[NetBehaviour] MRe: 2000 9/11s
Lawrence Upton
carrack at bluebottle.com
Wed Sep 12 12:02:49 CEST 2007
Dear Mark
(I only called you Mr, because you called me Mr)
>I hope I haven't offended
I was irritated; I lost my irritation; I watefully prepared myself to be
irritated again when I saw the subject / sender come up. I am fine
>I reread my post and can't really defend it. These kinds of outbursts are
>exactly why I mostly lurk on lists. Quick readings and ill-considered
>Reponses are not needed on this otherwise quality list. I'm afraid I'm
>guilty.
I used to post a lot on lists, though never much here; and I kept giving up.
Eventually I did give up. I am not sure what is happening in me that has led
me to post several times here recently. I agree wholeheartedly with your
judgement that it is a quality list; it engages me enough that I go on
reading / lurking with only rare active participation in the list itself;
and that indicates a strong engagement - it is the material itself, the
information and exchanges of others, which has hooked me rather than the
arena offered to my own pronouncements. Well, except today.
I was thinking over the last few days that I had been right to withdraw from
lists; but then I wake to two messages which quite put paid to such
negativity
I'm not sure I agree that, abstracted, James' question was silly; but of
course that abstraction changes the question. Had it been put with more
politeness and respect then it might have got a positive response.
I think it's fine to have negative feelings about work; though perhaps it
were better for them not to be expressed aggressively. I don't think it's ok
for there to be shallowness and heavy bias.
Both constraints are necessary because what seems deep may later be seen to
be shallow; and what is objective may be shown to be biased. Such
complexities, I believe, are the potential strength of such a list. It is a
place where we may debate. I have learned from Michael's post on Alan and
from Alan's post on Andre and himself. But there is a large difference
between the negativity of someone shouting "Why should I look at that?" and
the positive negativity of someone saying "I don't get it; tell me why you
are interested."
The problem is not limited to work in the area of what is termed
_experimental_. Five, maybe six, maybe more, years ago, on another list
entirely, I kept reading praise songs to a much lauded middlebrow middle of
the stream poet; and I couldn't see much in the work at all.
One day, the listowner posted a review of them, one word: "Excellent". So I
posted a question - wherein lay the excellence?
I forget the answer, but it was something like "I would have thought that is
obvious", & several others posted messages which amounted to "How can you
even ask that?"
I might as well have farted in church
I was angered, went on the net and downloaded a poem of the poet's, the
first I found. Later it was rightly charged that I had not picked anything
like one of their best.
I downloaded it, litcritted it and posted.
The response was interesting. Apart from the valid criticism that I had
chosen a weak one, it was lame. There were sniffy assurances that they, the
person writing, had always thought the poet excellent and, basically, who
did I think I was. There were demands that I cease immediately my close
textual criticism. But there was no one actually saying one word about where
the quality of this poet lay.
It brought out many lurkers. And I was told by a list member that they had
been approached at a drinks' party that they had been approached by the
poet's spouse: What are we going to do about this man Upton? Why is he
making this attack?
I stuck to my metaphorical guns and was eventually posted against by one of
the most respected, most distinguished, most blahblahed younger poets the UK
subsidises. He exposed my secret agenda by cutting and pasting my emails in
defiance of chronology.
Many thanked him.
I thought some kind of vindication was assured and posted an analysis of his
post, demonstrating how he had wilfully misrepresented by rewriting me.
Despite the fact that all had the posts in their mail box folders and so
could check, none who posted did so; or they didn't admit it. The response
was to condemn my outrageous behaviour in slandering a fine human being. One
said that he didn't have the time for checking to see if there was anything
true in what I said when it was obvious to him that I wasn't.
So it goes
>that a negative opinion about work automatically translates to a negative
>opinion of the author and I don't like to assume that
Nor I. But it may be implied by the tone. Recently I was asked for
directions, or 20p, or a light by a young man. When I chided him for
speaking to me as though I'm a piece of shit - I require evidence! - he
denied it all... If the denial was truthful, it was just that he hasn't
actually mastered the basics of human communication... It takes effort
>I think James has a small point
Yes. Ish
& there may be a rather large argument being assumed e.g.
_Knowing an artist's previous work and stances on political issues etc.
doesn't really tell us what this particular work may be representing_ -
assumes that the work *represents anything
Re: _Not all works successfully say what we intend._
I am suspicious of the position which asks, generically, "What is the artist
saying?" It assumes the artist knows.
AND if it were possible to reduce a poem, say, to a prose statement, what
then would be the point of the poem? There are different modes of saying and
they are less translateable one to the other than works of the same kind
between languages
> I guess it's up to the audience to judge. or maybe not?
The audience will judge whatever we do. BUT
I lived for some years a couple of hundred yards from Tate St Ives. I was
chatting with a neighbour one day who, perhaps not knowing how I spend my
life, condemned the gallery as a waste of money.
What was wrong with it? Ridiculous question, said the tone of her reply:
"They just exhibit blobs of paint"
Had she ever been there and looked? Her reply: "Why should I want to go and
look at blobs of paint"
I doubt her attitude would have been different had she accepted my offer
that she accompany me to the gallery. It wasn't just that she had ideas of
her own, which undoubtedly she does; but that she is determined not to have
them altered.
We can't know all there is to know. That's why it is important to discuss
and why, for me, the two posts I mentioned were so valuable.
A small thought experiment: What might an educated art lover of the 12th or
13th century make of most art of any time remotely modern - arbitrarily let
me suggest anything from David (the painter not the king) onwards?
I recall being turned almost to stone myself, in the Athenian acropolis
museum, by a statue of Athena; and reduced (or expanded) almost to tears by
a relief carving in the museum at Xania in Crete. The latter was a
gravestone; but I responded to it as a work of art as work of art. I am
aware that over two millennia ago someone called out "another number 17,
Fred", though perhaps not in English, to obtain for sale a stereotyped
image; but when I took a friend 50 miles out of her way to see this image, I
was moved as much again; and so was she.
My response was quite valid in one way; and, in another, problematic. I have
no hope of knowing too directly how a Greek of over two millennia passed
might have reacted to a statue of Athena. I find it very hard to react to
images referencing Christian belief in the same way that believers might
react. Distanced as I am, I cope a lot better with poets such as Donne and
Milton than many because I did have a religious education, complete with
Latin and incense as standard. So the same work may seem relatively
different to members of what is apparently an heterogenous grouping.
If we want to appreciate art, we are well-advised to discuss it with each
other; or, for lurkers, to listen to others. Because context matters;
context supports the art, is a part of it; and the more that art is
engendered by concentration upon process and its time-base the more we need
to be aware of context.
I have gone on a long time. If anyone is still reading, be assured I have
one more thing to say, one more anecdote.
Criticism as attack is not always positive. I have been, since 1970
(excluding the 80s) a member of Writers Forum Workshop, which meets now
every three weeks or so, in London. Nowadays I co-convene it. Apart from our
focus upon experimentation, the other and, I believe, most important thing,
is that we do not tolerate negative criticism.
A lot of people do not like this, wanting to be dressed down and verbally
assorted, seemingly enjoying being told that they need an extra beat in line
4 (though perhaps they do) or rhyme inappropriately, or should rhyme.... and
all that. How the sestina (yawn) works
Yet the prohibition is, I believe, only positive. It means that anyone can
try anything, knowing with considerable certainty that they will not be
rubbished. It also means that one wishing to make a suggestion has to put it
as a suggestion and not as a rule which has been broken.
Such suggestions may often be made in the bar because the bulk of our
attention is spent on the next performance or experiment, encouraging people
to use their own ears and eyes and their own judgement to learn from -
learning from the work itself with positive discussion following and backing
that up
And with that I wish you all a happy new year
L
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