Before we do the weekly-if-I-feel-like-it feature, go check out Steve Smith's mulling over of Daniel Wakin's NY Times piece on Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's recent cancellations. As the article states, no one knows what's really going on, except for Hunt Lieberson and her physician(s). So why did the article appear? Steve sorts this out, or at least makes an honest first effort.
Two blogs you should check out: Anastasia Tsioulcas' Cafe Aman and Daniel Felsenfeld's Felsenmusick. Anastasia's the world music and classical critic for Billboard, a combination of genres not encountered every day, and Felsenfeld, who's a friend of various friends of mine but whose acquaintance I've never made, is a critic and composer in New York.
As Anastasia points out here, it was she who made the statement, "You schooled us tonight," which appeared in Andrew Patner's review in the Chicago Sun-Times concerning the Chicago Symphony's Mahler 5 at Carnegie Hall. Felsenfeld's post "Why blog?" and its concern with the unique state of music in our time reminded me of Virgil Thomson's essay "Our Island Home, or What It Feels Like to Be a Musician." Both composer/critics love their subjects and want to raise its profile. Track down that essay if you can; it's in The Virgil Thomson Reader, edited by John Rockwell, not the one that's still in print edited by Richard Kostelanetz.
Enough bibliomania, time for the street-based mania of Overheard Chicago!
Magnificent Mile:
Woman: "It's like an upscale airport."
Downtown:
Man: "I can totally tell you're a Pisces."
On the El:
Man: "I keep trying to make these little honking noises with my nose."
