Doug: I hope you got some sleep and are dug out, as it were.
\nAs for audiences: I agree, sheep-like behavior masking a lack of conviction is bad however it’s manifested, and if today it’s manifested as automatic standing ovations, we’re agin ’em.
\nAs for my hippie roots: I was never a real hippie, whatever my parents thought. I was too busy studying (or not) for my Ph.D. orals, writing my dissertation, going to the opera and rock concerts, doing radio programs, seeking love (or its carnal equivalent) and dancing with Ann(a) Halprin, tho some of those latter activities shaded into hippiedom. I admired the 60’s, I was swimming in the Berkeley variant of hippie culture, and so of course it had an impact on my sensibility –a profound impact. Which I make clear throughout “Outsider,” capping it off with the final article. I was always more a sex-drugs-and-rock-&-roll hippie than the harder-edged political variant into which the Free Speech Movement morphed under the weight of Vietnam and which prevailed on the East Coast. Northern California — in music and dance especially — shaped my ideas about the arts more than the trappings of the hippie lifestyle, which even then I found a little suspicious. In particular, Ann’s ideas about dance and Lou Harrison’s music made their mark. And the sweeping optimism of so much of that time’s rock. We all feel nostalgic about our youth, but the conjunction of the 60’s and my own youth was pretty heady.
\n(See my introduction to a forthcoming University of California Press book about the San Franciso Tape Music Center and also, from what I’ve heard, Janice Ross’s forthcoming book about Halprin.)
\nIn looking over my selections for “Outsider” (and some will be thrilled, others daunted to learn that there’s material there for another 10 or 20 books of equal length, not that the clamor from readers or publishers has as yet become deafening), I’m surprised by how much dance there is from my California days. Maybe I was stacking the deck since I am now (for another three weeks) a dance critic. Maybe I wanted to beef up my dance bona fides. But there ere other, better explanations. I was a classical music critic then, and classical critics were expected to do dance. But I took to dance: its tactility appealed as a source for writing, and I really loved a lot of it (and was dancing myself, in Ann’s hippie-ish, naked way). In Los Angeles my boss, Martin Bernheimer, felt he should cover the big touring ballet premieres, but otherwise I had a pretty free rein. Conversely in music, I got mostly second-tier concerts, which seemed less interesting when it came time to pick what would be in “Outsider.”
\nChanging the subject: In my introduction I try to explain why I called this compilation “Outsider,” which has seemed odd at the outset to a number of readers, given my sequence of insider jobs at big-ticket institutions like the LA Times, the NYTimes and Lincoln Center. I offer various reasons, but I’m curious about your take on the last one. Have you given much thought to the question of how distanced a critic should be to those he\/she reviews? Clearly there are advantages to being friends with artists, hearing them discuss their work from the inside, trying as hard as possible to dig deep into the assumptions and technicalities of a scene, trying to claim ownership of an artist by becoming his\/her champion. My metaphor for that is Hanslick playing chamber music with Brahms. But there are also advantages to holding oneself aloof, to knowing as much as possible about the art and the artist but maintaining an “objective” (in quotes because of the inherent absurdity of that aspiration), outsider stance and trying to serve the art and the readers and your own aesthetic as well as the artists. Where do you come down on this distinction?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Doug: I hope you got some sleep and are dug out, as it were. As for audiences: I agree, sheep-like behavior masking a lack of conviction is bad however it’s manifested, and if today it’s manifested as automatic standing ovations, we’re agin ’em. As for my hippie roots: I was never a real hippie, whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1017,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/08\/this-weeks-aj-highlights-that-time-ballet-superstars-nureyev-and-fonteyn-got-arrested-in-a-hippie-raid.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":0},"title":"This Week’s AJ Highlights: That Time Ballet Superstars Nureyev And Fonteyn Got Arrested In A “Hippie Raid”","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"August 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This Week: Earthquake Devastates Historic Italian Towns... Has the audience deserted blockbuster movies?... The best new beautiful library of 2016... Is it a good idea to pay young people to try culture?... When superstar dancers were arrested in a 1960s police raid. Earthquake Devastates Historic Italian Towns: Historians fear that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4915.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4915.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4915.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4915.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4915.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/doug_standing_for_the_cedars.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":1},"title":"Doug: Standing For The Cedars","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"John: I had a response all but set to publish tonight when suddenly there was a huge crash and a 60-foot cedar from our neighbor's yard toppled down and smashed the back of our house. Unfortunately there's still about a third of this huge tree standing over our house, there's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/john_standing_ovations.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":2},"title":"John: standing ovations","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"By John Rockwell Doug: The issue of audience sophistication and naivety is bound up with the democratization of the arts. The ideal, for those who believe the arts have been dumbed down by yahoo audiences (meaning rubes, not subscribers to that estimable e-mail etc. site), is of a Leo Straussian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/doug_generally_speaking_the_cr.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":3},"title":"Doug: Generally Speaking (The Critic As Specialist)","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"John: Two huge topics to jump into, both probably worth spending a whole week on by themselves. I'll wait on answering the first till later, since it's such a huge topic. But the second, about specialist critics vs. generalists is easier to take a bite out of. I don't think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/john_arts_coverage_then_and_no.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":4},"title":"John: Arts Coverage Then and Now","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug: I agree with most everything you say in your last posting (to the annoyance of those, like editors, who value a good dust-up over reasoned dialogue). I do think editors at daily newspapers today prize lively writing and versatile newspaperly skills over expertise in a field of art; they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/john_a_misunderstanding_and_tw.html","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":5},"title":"John: A Misunderstanding and Two Questions","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug: I think we're talking about different things with the word \"rules.\" I meant that for each individual, critic or otherwise, there should be no rigid, exclusionary standards that determine our positions about most anything. With conflicts of interest and objectivity, I meant by no rules that to take an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}