I hate your blog. Your recipe for vegan eggnog is stupid.

(Yes, this is the second time I've stolen from that MC Frontalot song for a post title, but look -- genius is genius, all right?)

Time Out New York's cover feature this week is a piece exploring the sometimes contentious interrelation between Big Media arts critics and the growing network of Artists With Blogs and Bloggers Who Write About Arts. The piece itself is actually very bloggy -- after an introductory "post" by Michael Friedson, he turns it over to a bevy of commenters, including some of my favorite artsbloggers -- Tweed & sharkskin girl of the performance art blog Obscene Jester, and Isaac Butler, theatre director and proprietor of the vibrant theatre blog Parabasis.

[A digression: Isaac and I met cute -- while we were waiting for the F train one day a few years back, Isaac recognized Lindsay from her blog photo and introduced himself to us both. Later, he ended up using a couple of Secret Society tunes in a play he directed, Talk of the Walk-Up. And by some strange coincidence, one of the actors in the cast turned out to be the paralegal who had handled my latest O-1 Visa application.]

Anyway, yrs trly was amongst the bloggers contacted for this piece, and here's the bit they quoted:

Darcy James Argue, editor, music-and-culture blog Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
One charge we’ve all heard leveled at blogs is that they are “all about the blogger.” The people making this accusation generally seem to think this is a very bad thing, but I’m not so sure.… When you follow someone’s blog, you tend to get a much more vivid sense of the writer’s values and priorities than you get from reading a traditional review. I think this is much healthier than passively accepting someone’s verdict because they happen to write for The New York Times.

Dude, I'm an editor now? Sweet! (Wait, that doesn't mean I have to start proofreading before I hit "Publish Now" from now on, does it?)

I'm also honored to have made the list of "trusted blogs," as it will make for a much more dramatic reversal when I inevitably betray that trust in a blatant sell-out.

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Comments

[Amanda Marcotte]

1.

One of the delights of freelancing is racking up the impressive titles. I'm a columnist, an executive editor, a producer, and a production assistant. In the course of a week. Also, author.