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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 30, 2004

TT: Almanac

March 30, 2004 by Terry Teachout

“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

TT: It is finished

March 30, 2004 by Terry Teachout

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!

TT: One good book deserves another

March 30, 2004 by Terry Teachout

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.

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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