Interpreting Dylan, Always Treacherous, Was Lehrer\'s Undoing

By BEN SISARIO

As the news spread on Monday that the writer Jonah Lehrer had fabricated quotes by Bob Dylan for his most recent book, there was a common, dumbfounded reaction: Bob Dylan? Of all people?

The idea that someone would invent quotations by one of the most famous musicians alive would seem incredible. Mr. Dylan's every word, after all, in lyrics as well as in the relatively small body of interviews he has granted, has been scrutinized in extraordinary detail, by admirers and students ranging from ordinary fans to Oxford dons. Surely the misrepresentation of such a famous figure would eventually be found out. And indeed it was, by a writer for the magazine Tablet, whose exposé on Monday quickly led to Mr. Lehrer's resignation as a staff writer at The New Yorker.

But for anyone writing about the creative process, as Mr. Lehrer did in his book “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” Mr. Dylan is a problematic subject in other ways . The oracular, mysterious voice in his songs is often reflected in Mr. Dylan's words about himself, and some described his memoirs “Chronicles: Volume One” as the work of an unreliable narrator.  Over the decades he has frustrated many an interviewer who wanted to penetrate his mind and method.

“Dylan has never been at all revealing about those kinds of issues,” the music critic and author Anthony DeCurtis said in an interview on Tuesday.

“He has always been dismissive,” Mr. DeCurtis said. “He has certainly said things that have minimized his lyrics in the attempt to fend off or downplay any attempt to see him as a prophet. So he'll say, ‘Oh, I just wrote what came to my mind.' Whatever kind of offhand thing you could say to try to deflate someone who is trying to inflate your lyrics with meaning.”

So did Mr. Lehrer put words into Mr. Dylan's mouth that he never would have said, making him a straw man to support an argument about neurosc ience and creativity? Or did he forge some quotations that are not far from things Mr. Dylan might have said anyway? Or is Mr. Dylan such a sphinx that a few words - genuine or not - could never really provide a reliable guide to his own thought process?

Perhaps this is one reason that Mr. Dylan is so endlessly fascinating. Not only is his music brilliant, but you can spend a lifetime trying to figure him out and you never will.

Mr. Dylan has hinted at this in the past. In 2004, he was interviewed by Ed Bradley for “60 Minutes,” and when asked about how he wrote a song like “Blowin' in the Wind,” he echoed a theme about the creation of art that goes back at least to Socrates, who once asked poets where they got their inspiration; they said they had no idea.

“It just came,” Mr. Dylan said, answering Mr. Bradley's question about about the source of the song. “It came from, like, right out of that wellspring of creat ivity.” He added, “I don't know how I got to write those songs.”

There's a book in there somewhere.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Defense of Ridiculed Vogue Profile of Assad Leads to More Ridicule

By AMY CHOZICK

“Syria. The name itself sounded sinister, like syringe or hiss.”

That's what the author Joan Juliet Buck wrote in the Aug. 6 edition of Newsweek in an article describing why she felt uneasy profiling Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, in Vogue last year.

In her article - “How I Was Duped by Mrs. Assad” - Ms. Buck explains how she ended up reluctantly writing the flattering Vogue profile that brought the magazine scrutiny amid the Assad government's reign of violence in Syria. But some of her explanations as to why she felt “Syria gave off a toxic aura” have set off fresh criticism.

On Tuesday, a Twitter meme with the hashtag  #countriesbyvoguewriters circulated. Messages included: “Chad. The name itself sounded like my Lehman Brothers ex-boyfriend.” And “Bahrain. Sounds like the expression of disappointment someone going to a picnic makes when the weather changes.”

Ms. Buck also wrote tha t she felt “uneasy” in Damascus. “Mustached men stood in our path, wearing shoes from the 1980s and curiously ill-fitting leather jackets over thick sweaters,” she said.

Even though Ms. Buck has severed her relationship with Vogue, to many readers the description just felt so, well, Vogue.

Doug Saunders, European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail of Toronto posted to Twitter: “Newsweek gave the author of the infamous Asma-al-Assad Vogue profile about 3,000 words of rope. She used every inch.”

Britain's Guardian said “somehow the mea culpa is almost as disastrous as the initial interview.”

In the 3,200-word Vogue story (“A Rose in the Desert”), Ms. Buck called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies” and described her walking through Damascus as “a determined swath cut through space with the flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Louboutin shoes. (The article, whi ch was taken down from Vogue's Web site in the spring, can still be found online here. )

In June, Vogue's editor, Anna Wintour, issued a statement to The New York Times deploring the actions of the Assad government. “Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue,” Ms. Wintour said.

Ms. Buck has spent much of her time since the dust-up over the Vogue story denouncing the Assad government, to Piers Morgan on CNN among others. In April, she told National Public Radio - by way of explaining why Mrs. Assad was a good candidate for a profile - that she was “extremely thin and very well-dressed and therefore qualified to be in Vogue.”

Ms. Buck declined to comment. A spokesman for Newsweek/Daily Beast said: “Joan Juliet Buck's revealing and candid Newsweek magazine piece on her time spent with Mrs. Assad speaks fo r itself.”

Amy Chozick is The Times's corporate media reporter. Follow @amychozick on Twitter.

Amazon Revamps Its Cloud Music Player to Compete With iTunes

By BEN SISARIO

It has taken more than a year, but Amazon is finally ready to compete with iTunes in the cloud.

On Tuesday, Amazon introduced a new version of its Cloud Player music service, which first arrived last year in a limited form because Amazon did not have licenses from record companies and music publishers. Now, after many months of negotiations, it has gotten those licenses.

So Cloud Player - which, like Apple's iTunes Match and other so-called locker services, stores users' songs so the users can have access to them on any device - now has more extensive and convenient features, like the ability to scan a user's computer to match songs to a master database. That is a valuable shortcut around the laborious process of uploading each and every track, but one that requires a license from copyright holders.

The new Cloud Player is available in two tiers, including a free version that gives Amazon a slight advantage over Ap ple. Users can store up to 250 songs free on Amazon's servers, or 250,000 songs for $24.99 a year; those limits do not count songs bought directly through Amazon's MP3 store, which has long trailed iTunes as the second-biggest download shop but has been marketing itself aggressively with deep discounts.

Some more detail:

• Like iTunes Match, Amazon's Cloud Player keeps copies of songs at 256 kilobytes per second, even if the original version was lower-fidelity.
• It will not, however, upload songs coded with D.R.M. copy protection, which includes virtually everything that iTunes sold until early 2009.

Amazon's revised cloud service also puts pressure on Google, whose cloud music and media service, Play, has been stymied by licensing issues.

Play sells downloads from three of the four major music labels, but it lacks a deal with the Warner Music Group, whose acts include Green Day, Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And while Google also has an unlicensed cloud locker system, its attempts to get licenses for that service have been hampered by the music industry's longstanding complaints that Google has not been doing enough to prevent piracy.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Washington Post to Use Ford Foundation Grant to Pay for Four New Reporters

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

In yet another sign that even the nation's most robust newspapers continue to struggle to stay profitable, The Washington Post has turned to the Ford Foundation to finance four new reporters.

Editors at The Post announced the $500,000 foundation grant in a memo to the staff on Monday, saying that the money would be used to develop “special projects related to money, politics and government”; the journalists would report to the head of the paper's investigative unit, according to the memo.

A Ford Foundation spokesperson confirmed that this one-year grant had the potential to be renewed for two more years.

“The Foundation's support enables us to build on one of our central missions, and the terms of the grant give us complete editorial independence,” according to the memo.

In May, The Los Angeles Times announced that the Ford Foundation awarded the paper a $1 million, two-year grant to support f ive new reporting slots. The Times announced in a memo at the time that it planned to use the money to support coverage of immigration, the prison system and a slot in Brazil.

A Ford Foundation spokesman would not discuss future announcements about other papers receiving grants. But he did say that the foundation was having conversations with other media outlets about providing financing - and that those outlets were not only newspapers.

Digital Notes: Spotify Offers a Bit More Information About Its Users

By BEN SISARIO

So, how many people actually pay to use Spotify?

That question has been critical for the music industry, which sees Spotify's model - streaming an unlimited number of songs for a small monthly fee - as representing a potentially huge shift in the way people listen to music. But it's a model that still gives many artists and record labels the willies because of the way it pays royalties.

Spotify, which is four years old and is now available in 15 countries, has been slow in revealing detailed user information, but on Tuesday it updated its stats. At an industry conference in London, a Spotify executive said that the service had 15 million monthly users around the world, and that four million of them are paying subscribers.

That is an increase of one million paying users since the company's last update in January, although, as Billboard points out, it appears to have taken Spotify longer to gain this most recent mill ion subscribers than it did the million before. (The subscription price varies from country to country, but is generally between $5 and $15 a month.)

There are still plenty of aspects of Spotify's usage that the company is not so transparent about, however. It has not said how many of its users are located in the United States, and it also does not reveal precise numbers about how it pays royalties, although earlier this year Daniel Ek, its co-founder, said the service has paid $200 million to rights holders.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

It\'s Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday Season

By ANN CARRNS

As July winds down, parents in some parts of the country (school starts in mid-August in our neck of the woods) are starting to think about back-to-school shopping.

Many states are holding “tax holidays,” during which they drop state sales-tax collections on back-to-school goods like clothes, shoes, school supplies and even computers. (Some communities still collect local sales taxes, though.) The CCH Group, a tax and accounting firm, has compiled a list of more than a dozen states offering back-to-school tax holidays and some examples of what items are exempt.

Arkansas, where I live, is holding such a holiday on the weekend of August 4-5. The state sales tax is 6 percent (some states' rates are as high as 7 percent, CCH notes), and city and county add-ons push it to more than 9 percent in my community. So a sales holiday can make a difference to those on a tight budget. During the Arkansas “holiday,” clothing und er $100, clothing accessories or equipment under $50, school supplies and art supplies are all exempt from the tax. An itemized list of items is posted on the state's Web site.

Connecticut's holiday, on Aug. 19-25, exempts clothing and footwear costing less than $300 per item. (Accessories, or athletic or protective clothing, aren't included.) North Carolina's event, meanwhile, on Aug. 3-5, exempts computers of $3,500 and under.

New York doesn't hold tax holidays, per se. But this year, it raised the ceiling - to $110, up from $55 - on the state sales tax exemption for items of clothing and footwear.

CCH suggests checking the Web site of your state's revenue department for dates and details.

Does your state hold a tax holiday? Do you coordinate your back-to-school shopping to take advantage of it?

The Breakfast Meeting: Social Media as Focus Group, and a North Korean Fantasy

By NOAM COHEN

The comments relayed by social media are offering retail stores the kinds of insights about consumer demand that in the past would have required assembling focus groups and conducting other kinds of research, Stephanie Clifford reports. Companies like Frito-Lay and Estée Lauder poll the public via social media about what products they would like to see introduced; Wal-Mart, through its acquisition of a social-media company Kosmix, is looking for trends as they emerge - where and when to stock products, whether a certain video game is being talked about, if that talk is positive.

• CNET reports that the rapper Eminem has more Facebook fans than any other living person, surpassing 60 million Facebook Likes, adding an average of 24,000 likes a day. Even so, Rihanna is fast on his tail, adding 26,000 likes a day.

The title character on the Disney animated TV series “Doc McStuffins” is 6-year-old African-American girl who emulates her mother, a doctor, by opening a clinic for dolls and stuffed animals. The series is part of Disney's effort to leave a racially charged past behind, including the racial stereotyping in much earlier films like “Dumbo” or “Song of the South,” Brooks Barnes reports. The Doc McStuffins character has touched a chord with African-American parents, filling a niche among children's animated series. Mr. Barnes writes:

Black cartoon characters in leading roles are still rare. It's considered an on-screen risk to make your main character a member of a minority, even in this post-“Dora the Explorer” age. Networks want to attract the broadest possible audience, but the real peril is in the toy aisle. From a business perspective, Disney and its rivals ultimately make most of these shows in the hope that they spawn mass-appeal toy lines. White dolls are the proven formula.

The production of “Comrade Kim Goes Flying† would seem as unlikely as its title being literally true. It is the first fictional film with an entirely Korean cast co-produced with Western partners and shot inside North Korea, Jonathan Landreth writes. The film, about a coal miner turned trapeze artist, is the brainchild of Nicholas Bonner, an Englishman based in Beijing who runs a company that takes tourists into North Korea. A challenge, he said, was to steer his North Korean co-writers toward comedy and away from a straightforward triumph through hard work; it will premiere in September at the Pyongyang International Film Festival.

Tuesday Reading: Devices to Save Children in Hot Vehicles Are Questioned

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.

With \'Today\' Promo, NBC Spoils a Golden Ending

By JEREMY W. PETERS

It was a touching, made-for-television moment. There was the newest American gold medalist, the 17-year-old Missy Franklin, reflecting on her triumph with her parents.

There was only one problem. Her gold-winning race hadn't been broadcast yet.

NBC, which has endured withering criticism online for its decision not to broadcast Olympic events live, mistakenly showed a preview of a “Today” show segment about Ms. Franklin and her winning spring in the 100 meter backstroke before televising the actual race on Monday night.

Olympic events are often broadcast on a time delay. But this year, in the real-time complaint-box culture that social media has spawned, angry sports fans have taken to Twitter to denounce NBC's coverage. The network streams events live online as they happen in London - five hours ahead of East Coast time - but holds the most popular events like swimming off the air until prime time in the U nited States.

This has resulted in more than a few spoilers for major events like Michael Phelps's failure to medal in his first Olympic event since 2004. Meanwhile, NBC has had no problem leading its evening newscasts with word of the day's winners and losers in London, well before the prime time broadcasts begin.

But no spoiler was quite as embarrassing as the “Today” slip-up. The short commercial shown on Monday night promoted to viewers of Tuesday's “Today” that they would be given the exclusive “live from London” - one of the few instances when “live” actually means it in this Olympics.

Bitter Charges in Shangri-La Hotel Trial

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - It was a sunny day on Monday at the Hotel Shangri-La, a much-restored art deco palace that likes to call itself “Hollywood's Oceanfront Hotel.”

Not so sunny were the proceedings nearby at the Santa Monica division of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where the Shangri-La and its owner, Tehmina Adaya, are the defendants in a California civil rights lawsuit now being tried before a jury.

The claim is one of anti-Semitism, something of a shocker, given the hotel's reputation as a hang-out for denizens of a movie industry that includes many Jews. And the charge is being fiercely disputed by the defendants - hence the jury trial, which is likely to continue through the week.

The suit arises from an incident on July 11, 2010, when young supporters of a nonprofit organization, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, organized a pool party at the hotel through a promotional firm, Plati num Events, which for months had been collecting commissions from the Shangri-La for setting up similar gatherings.

In the middle of the party, the suit alleges, Ms. Adaya abruptly shut it down, claiming it was unauthorized.

On Monday, Scott Paletz, the promoter who runs Platinum Events - and one of the suit's plaintiffs - was on the stand. He testified to having spoken six or seven times at the gathering with a distressed hotel employee who, he said, apologized profusely for ending the party. But Ms. Adaya, the employee said, insisted it be halted, and “was acting out with anti-Semitism against the group,” as Mr. Paletz recalled his words.

“It had to end, it had to end,” Mr. Paletz recalled the employee telling him. “If Ms. Adaya's investors,” who are Muslims, found out about the pro-Israeli event, “they would cut her off,” Mr. Paletz testified being told. Another employee, said Mr. Paletz, told him that hol ding the event at the Shangri-La “was like bringing the Bloods and the Crips together.” The order to end the event, Mr. Paletz said, had been accompanied by a particularly harsh epithet ordering the Jews out of the hotel.

“Being that I'm Jewish, it absolutely shocked me,” Mr. Paletz testified. “I felt really small.”

A lawyer for Ms. Adaya spent the late afternoon cross-examining Mr. Paletz, with an eye toward showing that he had never been authorized to book the event in the first place, and had peppered his testimony with errors and omissions. A plaintiffs' lawyer, meanwhile, presented evidence that Mr. Paletz and his Platinum events regularly booked events into the hotel with the cooperation of its employees, and were paid a commission on food and beverage sales.

The proceedings ended for the day without Ms. Adaya's lawyer cross-examining Mr. Paletz about the testimony regarding anti-Semitic attitudes and remarks; but the trial resumes and Tu esday, and the jury is likely to hear more before deliberations begin.