I'm not bragging (boasting? yes, bragging? no), but this blog recently registered its 100,000th page view.
It will also celebrate its third anniversary on August 15 (OK, I'll celebrate, the blog will do whatever it does when I'm not looking). Maybe I'll hire a clown or something...
Aside from the ideas Amanda outlines in this video, and which she communicates better than I can (and which are the real point here), my discovery of her blog gave me the clearest sense I have yet had that new technologies can actually open up worlds of communication and interaction that were previously closed to us (closed to us for a number of reasons, including our own stupidity). In short, maybe internet-based web 2.0-type technology can live up to the hype. Check out more of Amanda's videos on YouTube and her blog.
Now you know what to do with all that acorn gall...
Ever wanted to write like Leonardo da Vinci or J.S. Bach? I mean write the same way they wrote? (I'm sure you're already writing brilliant things) Follow this link and learn how to make medieval ink using things like acorn gall. Really.
Thanks for the umpteenth time, to BoingBoing.net.
Strauss and Mahler Re-Enact Your Favorite Movie Moments, by Matthew Guerrieri on Soho the Dog. Good stuff.
Our friends at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have launched a weblog called Before and After, and I'm trying to think of a proper welcome. Should we roast a pig or something?
In today's post, Phil James talks about shakuhachi music, as he'll be playing solos and duets with koto player Cathleen Read in the courtyard at After Hours tomorrow evening, September 20, from 5:00-7:00pm as part of a "Journey to the East" program highlighting Asian art in the galleries. The shakuhachi is a bamboo flute, for those of you who don't already know, and since some of you are likely curious about this instrument (I hadn't thought about the instrument in years...don't I have a shakuhachi record somewhere?) or want to know more about James, let me recommend: Phil James' Nyokai-an Shakuhachi dojo web site (there's a shokuhachi .mp3 on the front page), his electronic music site, 9revolt, a blog about the shakuhachi, Shakuhachi Chamber Music International, and the International Myspace Shakuhachi Society. All places I would not have thought to visit before Before and After put me on the path to enlightenment.
In any case, though there are few posts as yet, it's a lovely blog, very nicely designed (fine! raise the bar!) and I have reason to think, will be consistently well written. Check out Before and After, and tell 'em Aisle Be Seeing You sent ya'!
You may have noticed a new name attached to the ol' Celebrity Series Blog of late. The
Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers (of The
Exhibitionist fame) was the first to call me on the blog's lack of a
suitably literary moniker. I thought about it for awhile, then I stopped
thinking about it and a name just presented itself (ok, lots of names presented
themselves, but I succombed to reasonableness).
Aisle Be Seeing
You. Hmm, I thought, it's in English, it has pun appeal, but what I can't
decide is . . . whether the name Aisle Be Seeing You is cheesy or corny.
Any thoughts?
Some funny people are fine musicians. Some fine musicians are also funny. I don't know which best describes pianist/blogger/funny guy Jeremy Denk (Rob Kapilow's What Makes It Great? May 10), but his Mad Libs Classical Concert Review post is, as they say here in New England, wicked funny.
And Denk's post is already inspiring other humorists, such as M.C. of The Standing Room.
El Scream.
Charles Ives? Ned Rorem? William Bolcom, Chopin and Meredith Monk? saxophones? baseball? Where has In the Wings been all my blog reading life? Heather Heise writes about music in Oakland, California.
Yet another tip of the mouse to Terry Teachout.
Arts critic Terry Teachout (the honorable and venerable) had this to say in a recent, typically spot-on Wall Street Journal column (from July 7) about the future of arts criticism:
"To be sure, it's hard for medium-size regional newspapers to attract serious critics, but it can be done. Indeed, a well-edited regional paper is often the best possible place for an up-and-coming young critic to learn his trade. I got my start reviewing second-string classical concerts for the Kansas City Star 30 years ago. Now that such entry-level jobs are drying up, I fear for the future of arts journalism in America.
Any artist who's been side-swiped by a lame-brained critic will doubtless be tempted to cheer this news. Before such aggrieved folk break out the Dom Perignon, though, they should pay heed to the warning of Virgil Thomson, who dominated American music criticism in the '40s and '50s: 'Perhaps criticism is useless. Certainly it is often inefficient. But it is the only antidote we have to paid publicity.' If you think you can do without that antidote, more power to you -- but you'd better be prepared to buy a lot of ads."
Read all of Whatever Happened to Regional Critics?
You can also read much more of Terry's work at Terryteachout.com
Thanks to The Rest is Noise for the heads up.
Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls . . . welcome WBUR's Radio Boston.
