Carnegie Hall

New York NEA Fellowship Report, continued!

I heard in my first writing workshop that reviews needed a lead and a clear news peg. So I tried to stick those things into my second review.

Of course, when we had our second writing workshop, Joe Horowitz told me basically the opposite of what Tony Tommasini had told our group a few days earlier.

Tony: A review is a news story; be sure it has a news peg that you follow all the way through the story.
Joe: A review can be a personal essay; don't even worry about mentioning the actual performance.
Suzi: Argh!

I incline toward Joe's position. I do. I'm a grad of the UO's Literary Nonfiction Program, which — though not big in the personal essay realm, unlike other LNF programs, none of which is in a J-school save the UO's — inclined me less to news and more to long narrative forms.

But I also feel that in the EW, we should probably peg the stories to, yes, the actual performance. Sorry, Joe. I mean, if I want to write an essay on 19th century vs. 20th century, romanticism vs. fragmentation or existentialism, I can go back to grad school and finish that long-delayed art history Ph.D. But Eugene readers should probably hear about things going on in our area.

Not that I won't include the context etc. As another paper's critic said to me the other night, "I envy you. You can spend a lot of space on the philosophy." I thank Lois Wadsworth for providing that example in her book reviews and always, always giving historical context in her movie reviews. (And I thank Ted and our owners for backing the arts with so much paper space!)

My review of The Cleveland Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 from October 18 follows the jump.

Feel free to argue with me about Mahler. Apparently, Leonard Bernstein had a more nuanced take on Mahler 2. Shocking, that. Lesson: I need to watch those Norton lectures!

Anyway. More here.

OK. OK. I started a really long post on this topic last week. And yesterday, my post was destroyed when I tried to open another page. I wish I could say the page that destroyed my long, brilliant post on the National Endowment for the Arts etc. (see below) was, say, the webpage for something quite intellectual, say a chess-playing site.

But it wasn't. It was my favorite LOLCATS site.

Multitasking.

Anyway. I was gone for two weeks at the (clearing throat) Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism/National Endowment for the Arts Institute in Classical Music and Opera.

Before I go on, let me say that I got to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night (I've walked across it many times before, but never at night). That was freakin' glorious and worth the humiliating writing workshops.

Read all about it here.