[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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