This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. His Wikipedia entry is here and his Twitter feed is here.
Terry writes about the other arts, too–books, ballet, painting and sculpture, film and TV, whatever happens to catch his eye or ear. In addition to his drama column, Terry writes “Sightings,” a biweekly column about the arts in America, for the Friday Wall Street Journal.
Laura Demanski is a Chicago-based writer with experience as an editor, critic, graduate student, and teacher. Laura’s book reviews appear in the Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune. Naturally drawn to the medium-hot centers of this world, she is a fierce advocate of her adopted Second City but still feels at home when she visits her one-time stomping grounds of Manhattan. A serious media addiction helps her keep close tabs on the red-hot from her comfy but happening city by the lake. She worries she should shoulder more guilt about her guilty pleasures–which include pro hockey, cop and lawyer shows, Las Vegas, and the colorful adventures of Travis McGee–but they’re all just so damn pleasurable. More presentably, she’s into Romantic poetry, Henry James, landscape painting, modern dance (with and without shoes, if you know what she means), and Edward Gorey. But she’s not always sure she doesn’t have some of those items in the wrong column.
Carrie A.A. Frye is a writer living in Asheville, North Carolina. She has lived in the mountain city for about a dozen years but retains strong traces of a Wisconsin accent. A graduate of Amherst College, she has worked as a reporter, editor and copywriter, but only because positions as a dancer, ship naturalist, and super-spy were unobtainable. Her reading habits are omnivorous, with literary fiction, mysteries, books on bugs, accounts of Polar exploration, and science fiction/fantasy all fair game for discussion. She mourns Buffy, loves Project Runway and has an appalling weakness for movies where people either break into song or onto Broadway. She also knows a lot of unexpected things about sports. Before joining “About Last Night” she was the proprietor of the litblog Tingle Alley.
Clement Greenberg, the great art critic, believed that “in the long run there are only two kinds of art: the good and the bad. This difference cuts across all other differences in art. At the same time, it makes all art one….the experience of art is the same in kind or order despite all differences in works of art themselves.” We feel the same way, which is why we write about so many different things. We think many people–maybe most–approach art with a similarly wide-ranging appreciation. By writing each day about our own experiences as consumers and critics, we hope to create a meeting place in cyberspace for arts lovers who are curious, adventurous, and unafraid of the unfamiliar.