I was interested in Armstrong to begin with because he is the most important figure in Jazz in the 20th Century. There's simply no question about it. I mean, if you're going to compare him to somebody, it's Shakespeare in terms of centrality of the tradition, in being at the beginning of it.
Terry TeachoutBlogging has mostly been an opportunity to react more immediately to experiences to try out ideas that I may end up using in the print media or in some other place. When I write books, it's a way for me to bring readers into the experience of writing the book, all through the process of writing the books that I write. I talk about what I'm up to in the blog. I let people know what I am doing. To me, it's just part of putting my professional life up in a way that people who are interested in it can access; and learning things from them as well.
Terry Teachout(R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end.
Terry TeachoutI know that luck has a way of happening to people who shoot high, who never sell themselves short.
Terry TeachoutA critic should always strive to recapture the sense of wonder and surprise with which he first beheld a now-familiar work of art.
Terry TeachoutThe wonderful thing about theater is that anything, no matter how tendentious, no matter how stupid it sounds at first glance, can be made to work if it is charged with freshness and originality. You can have an entirely political Shakespeare production and I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat as long as it's surprising, as long as it's not just the standard, "out of the box" pseudo-transgressive production that we just see too much of nowadays.
Terry Teachout