small but lively!
Verlaine went to a production of "The Alchemist" at the National in London, and the audience there made him decide that Theater as an Art Form is Through!:

Of course I wrote off ballet and opera as irrelevant a long time ago, but I'm sad I might have to do it to theatre as well. It's a medium I want to like, but the more I think about it the less I think it's justifiable. It's way too trapped in its tradition, way too obsessed with its past, and obviously being kept on life support by cash injections from rich smug arbiters of what constitutes worthwhile art.

Most of his friendslist gives good debate: what is viable art these days? Is cinema the death of live performance? Did video kill the radio star? and other such questions that have been plaguing artists since Thespis gave a monologue and the scribes proclaimed it "THE DEATH OF THE CHORVS".

However, there are some good bits in there, including indictments of rap:

Big surprise that the talentless poor find greater identification with an artform that glorifies talentless poverty than with one produced via diligence, training and actual creativity to praise the achievements of civilisation.

And books:

Don't get me started on books! I only read them sporadically at best these days, and that's because they're part of what I'm criticising too: a bloated, elitist medium run by mafiaesque publishing cartels who have total dictatorial say-so over what's "worthy" for us to read.

But by far my personal favorite is how pricing tiers in live theater is just like racism.

I threw my two cents in over opera and literature, so perhaps this ought to be in i_wank, but I thought that you guys would probably know better what the jurisimprudence law for "back of the bus" was. :)