We Care a Lot (and We're Still More Important Than Ballet)

JL's thoughts on the disappearing newspaper critic hoo-ha run counter to mine and are worth your read. JL says it's so much navel gazing, where I see meatier media concerns. (He also takes me to task over some sloppy verbiage, but you should skip over those points.)

I do care about the question—I think you can make out the barest glimmer of the spectre of the DJ hanging over the professional art critic. Music has gotten by without the patronage of the DJ and art criticism will survive, too, but the whys and wherefores are still interesting nonetheless. I think Jan Herman's collection of quotes about Columbia's cancellation of the National Arts Journalism Program, whose report in part sparked the death-of-the-art-critic meme to begin with, is fascinating stuff, and I'd love to wade into it . . .

. . . but I'm heading to the beach. That's right, it's Beach Weekend 2005, and my urban tribe is making its second annual migration toward the warmer water and cheaper booze of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My meatosphere friends definitely don't want to hear me rattling on about the evolution of print art criticism, so I'll have to content myself with drinking hundreds of Coronas on the beach. The hope is that art criticism will still be here when I get back.