By Claude Peck

Since we sit around all day and half the night gabbing on the phone, tracking down juicy tips, listening to new CDs, watching press screeners of movies and TV shows and parsing obscure websites from Albert Lea to Zurich, we figured a Twin Cities arts blog might be a healthy outlet.

By "we," I refer to the writers and editors who work in A&E at the Star Tribune, covering theater, movies music, TV, radio, dance, visual art, books, video games, nightlife, design, fashion and more.

After more fits and starts than a clunker in Minnesota in winter, here we are. Welcome. Stop here often to find newsbreaks, opinion, gossip, updates and ephemera.

Some posts may grow up to be news stories that you will see in the print edition or on existing web pages at startribune.com, but many more will live only in the highly caffeinated world of Artcetera.

Artcetera will eventually encompass the work of Poplife and Remote Island: that blog content will appear here. You'll need to update your RSS readers if you subscribed to those blogs.

And joining those bloggers, you'll see posts from me, Tim Campbell, Kristin Tillotson, Colin Covert, Laurie Hertzel, Randy Salas, Mary Abbe, Graydon Royce, Rohan Preston, Troy Melhus and Tom Horgen.