Jay Nordlinger is one of the most acute and sensitive music critics in the business. For him to have to listen to me singing is like an A-1 gourmand being forced to eat a carton of Twinkies, or like WFB being shut up in a jail cell with nothing to read but the collected speeches of Joe Biden. The fact that Jay stayed conscious through myfortissimo rendition of “Without the Communist Party There Would Be No New China,” and refrained from leaping over and throttling me, testifies to his strength of character, and to the pain he is willing to endure on behalf of the magazine we all love.