Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
“It is the line of least resistance, and there is no denying that in daily life it has its advantages. But all the more must we insist that it plays the most deadly role in music, especially in the performance of old and familiar works. In fact, routine with its loveless mediocrity and its treacherous perfection lies like hoarfrost on the performance of the most beautiful and best-known works.”
Wilhelm Furtw
I spent ten hours editing the Balanchine book today, then printed it out. I’m all done. I’ll be delivering it to Harcourt on Wednesday. I’ve never been so tired, and I still have those four pieces left to write (two of them tomorrow), but I’m done.
Thanks again for your forbearance, which I hope will last a little while longer while I finish cleaning my plate. Then I’ll start blogging again, and reading other blogs, too, something I’ve missed terribly in the past couple of weeks.
I look forward to serving you again!
Stunned by overwork, I made the mistake of peeking into my mailbox, where I found a hundred or so accumulated pieces of e-mail. Most of it was spam, of course, but I learned from quite a few of you that amazon.com just started shipping A Terry Teachout Reader, well in advance of the official publication date.
How about that? I’m published!
If you ordered the Teachout Reader in advance, your copy has either just arrived or is on its way to you. If you haven’t ordered it yet, go here and do so.
In addition, I got quite a bit of nice mail on various subjects (all of it answered–thanks very much).
I also got a rare piece of hate mail, which tickled me enough to pass on:
The main things that are unpleasant about your WSJ column are that you are relentlessly determined to show us how smart you are (not an elegant trait) and your poor white trash name (definitely not elegant).
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “Ah, me public!”
And now…back to overwork. See you tomorrow.