quartet was joined by bassist Avery Cardoza. First violinist Ralph Evans added some extra bounce to the string fills in the Allegro Vivace movement of the Concerto No. 18 in B Flat Major and freely phrased some of the passages in the slower movements. That kind of “individuality” isn’t possible when corralling an entire violin section into a single musical phrase.

Of course, Mozart for six players isn’t as majestic as Mozart for a full orchestra. But you don’t listen to Mozart for majesty. You rather listen for elegance and lyricism. And in Tuesday’s concert, there was plenty of both.

Hiromi

Hiromi.

The recent announcement that one of our local public radio stations—WHAD-FM—was changing from a talk format to an all-classical music format reminded me that there is still plenty of music in the public radio universe. The weekly online show, All Songs Considered, is a terrific, curated look at new releases from all corners of the music universe. One of its popular offshoots, Tiny Desk Concerts, features live performances that lie somewhere between the mainstream and the weirdly wonderful. Recent Tiny Desk’s have showcased indie legends Sleater-Kinney, bomba collective El Laberinto del Coco, classical pianist Víkingur Ólafsson playing Bach and Bartok, and some pop upstart named Justin Timberlake.

I’m grateful for the recent Tiny Desk discovery of Hiromi and her band Sonicwonder. Don’t let the fashion-magazine publicity shots fool you—she is the real thing. And her quartet is first rate. If you’re looking for ebullient, whimsical, head-bobbing jazz, you’ll be grateful too. You can hear her set below.

The Dickerson Credo

John Dickerson.

As much as I try to stay away from political news these days—you know…blood pressure?—I’m a regular listener to Slate’s Political Gabfest, the podcast hosted by David Plotz, Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson. During a recent live recording in Washington, D.C., the panel entertained questions from the audience. The closer was a winner: “Why do you do this? Why do you host a podcast?” Dickerson’s answer is worth savoring.

“We talked about happiness earlier. Well what leads to happiness? Doing things that give your life meaning. And meaning is when your actions are in concert with your values. So my values are being with people who I love, people who make me think, people who make me recognize the beauty of humanity that is there for all of us, right in front of us every day—despite what social media and even regular media do to occlude that beauty. To be forced to do that every week is a joy. If we could dole it out to all Americans we would beat the shit out of Finland (earlier in the podcast, they talked about a study declaring Finland as the happiest country in the world). The podcast also makes me think so much, to question things, to think through sharper questions, to think about the world differently. And the podcast refreshes that every week, and lord knows I need it.”

Have a great week.