Time's Most Influential

It is probably silly to get worked up about Time's annual 100 list. Yet here I am, on holiday, worked up enough to post.

Two main cloying issues:
1. The feeling this is one great cocktail party you're too insignificant to be invited to. I mean, here's Stevie Wonder sidling up to Maria Carey to tell her how much he loves her "sexy classiness." Or Sean Penn penning a tribute to the perpetually-overrated Bruce Springsteen reminding us that "The Boss" has a "raconteurism once solely the domain of tribal chiefs." Huh?
2. What wonderful conflicts-of-interest. Soprano Anna Netrebko lauding Met GM Peter Gelb? Conan O'Brien praising GE Chief Jeffrey Immelt. At least he writes, "When Jeff Immelt ordered me to write this tribute, I was honored." Oh, and Marc Jacobs gloating over the "monumental marriage of art and commerce" - others have called it out in less glowing terms - he created with Takeshi Murakami.

And this might not be a conflict, but do Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter need a co-byline on the three paragraph entry on Herbie Hancock?

Which gets to the celebrity culture.

Celebrities get red-colored bylines. Real writers - Time's Richard Corliss and Richard Lacayo, for example - are reduced to black typed dashes at the end of their pieces.