Hey, this is dumb: Alec Duffy, the guy who won exclusive rights to an unreleased Sufjan Stevens song in a 2007 contest, is making people hang out with him in Prospect Heights if they want to hear it. Duffy, a 33-year-old theater director, nabbed “The Lonely Man of Winter†by submitting the winning track to “The Great Sufjan Song Xmas Xchange.†Now, instead of uploading the thing to the Internet as any reasonable person would do, he’s letting presumably creeped-out Sufjan fans listen, but only if they visit his Brooklyn apartment.
Duffy holds listening sessions once a week, where he doles out tea and chocolate-chip cookies, passes around the package he received along with “Lonely Man,†and then lets the visitors listen — on headphones only, to make sure nobody records it. Duffy says “this is the finest way we felt we could curate this song. It brings people together … [rather than] being lost among 14,000 iTunes.â€
It is at this point that we’d like to join the greater Internet community in saying — dude, come ooooonnn. We think the anonymous blogger quoted in The Wall Street Journal story says it best: “Given the economic woes and geopolitical instabilities of the day, is now really the time to hold effete little tea parties?†Sufjan Stevens hasn’t commented on the situation, but we feel it safe to say he thinks Alec Duffy’s an assclown.
Not-So-Easy Listening: It Takes a Trek to Hear This Track [WSJ]