“Writing About Music in NYC” Must Read | Nate Chinen’s been inside the cauldron, so he knows (much much) better than most what the news of the reassignment of four veteran critics from the NYT’s Arts and Culture desk actually means. Sad that none of it feels surprising — more like, par for the course as to where most (though not all) critical work by corporate media institutions is headed.

Reading between the doublespeak of the editor’s announcement — an editor I enjoyed working with in another life, and for whom I retain massive respect — feels redundant. Her words…or the audience development strategist’s? Does it matter? In the pivot lies the bullet.

Much love to Jon Pareles, whose writing I’ve been reading my entire English-speaking life, mostly with pleasure and a notepad. Godspeed to Zachary Wolfe, whose brilliance around what is called classical music dovetailed with a generational reappraisal of its contemporary creative wing — or maybe just my own awakening…either way, he sits alongside Alex Ross and George Lewis (and Ronen G) in how/why I listen to music from over there.

The whole episode simply reaffirms a basic Dada Strain tenet: the need to organize and build our own institutions. (And maybe stop chasing the ever-more poisoned chalice.) It’ll take a while, but what else can we do? Just die?