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PostClassic

Kyle Gann on music after the fact

The Hobgoblin in the Room

I liked one question Gwen Ifill asked Cheney and Edwards, and was disappointed neither answered it: “What’s wrong with a little flip-flopping?” I keep hoping someone will quote Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” A foolish consistency, which is the word missed by many people who quote the line. Of all the faults, misdeeds, and crimes against humanity that can be laid at George Bush’s door, for which a special roasting pit in hell is doubtless being prepared for him, what would be easier to convict him of than a foolish consistency?

Then, I guess the very fact that I would quote America’s greatest 19th-century thinker marks me as some kind of effete East-Coast elitist commie pinko Francophile child-molesting liberal. If every small mind in America votes for the guy who’s been foolishly consistent, we’re doomed.

What’s going on here

So classical music is dead, they say. Well, well. This blog will set out to consider that dubious factoid with equanimity, if not downright enthusiasm [More]

Kyle Gann's Home Page More than you ever wanted to know about me at www.kylegann.com

PostClassic Radio The radio station that goes with the blog, all postclassical music, all the time; see the playlist at kylegann.com.

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Sites to See

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page- great Downtown composer

David Doty's Just Intonation site

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

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