Hither and yon:
– Mr. Think Denk eats a hot dog, and rhapsodizes thereon:
“Yes, I confess, to my eternal chagrin I am indeed a chip man.” I couldn’t really believe this sentence fell out of my mouth. If you haven’t traveled on Amtrak recently, you are in for a surprise; pursuant to some distant policy, the Acela workers are now aggressively pushing product. I came up, ordered a hot dog and a soda, and in those pregnant, magical moments while the dog steamed in a mysteriously recessed industrial microwave, the man behind the counter proposed a bag of chips. “Nothing could be better than a cold soda,” he said, his eyes seeming to mist, “a hot dog, and some chips.” I was swept up (as so often) in his faux emotion; I paused, teetered, acquiesced. He smiled toothily. “Yeah, I thought you were a chip man, just from the look of you,” he said, and I had to admit the obvious. And that’s when I said the ridiculous sentence….
Keep reading–he gets from the hot dog to the Chopin G Minor Ballade in two steps.
– Mr. Anecdotal Evidence nails it:
Everyone, I suppose, complains about the quality of book reviewing and literary journalism in the United States. Much of it is badly written, snotty, theory-driven, pretentious, tin-eared, politically motivated, aesthetically unmotivated, pop culture-obsessed, or just plain dull. Friends boost the books of friends. Antagonists exact vendettas. These things, given human nature, have always been true and most likely will remain so….
Yup.
– So does the Little Professor:
Am I the only person developing severe allergies to fiction about Emotionally Dysfunctional Adults Failing to Make Their Way in a Shallow and Commercialized World? Because it appears to me that this theme (which has been with us for quite some time, and is perhaps wearing out its welcome) tends to generate aggravatingly slick tales.
– And so does Ms. twang twang twang:
Passionate simplicity is at the heart of great art, whether you are playing, painting or writing about it, and the amateur’s enthusiasm is a type of simple passion, lovely and to be highly prized. But in fact, the professionals have everything the amateur has: devotion (we adored once too), frustration, and the combination of the two that is also called love. Both groups tread the same path towards perfection or mastery, but the professional is further along it, and as any travel story will tell you, a journey is harder in the middle, or at the end, than at the beginning. You are more tired. Hopefully you are buoyed up by what you have seen along the way, but that depends on how lucky you are.
Love begins simply; you fall in it. What happens to it after that is moulded by time, experience, battered by good and rotten chance. Couples get divorced; professionals give up; amateurs give up too, all the time, even though they love music. It is too hard. Other loves endure, grow along the path, human, alive; and like humanity itself are at once and always astoundingly powerful, and heartbreakingly vulnerable. That is the argument for sticking with it all: at the end is a great love. Or great art.
On the other hand, perhaps it is better to stay amateur, a little na