Where's the mystery?

As living life in new sort of public, online, and instantaneous way becomes more and more ubiquitous, the classical music blog has gone from being the rare oddity to the commonplace. It seems that blogs were just the start of a progression from keeping your friends updated about your doings every few weeks over a nice macchiato, to now, where everyone, everywhere, knows that two minutes ago you needed a cocktail, or were shoveling snow (a la facebook).

I can't say that I feel wholeheartedly that this is good OR bad. I would like to say that it is bad, or perhaps more accurately that it is creepy, but really it would be hypocritical of me to say such a thing as I participate in all of this online living as much as I revile it.

But, specifically in the context of classical music and the world of the arts, I must say that as much as part of me enjoys reading that pianist Jeremy Denk has uncontrollable urges for rice krispie treats, at the same time the larger part of me mourns some sort of loss of mystery. I guess it is too late: mystery as a concept is not much present for this latest generation of artists, and it is perhaps silly to mourn something that is long gone in the eyes of modern culture in general, but really! I wouldn't want to have been sitting in a darkened concert hall, listening to Claudio Arrau, and have it even remotely possible that I could have wondered if he had gotten his rice krispie treat fix recently.

I know I keep picking on think denk in my discussions of the classical blog, and this is perhaps unfair as there are many other blogs like this one. But it is a great example in my view of both what is so great about blogs and all of this connectivity in general (getting to know artist's deep thoughts!) and what is so intangibly disappointing about the same (the same!).