Basketball and Self-Congratulation

Well, for me and all other Michigan expatriates, this at least softens the pain I still feel over this. Cue Aretha Franklin singing "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" in Motown.

I am also happy to thank Alex Ross who, in a post at his blog The Rest Is Noise, may have sent you here to Ionarts. I have enjoyed following Alex's blog and am an admirer of his music criticism in The New Yorker. Alex noticed my post on Lars von Trier's withdrawal from a planned production of Wagner's Ring at Bayreuth, from June 7. In case you hadn't noticed, that is four days before this article was published by that other source of cultural news. As for Alex's qualification of Ionarts as "excellent," we're not worthy.

As far as distinctions for Ionarts, it can't get better than being excerpted and linked (on June 14, for this post on the new French translation of Ulysses) by Mark Woods—who has been blogging for millennia in blogging terms—at the always excellent wood s lot. Once again, non sum dignus.