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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 12, 2003

TT: Ooh, yum! Slurp!

October 12, 2003 by Terry Teachout

Among other things with which I just caught up was this posting from an anonymous blogger who seems to be suggesting (if I read him right) that OGIC and I are members in good standing of the Cool Lit Club:

Hi. Did you read a lot of books in high school, but secretly thought bullies were kinda cool? Did you enjoy watching them pummel the kids who thought they were being original, when really, they were just being stupid and annoying with their “different” dress and “underground” music? Are you now in your 20s? Fancy yourself a writer? I mean, a real writer, not those arty, navel-gazing fags who only write about their lives? Well, hey, blogging’s for you!…


Links. Oh god, this may be THE most important aspect of your blog. You must have an extensive links list. But not just any links list. You must have a CLC-approved links list. A small sample of cool links would include: Gawker; Neal Pollack; The Minor Fall, The Major Lift; Maud Newton; Moby Lives; Book Slut; The Old Hag; Moorish Girl; The Literary Saloon; About Last Night; Boing Boing; Number One Hit Song; etc….


Membership in the CLC is all about how much a—— you can chow down. Shamelessly lick the cornhole of The Minor Fall, The Major Lift. Shamelessly. Once you’ve pounded that stinky butthole down, move on to Gawker and then Maud Newton. Even though the CLC is all about criticism and snark, never EVER criticize them. They are above criticism…. praise them. Endlessly. Worship them. Pat them all on the back, even though most of what they say is not witty, clever, or even observant. That is not the point. The point is that they’re cool. And you want to be cool, don’t you?

The part I like is about how I’m in my 20s. As for OGIC, she’s the cool one around here.

TT: Almanac

October 12, 2003 by Terry Teachout

“This age makes me so sick that sometimes I am almost impelled to stop at a corner and start calling down curses from Heaven.”


George Orwell, letter to Brenda Salkeld, 1934

TT: Just passing through

October 12, 2003 by Terry Teachout

I’m in New York for the night, en route from Washington to St. Louis, and I’m severely underslept, so I doubt I’ll be posting anything substantial until Wednesday. This is just to say that I miss the old blog–that’s why I put so much stuff up on Thursday night–and that I promise to make up for lost time with a vengeance once I get back.


I haven’t had my iBook with me (and won’t be taking it to St. Louis, either), and hence was astonished to see how widely my posting on middlebrow culture
was picked up in the blogosphere. Those in the know will recognize it as a snippet from the introduction to A Terry Teachout Reader, the collection of my greatest hits that I just finished indexing. Did I mention that it’ll be out from Yale University Press in April? I did? Several times? Well, in the immortal words of Truman Capote, a boy must peddle his book.


What have I done since you saw me last? I saw Mystic River in Washington and Golda’s Balcony in New York, and will have something to say about both in this space at some point subsequent to my return on Wednesday. I reread the first volume of Gary Giddins’ Bing Crosby biography, about which I will also be thinking out loud. I made notes for other things I want to write, here and elsewhere (including some fresh Top Fives). What I didn’t do was catch up with the blogmail–that’ll have to wait until Thursday and Friday. But as you know, I always answer everything sooner or later, even the dear-sir-you-cir e-mail (of which I don’t get much, believe it or not).


No “In the Bag,” either. I just haven’t got the steam. I have dark circles all around my eyes tonight! So I’ll leave you in the elegantly manicured hands of Our Girl in Chicago for now. I’ll seeeeeee you again….

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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