So's yer face!

I've been having a brief read through at the (un?)intentionally hilarious new site that got the classical critics so exercised this past weekend, musoc.org. I won't bother linking because I don't need the grief. I don't intend to spend much time on this, but it's the type of site that attracts my attention as one who seeks greater tolerance in most aspects of life. Suffice it to say, if it's for real, it's run by the type of person I went on about in this post a few months ago. It's already drawn responses from the Guardian's Tom Service and WaPo's Anne Midgette. Although I sympathize with musoc's point about a greater need in modern society for silence, or at least freedom from musical noise pollution, the greater part of the site reads like the mission statements of any other high-culture jihadist, and basically comes down to "Anything I don't like is illegitimate." I'd love to take the time to refute their points one by one, but I'll leave that for someone who doesn't have a fussy baby in the background. Anyway, as we learned soon after starting this blog, trying to engage people with a mindset like this usually just gets our intelligence questioned or generates responses only slightly more mature than, "I know you are, but what am I?" Case in point:

As Midgette expediently points out, 'classical' music (to use her preferred anti-elitist terminology) is "responsible, like any field, for some singularly vapid outpourings."

How very true!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have another wailing infant to deal with.


UPDATE: One of the reasons I didn't bother addressing their points is that 'musoc' was obvious Sohothedog bait. I'm pleased to see Matthew Guerrieri – who's wicked smaht, and way more articulate than me anyway – enter the breach and prove my intuition right. You get the feeling he wrote it while cooking a seven-course meal and analyzing the recession, too.