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[George Cremaschi]

Well I'll admit that I wasn't clear enough.

There are several points I was trying to make,
and unfortunately they all got jumbled together.
First of all, both articles were totally favorable, even
celebratory. Even the weird line about Scott Looney's
piano playing was meant to be a compliment, in a
sort of iconoclastic way. Is it great writing? No.
Is it 100% factually correct? No. Is it probably
ripped off from 'Noisy People'? Yes. Is it the same
sort of treatment everybody else - dancers, community
activists, politicians, etc - gets in the Express? Yes.
Why expect more? You won't get it, so it's a moot point.
As the corporate reality of the Express has set in, the
journalistic quality, particularly of it's arts writing, has plummeted.
And as someone, I believe Mr Robair, noted recently when folks got
uptight about the Tom Nunn article in the Chronicle, be happy if
they spell your name right, and beyond that, well....

I used the words "hopefully, no one's sent a righteous e-mail
to the anonymous author" carefully - meaning, by all means,
go ahead and write to them, but make it everything you wish
their writing was: witty, intelligent, knowledgeable, factual, even
indignant. But not petulant and whiny. Does anyone remember
the pseudonymous Wanda Tinasky? 'She' was a prolific
letters-to-the-editor writer to the Anderson Valley Advertiser in
the mid-80's, for a long time believed to be Thomas Pynchon,
who was living up there (Mendocino County) at the time, writing
'Vineland'. Later, literary detective Don Foster decided it was
someone else, and Pynchon denied it as well. In any event, the
letters are wonderful - cranky, literate, and very very funny.
Write letters like that, folks, and hopefully they *will* be
published. But a silly letter is guaranteed to be published,
since letters editors like nothing more than making critics
look stupid...

-George

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