Jazzed For Blogging

That is the headline on a newspaper article about arts web logs. Rifftides is the focus of the piece by Kim Nowacki, arts editor of the Yakima Herald-Republic. She also interviews Brooke Cresswell, conductor of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra; Dan Peters, proprietor of the Blue Begonia poetry blog; and Doug McLennan, commander-in-chief of artsjournal.com.

"When I started ArtsJournal, the word blog had just been invented," says Douglas McLennan, the Seattle-based founder and editor of ArtsJournal.com, a daily digest of arts, culture and ideas that launched in September 1999. The site, which receives about 600,000 visits per month, now also hosts blogs from some of the top arts and culture critics, including Ramsey.

I confess to a bit of a wince when I saw the adjective "venerable" attached to my name in the first sentence of the piece. Then I reflected on possible alternatives and felt better.

To read all of Kim's story, go here. She provides links to the other blogs and sites mentioned in the article. Don't miss the panoramic photograph at the top of the Herald-Republic page, a shot of the valley with the peaks of Mount Rainier and Mount Adams standing guard.