At the excellent and beautifully organized site In Search of the Miraculous, Brian Sholis reports on last night’s “Criticism and the Arts” panel. He begins:

Given past experience with panel discussions, and common assumptions one brings to them, I didn’t have the highest hopes for one titled “Criticism and the Arts,” held last night at Hunter College. It featured Joan Acocella (of the New Yorker, Greil Marcus (author, most recently, of The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice, Alex Ross (of the New Yorker and the weblog and forthcoming book The Rest Is Noise), and Mark Stevens (of New York magazine), four eminent critics one must respect no matter one’s opinion of their opinions. Thankfully, the panel was moderated adroitly by Wendy Lesser (of the Threepenny Review), and the brisk pace—two questions from Lesser to all four panelists; two more questions thrown open to them generally; three or four questions from the audience—engaged until the end, when it was “time for wine and fizzy water, so you’ll feel this is more of a conversation than an opportunity for us to talk at you.”

What does Marcus think of Anthony Lane? When did Ross know he wanted to be a music critic? Who had to fight off T.S. Eliot? What did Pauline Kael say on the phone? (This is sounding like an Encyclopedia Brown wrapup.) Keep reading; it’s as satisfying as a tableful of wine and fizzy water.