'Cause they're on a panel, haw. The details (which are here; click for tickets):

Tuesday, December 6, 7:00 p.m.:
The Art of Online Criticism

Maud Newton, Sasha Frere-Jones and Terry Teachout with Bryan Keefer, moderator

“Everyone’s a critic,” as the saying goes, but it’s true now more than ever. Cultural critics find themselves in the same predicament as other members of traditional media who now must play a new game. Hear three influential critics who write both online and for print discuss how the cultural conversation is evolving and what the future holds. MAUD NEWTON is the founder/editor of prominent literary blog maudnewton.com. TERRY TEACHOUT contributes arts criticism to the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, among others. SASHA FRERE-JONES is the popular music critic for the New Yorker. The panel will be moderated by BRYAN KEEFER of CJR Daily.

Contact Information: www.makor.org

Brought to you by: Makor/Steinhardt Center

Cost: $12/advance $15/door

Check out the photo—I suspect foul play. I liked Frere-Jones' piece on Houston rappers this week; it's winsomely written, in his newish, freer, more relaxed style. If you haven't read John Lahr's Profile of Steve Buscemi yet, by the way, get ready for reading heaven. Lahr is anti-dish, all poetic precision ("He is pale, almost pallid—as if he'd been reared in a mushroom cellar.... His boniness carries with it a hint of negativity, a kind of rejection of the world"), and makes even Martin Schoeller's thoughtful (and a little roguish, as if Buscemi were crashing a J. Crew shoot) photo redundant. Lahr's prose and reportage, which achieve the rarity of being almost indistinguishable, add colors to the spectrum of human experience.

"The Art of Online Criticism" has or less the same premise as the panel I was just on (or was not on, depending whom you ask). I have a feeling this bunch will be a little more lighthearted than we were, since I doubt they'll be fussing over the already musty canard "Will manic, unqualified loons with God complexes eat the children of nice, hardworking old print jourrnalists?" Hi, world: Blogger and journalist are not mutually exclusive (see: panelists above), and most of the people you probably read are both. Some of them can even spell, a good number of them are trained fact-checkers, and many of them contribute simultaneously and respectfully to print media. Read the resumes, check the clips, then judge away!

FYI, another Makor NYer-related event: November 16, the premiere of As Smart As They Are: The Author Project. Bet it'll sell out—Dave Eggers, Paul Auster, Jonathan Lethem, and Rick Moody are in it, and, well, you know. Auster and Moody (as well as the noble Edward Albee, Sandra Cisneros, Philip Gourevitch, Emma Reverter, and Colson Whitehead) were especially excellent readers at the sometimes shocking, sometimes heart-choking, sometimes darkly amusing PEN event against torture the other night.