e-mail: wlesser@threepennyreview.com

Dear Friendly Visitor,

I decided to start a blog for three reasons:

1) People felt that there should be a part of the Threepenny website that was available only online, not in the printed magazine.

2) Some of the things I wanted to write about seemed as if they would benefit from a slightly more timely response than our usual quarterly publication permitted.

3) I was seeing and hearing so much interesting art — especially in the areas of dance and music, though also in literature, theater, and the visual arts — that I couldn't fit everything I wanted to say into The Threepenny Review without taking over the whole publication. And if you are not Diderot or Karl Kraus (and I am certainly neither), it is never a good idea to write the whole magazine yourself. But I figured the rules of blogs would allow me to monopolize one of those.

I struggled to come up with a good title for the blog and at first resisted using my own name, feeling (as those named Lesser are bound to feel) that diminishment is not necessarily a selling point. But then I figured that if people named Grudge or Drudge can use their names on websites, I should certainly not be abashed at calling this The Lesser Blog. So here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.

All best,

Wendy Lesser, Editor of The Threepenny Review

First posting: June 15, 2006: Mark Morris and the Idea of Camp

Second posting: July 11, 2006: Javier Marías's Dance and Dream

Third posting: September 12, 2006: Tomer Heymann's Paper Dolls

Fourth posting: October 1, 2006: Semele at New York City Opera

Fifth posting: January 12, 2007: Teaching the Arts

Sixth posting: March 29, 2007: A Month of Performances

Seventh posting: June 17, 2007: Music Audiences

Eighth posting: November 2, 2007: Short Takes

Ninth posting: February 26, 2008: Vertigo, Etcetera

Tenth posting: March 28, 2008: In the Oddest Places

Eleventh posting: May 4, 2008: Slings and Arrows

Twelfth posting: October 5, 2008: Programming

Thirteenth posting: December 2, 2008: Wagnerian Time

Fourteenth posting: April 21, 2009: A Rainy Night

Fifteenth posting: September 21, 2009: Lightning Strikes Twice

Sixteenth posting: November 16, 2009: Violinists

Seventeenth posting: November 23, 2009: Conductors

Eighteenth posting: December 9, 2009: But Is It Opera?

Nineteenth posting: February 8, 2010: Comparative Beethoven

Twentieth posting: February 22, 2010: Bell & Jackiw

Twenty-first posting: March 25, 2010: An Excess of Riches

Twenty-second posting: May 6, 2010: Two More Canadian Shows

Twenty-third posting: August 26, 2010: Edmund de Waal's Hare

Twenty-fourth posting: December 18, 2010: The Hard Nut

Twenty-fifth posting: January 2, 2011: My Shostakovich Book

Twenty-sixth posting: April 12, 2011: Tetzlaff Times Three

Twenty-seventh posting: October 16, 2011: Art That Speaks to Us

Twenty-eighth posting: March 13, 2012: All Hail the Pacificas!

Twenty-ninth posting: May 14, 2012: Operas and Productions

Thirtieth posting: January 6, 2013: A Month of Daily Blogging