The Daily Grind

Excerpt from Nico Muhly’s recent post:

I had this piece in LA, right,
a few weeks ago. And the organization putting it on has what I guess is
a publicist whose email address is at AOL.com. It is a truth
universally acknowledged that when people still have an AOL address
they are either some kind of a genius or a crazy person. Anyway, I’ve
been getting emailed reviews of the show by this AOL address, and it
sent one the other day that is so outrageous
that it took me three full reads through to see if it was written by an
Illiterate Person or if it had been Google Translated from the original
Hungarian…

Arguably the least moving item was the last one, billed
as a West Coast premiere, Expecting the Main Things from You by very
young composer Nico Muhly from outtakes of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass that offers shards of interest but also relishes grinding the
listener’s ear just a bit too much. Lesser grinding would be most
welcome. The entire Master Chorale gave us its best, with instrumental
accompaniment from a chamber band led by violinist Ralph Morrison.

LESSER GRINDING WOULD BE MOST WELCOME! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! So genius. I
don’t care if it was translated from Hungarian. This is a Precious
Treasure. Other things: “very young.” And: “outtakes” from Leaves of
Grass – you know, a stanza here and there he left on the cutting room
floor.

Anyway, this is an amazing document well worth a full read. It’s
deliciously garbled and he said Lesser Grinding Would Be Most Welcome.
I also just love that some AOL address emailed it to me, like, “just
FYI!”

(Un?)related: four out of my seven clients have AOL e mail addresses.