{"id":5716,"date":"2010-11-18T23:15:49","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T03:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=5716"},"modified":"2010-11-18T23:15:49","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T03:15:49","slug":"team-norsigian-accentuates-the-negative-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2010\/11\/18\/team-norsigian-accentuates-the-negative-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Norsigian Accentuates the Negative (17)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Portrait<\/a>

Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House.<\/p><\/div>\n

Took some much-needed time off from tracking the doings of Rick Norsigian et al to attend to other matters and\u00a0clear my brain.<\/p>\n

This story begins to feel like a rabbit hole, a sinkhole, a black hole \u2014 or some befuddling combination of those phenomena. Like the irascible diagnostician\u00a0Dr. Gregory House of\u00a0the eponymous TV series<\/a>, I want to lurch to my chalkboard so as to scribble mad notes with interconnecting arrows all over it. Or lay about me with my cane. Or take some serious painkillers. Preferably all three. At once. As Bob Dylan sings, “The people just get uglier, and I have no sense of time.”<\/p>\n

I share this sensation with other members of the press covering it, all of us beginning to suffer from a form of battle fatigue.\u00a0It doesn’t help any of us newshounds that we must also deal with the backstage antics of some of the actual and incipient protagonists, not all of them on their best behavior. Loose cannons scattered all around this combat zone, and we have to stay on constant guard to dodge the grapeshot and keep our feet from under the wheels. We work hard, I must say, to look past that to see if we can winkle out the nuggets of useful fact, and even the occasional verity, while discounting the personalities of the bearers thereof.<\/p>\n

\"Reyhan<\/a>

Reyhan Harmanci of the Bay Citizen<\/p><\/div>\n

So I want to compliment and thank my colleagues Reyhan Harmanci, Culture Editor\/Writer at the\u00a0Bay Citizen<\/em> and stringer for the New York Times<\/em>, with whom I’ve shared several long conversations, and Mike Boehm of the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>,\u00a0with whom I’ve not yet spoken, on their work on this story so far. They’ve done some serious probing, and have a good grasp on the issues involved and their ramifications. Because they’re located on the left coast, they’re closer to most of the action than I am from my seat back east. And because as staffers they actually get paid for their reportage, unlike my uncompensated freelance self, they can engage in some real investigative legwork.<\/p>\n

\"LA<\/a>

LA Times Culture Monster logo<\/p><\/div>\n

Boehm has a relatively new long piece up,\u00a0“Ansel Adams, Earl Brooks share top billing in show on Yosemite photography since the 1860s,”<\/a> datelined November 2.\u00a0He uses \u201cAn Illustrated View of Yosemite,\u201d\u00a0the then just-opened group show at the Scott Nichols Gallery<\/a> in San Francisco, as a jumping-off point. Since the show juxtaposes authenticated prints by Adams with the four known prints attributed tentatively by Nichols to Earl Brooks (among other works), Boehm uses the occasion to consider new evidence coming to light about Earl Brooks, an alternative candidate for production of the negatives attributed by Team Norsigian to Ansel Adams. (Note: Boehm’s pieces usually appear under the LA Times<\/em>‘s “Culture Monster” header. I can’t vouch for this logo as an accurate portrayal of Boehm.)<\/p>\n

\"A.<\/a>

A. C. Pillsbury, n.d.<\/p><\/div>\n

Harmanci’s most recent contributions include \u00a0“Ansel Adams or Not? More Twists”<\/a> in the New York Times<\/em>, November 9, 2010, and\u00a0“The Ansel Adams Debate: See For Yourself \u2014\u00a0Compare large-scale images by Uncle Earl and his challengers,”<\/a> with a byline shared by Harmanci and\u00a0Tasneem Raja, in the Bay Citizen<\/em>, also datelined November 9, 2010. The first of these debuts press coverage of the possibility that “Arthur C. Pillsbury, a well-known photographer of the period, should be added to the list of possible creators of the images of Yosemite park and the Northern California coast that Mr. Norsigian bought a decade ago.” (It also contains some startling revelations of serious misconduct on the part of William “Wild Bill” Turnage, managing trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, about which I’ll have much more to say in a future post.) The second article compares images from the so-called Norsigian Collection with similar and, in at least one case, identical images by Pillsbury, Earl Brooks, and yet a fourth contender, Harry Pidgeon.<\/p>\n

So I congratulate Boehm and Harmanci \u2014\u00a0Tasneem Raja too \u2014\u00a0for contributing energetically to the classic journalistic process of sifting through the conflicting accounts and evidence in search of something approximating the truth of the matter. Not an easy job for any of us, given the flood of malarkey from diverse sources in which we wade.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

(L-R) Arnold Peter, Barbara M. Rubin, Jody Simon, Esqs.<\/p><\/div>\n

For the record, I received the following on Monday, November 1, from Arnold Peter, legal counsel to Team Norsigian:<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Coleman:<\/em><\/p>\n

In your blog posting of last week<\/a><\/em>, you made direct reference to my law partners in connection with the Norsigian negatives. I would like to explain that PRS Media Partners, LLC<\/a><\/em> (\u201cMedia Partners\u201d) is an entity separate and distinct from our law firm, Peter Rubin & Simon, LLP<\/a><\/em>. I am the sole owner of Media Partners and my partners in the law firm have no ownership or involvement in PRS Media Partners, LLC. Further, they have are involved <\/em>[sic] in the Norsigian matter. I would appreciate it if you could keep this distinction in mind in the future. Thank yo<\/em>u.<\/p>\n

I replied as follows:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From the PRS Media Partners, LLC website, 10\/13\/2010.<\/p><\/div>\n

Dear Mr. Peter:<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve received your note re the distinction between Peter Rubin & Simon, LLP and PRS Media Partners, LLC.<\/em><\/p>\n

As of two weeks ago, the website for this firm stated that “PRS Media Partners, LLC is a strategic consultancy that was launched by the founding partners of Peter, Rubin & Simon, LLP to provide professional services that go beyond those provided by traditional entertainment lawyers.” So I hope you can understand how this statement \u2014 in combination with the name PRS Media Partners itself, which certainly suggest a partnership among the principals \u2014 led me to the assumption that it actually meant what it said.<\/em><\/p>\n

I will make corrections to existing posts, and keep this distinction in mind henceforth.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>

Peter Rubin & Simon LLP logo<\/p><\/div>\n

Just so we’re clear, then: Barbara M. Rubin and Jody Simon, who are “founding partners” in Peter, Rubin & Simon LLP, and jointly “launched” PRS Media Partners, LLC, are not partners in the latter firm, regardless of the fact that this firm has the word “partners” in its name. Furthermore, Rubin and Simon “have no ownership or involvement in PRS Media Partners, LLC,” even though they helped “launch” it (in a totally non-proprietary and uninvolved way, of course). Finally, Rubin and Simon “have are involved in the Norsigian matter.” We’re all going to keep these distinctions in mind in the future, I’m quite sure.<\/p>\n

\"PRS<\/a>

PRS Media Partners logo<\/p><\/div>\n

As I wrote in a correction\/retraction to my October 28 post<\/a>, “Taking him at his word, I therefore retract the above statement in which I assumed their involvement in all matters relating to the firm in which they’re partners, as well as their involvement in the separate and autonomous firm they helped to ‘launch,’\u00a0PRS Media Partners\u00a0LLC. I apologize to Ms. Rubin and Mr. Simon for this error. Clearly the stilted language, flawed reasoning, and other deficiencies of Norsigian-related material prepared under the auspices of either entity are attributable exclusively to Mr. Peter.”<\/p>\n

At the same time, I feel compelled to add that professionals in every field get judged by the company they keep and the formal affiliations they make. Consequently,\u00a0Arnold Peter’s shenanigans inevitably reflect on Barbara M. Rubin and Jody Simon as colleagues, and on the two firms in whose activities all three of these attorneys participate \u2014 with an effect increasingly like mackerel by moonlight.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story begins to feel like a rabbit hole, a sinkhole, a black hole \u2014 or some combination of those phenomena. Like the irascible diagnostician Dr. Gregory House of the eponymous TV series, I want to lurch to my chalkboard so as to scribble mad notes with interconnecting arrows all over it. Or lay about me with my cane. Or take some serious painkillers. Preferably all three. At once. As Bob Dylan sings, “The people just get uglier, and I have no sense of time.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[25,42,45,54,57,65,174,209,258,340,347,406,436,446,452,556,564],"class_list":["post-5716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-commentary","tag-a-c-pillsbury","tag-ansel-adams","tag-ansel-adams-trust","tag-arnold-peter","tag-arthur-c-pillsbury","tag-barbara-m-rubin","tag-earl-brooks","tag-glass-plate-negative","tag-jody-simon","tag-melinda-pillsbury-foster","tag-mike-boehm","tag-peter-rubin-simon-llp","tag-prs-media-partners","tag-reyhan-harmanci","tag-rick-norsigian","tag-william-turnage","tag-yosemite-national-park","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}