Ye Art-Tech Tour (Arty Cue Hotter)

The notorious Terry Teachout party float in Carnaval.

Happy birthday to About Last Night, the Café Griensteidl of the internet. I started reading Terry Teachout’s blog at a time when signing on in the morning was tantamount to being kicked in the gut, world-historically speaking. He and Our Girl provide a daily blast of intelligence and enthusiasm and taste — you wish the world were like this. Terry has made me think that every active critic should have a blog. It's a riskier but also more honest medium for writing on culture. While classical music and other types of elitist-seeming art are basically shut out of the mainstream media — I am lucky to be working for a great exception — the internet is wide open.

Douglas Wolk, meanwhile, has posted the Ex / Dog Faced Hermans single I pined for the other day. Vet. One of these days, I will figure out how to digitize vinyl: my iPod needs such LP-only treasures as the complete Ruggles, Mussorgsky’s Sorochintsy Fair, Death of Samantha’s “Rosenberg Summer,” and Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes. Douglas also provides a link to Ex MP3s on the band’s site, including an orchestral version of “State of Shock.” I’ve been trying to write an “Epiphany” on the subject of hearing “State of Shock” at Epicenter Zone in SF in 1991, so far without success. There are some experiences that can't be put in words. Right now, the download doesn’t work for me, but I’ll keep trying.

Because of intense work on a top-secret summer project, posting will be unambitious for the next few days, but I'll try to keep the chuckles coming.