2 Blowhards reflects on why that art-oriented site contains so little criticism or reviewing (in the traditional senses of those words):
I don’t know about you, but I find the flexibility and immediacy of blogging a godsend. The publishing process, so to speak, is a snap. The ease (and lack of editing, god knows) allows for whimsy, freewheelingness, carrying-on, ranting and mischief-making, as well as earnestness and sophistication–blogging software is a great tool for an arts-gab hobbyist. It’s open-ended and flexible; it’ll do pretty much what you want it to do.
A big part of my life, like yours, consists of strolling through the cultural sphere; also I happen to enjoy musing out loud while I do so. That’s a lot of what life in the arts-and-culture-and-media world is for me–noticing connections, picking up signals, rhapsodizing, wondering about this ‘n’ that, giggling, mocking, as well as (occasionally) ranting, or driving home some point or other. I’ve got no proof for this, but I suspect that this is a decent description of what a life in the arts-culture-media worlds is like for many people, at least on a good day. Plus getting to compare notes–what could be better? So I’ve chosen to make my blogging an extension of what the arts life already is for me.
My sentiments exactly.
Meanwhile, God of the Machine explains why nobody reads Alexander Pope anymore:
The best poetry is rarely the most quotable; it derives much of its meaning from its context. Pope is highly quotable because he had a superb verbal gift; but the context is foolish. He is like an exceptionally brilliant student who has mastered his exercises and regurgitates them expertly. His poetry is unsatisfactory because the dominant ideas of his time are unsatisfactory. He might have written great poetry had he been born a hundred years earlier or two hundred later. Instead he was bequeathed a cheap and facile philosophy, lacked the intelligence to think his way out of it, and became a poet of brilliant fragments, no more. His vices are those of his age; his virtues are his own.
In the words of the master himself, “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”
Finally, I’m pleased to note the following weekend movie stats, courtesy of DVD Journal:
While Focus Films’ Lost in Translation clawed its way into tenth place with $2.8 million, the Sofia Coppola picture starring Bill Murray banked it with less than 200 screens. Unfortunately for Woody Allen, his latest project, Anything Else, starring Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, took just $1.7 million and did not chart….Lost in Translation has earned near-universal praise and will expand to more screens this weekend.
So go. As a friend of our upcoming Mystery Guest Blogger remarked the other day, “I liked every second of that movie.” Me, too.