Hate Mail

I received what I should probably call my first piece of hate mail through my website, which I guess will teach me to provide a link back from my reviews. What can I say? I wanted the traffic. In any case, here goes:

“You are wrong regarding your critique of BD at Town Hall with Opeth. You don’t know anything about the company or the history of the people who run it...do research first before going off on a performance you know nothing about.”

In case you don’t feel like reading the review, the writer of this email is referring to my critique of the Ballet Deviare, who opened the New York performance of “Chronology MCMXCIV – MMV: A Live Observation by Opeth” with a dance interpretation of “Deliverance” they called “...And the Devil Knows Why” (sick of the quotation marks yet?). Basically, I said the group looked like a bunch of amateurs, the dance itself did not do much to convey the meanings of the song and on the whole, I could have done with less dancing and more Opeth. I emailed the guy back and basically told him the same thing, but I found the whole experience intriguing: no one’s ever attacked my credibility as a journalist before and doing it in a way that makes it sound like he didn’t actually read the review makes it that much more fun. I’m sure I’ll get notes like this one many more times, but for now I’m thrilling in the novelty and damn it, I’m going to enjoy it.