An intel­lec­tual is a man who says a sim­ple thing in a dif­fi­cult way; an artist is a man who says a dif­fi­cult thing in a sim­ple way.

Great obit on Paul Fussell

I rec­om­mend hear­ing from another poet, Charles Simic, who’s writ­ing has taken on great, blunt force over the past year or so.

•  I would have failed Terry Teachout’s class. This is unob­jec­tion­able advice if you want to write a shal­low, unob­jec­tion­able retelling of some­thing you wit­nessed. But if you want to write actual crit­i­cism, you need to:
• Give con­text, because with­out it you can’t find meaning
• What are the piece’s val­ues and goals?
• How well did the piece ful­fill those val­ues and goals?
• Did the qual­ity of the per­for­mance mat­ter, and if so, what was it?
• Assume your read­ers are intel­li­gent and curi­ous, show them some­thing they might know and assume they can com­pre­hend it
• Be sin­cere and be clear
• Refer to other things and styles only if it serves to explain and illus­trate what went on, don’t be like The Wire, where the house style is to string together cul­tural ref­er­ences as a replace­ment for actual criticism.

When West­erns were Un-American

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It’s free (great) music time: Bang on a Can Marathon is Sun­day (includ­ing the Maya Beiser/Bill Mor­ri­son col­lab­o­ra­tion pre­viewed below, on some time after 9pm and before Reich and Grisey). I’ll be live-blogging at The Smaller City and on Twit­ter, start­ing some­time around 2pm. Make Music New York is Thursday

Got your pen­nies saved? New, turgidly antic­i­pated releases from Fiona Apple, Neneh Cherry and CAN out Tuesday.