steve wrote:Come to think of it, I brought nothing to this book. Endo did all the work. He wrote a great novel, and it isn't great because of the title, its setting, where I discovered it or any other trivialities.

you brought your personality, life experiences, aesthetic preferences, education, cultural positioning, eschatological intuition, cock size, and all the other things that make human beings irreducibly different from one another (and, i would argue, allow art to function the way it does--as a mirroring metaphor of our own peculiarly human subjectivities). these are hardly trivialities! would the same book "ring true" for me? it's possible. if it didn't, i wouldn't dismiss it an "inauthentic expression" of Shusaku Endo's creative impulses, because i have no idea what that would even mean.

steve wrote:It is great because he did the hard part: He expressed complex ideas in a genuine way that doesn't play games with the presentation or meaning of the sentences.

i doubt the 20th century's predilection for playing games with presentation and meaning led to any more bad art than the conventions of the 19th century academy you attacked earlier. if you think metafiction and the like is played out, i agree with you (though i'd replace "genuine" with something like "insightful"), and therein lies part of why you responded to Endo's book in the way you did (again, more context).

steve wrote:I suggest that context is currently (say for the last fifty years) grossly over-valued in the appreciation of art, much as it was under-valued in the couple of centuries before..

i have no idea what is over or under valued in the world of art. i only know what i believe re: the things we're discussing. if you believe in "authentic essences," the rest of our argument is probably going to be a predictable extrapolation from that. i think history shows it as a dangerous line to take.

Debate about the reality of authentic expression is rendered moot by those things which derive their value from inauthenticity; kitsch, camp, knowing mimicry, slavish homage, minstrelry etc. If one can be willfully fake, then surely there is a sincere case, and neither would have value if we couldn't tell them apart. I suggest that one can pretend to be the other, even.

To suggest that one cannot know when someone else is faking it is to deny the obvious. When I am lied to, I often spot it based on clues other than the words in the sentence. Duplicitous political language is evident to anyone who is not being willfully deceived. I play poker sometimes, and I am better at calling a bluff than I am at selling one -- there is some measure of this in every enterprise.

I cannot believe that art is the only realm of communication where such falsehoods cannot be evaluated. In fact, I think it is easier to spot sham music than a middle pocket pair, when both are played "correctly."

I once did a Hogan Legdrop on a friend of mine in school when i was about 10 years old. He didn't go to the hospital, but he did get a nosebleed and cry like a newborn. Poor bastard. I didn't even fully realise what the hell i was doing. I was probably high on too much orange juice and/or coca cola. In retrospect, i feel ashamed.

We are still friends incidentally and i apologise to him for this evil action on a semi-regular basis.

Sorry to interrupt the discussion but the thread title got me interested and excited. It started a chain reaction in my brain and i just HAD to confess.

aaron wrote:you brought your personality, life experiences, aesthetic preferences, education, cultural positioning, eschatological intuition, cock size, and all the other things that make human beings irreducibly different from one another (and, i would argue, allow art to function the way it does--as a mirroring metaphor of our own peculiarly human subjectivities).

If what you're saying is that since people are all different, then when they look at art, they "make" it good or bad for themselves, I guess I agree. One of the things (one of them) that can make art bad for me (I guess I make it bad for myself) is that I get the feeling the artist is trying to pull some bullshit on me instead of communicating or spurring me on to thoughts of my own that I wouldn't have had without him.

would the same book "ring true" for me? it's possible. if it didn't, i wouldn't dismiss it an "inauthentic expression" of Shusaku Endo's creative impulses, because i have no idea what that would even mean.

The mistake here is assuming that an authentic effort to communicate or stimulate is the only thing that matters. It isn't, and there are many reasons you might not like the book or anything else. Just because I dislike something, it doesn't mean I dislike it because it is inauthentic. Perhaps "phony" is a better term. Maybe I just don't like it. But there is a category of bullshit that I dislike for that reason (phony-ness), for sure.

i doubt the 20th century's predilection for playing games with presentation and meaning led to any more bad art than the conventions of the 19th century academy you attacked earlier.

Perhaps, but the games are used as a justification for weak art, and I despair that this perspective has gained the purchase it has. Bad is bad (I get to decide, remember, because I am the one looking at it), and bad with a funny title, or stuck in an unsuspected place, or making a pop-cultural reference is still bad -- just bad with a silly hat on it.

if you think metafiction and the like is played out, i agree with you (though i'd replace "genuine" with something like "insightful"), and therein lies part of why you responded to Endo's book in the way you did (again, more context).

I don't see how a unique insight has any debt to my appreciation of it. I don't see how the room I'm reading a book in (or the education I've had, or the length of my cock) changes the words on the paper. The words are what did it to me, and I only wish I could take some of the credit. I can't.

i have no idea what is over or under valued in the world of art. i only know what i believe re: the things we're discussing.

I believe there is currently too much emphasis on context as a smokescreen for ideas and art that don't withstand scrutiny or attentive interest.

if you believe in "authentic essences," the rest of our argument is probably going to be a predictable extrapolation from that. i think history shows it as a dangerous line to take.

Now you've got me interested. What about history is there that invalidates the notion that I can tell when an artist is bullshitting me? If you can make a history-as-context case that this distinction is invalid, I'd love to hear it.

steve wrote:Debate about the reality of authentic expression is rendered moot by those things which derive their value from inauthenticity; kitsch, camp, knowing mimicry, slavish homage, minstrelry etc.

I don't think that 'authenticity' when employed within the context of music (or certainly rock/bands/whatever you want to call it) can honestly be defined as being the antithesis of these things.

Surely when we talk about 'authenticity' in music, we are lazily (me included) describing the 'singular-ness' of a band. Or the 'the indescribable thing that makes them better than band-x'.

Isn't 'authenticity' the joker of the pack?

I can intellectualize music.

I can apply reason to justify my liking of music.

Bands A and B are neither original, nor inspired but while I HATE band A, I LOVE band B.

Argh!

*Apply the 'authenticity' joker to band B*

Bingo; my nice neat 'rules for what makes some bands good and some bad' surives intact.

Or something.

it isn't the same thing as a bluff in a poker game.

sun ra is not really from outer space. is he bullshitting you? is his art a lie?

such is the beauty and freedom of artistic expression.

I would not say that the process of describing what you, as an aficionado of music, find to be the satisfying qualities of a particular band/group/musician/genre in music is “intellectualizingâ€

aaron wrote:sun ra is not really from outer space. is he bullshitting you?

Sure as shit he is. Or was, about the Jupiter thing. Or Saturn, or wherever he said he was from. Of course he was full of shit about that.

is his art a lie?

His public persona obviously is. I can't respect that sort of thing. His music? I think he was genuinely pursuing his impulses, and I don't think his music is phony. I don't like it (which speaks to our earlier conversation), but I believe it is genuinely what he felt compelled to do. I can respect that aspect of it without liking any of it.

Now, what were you getting at with the history thing?

[quote="Zer0"]I would not say that the process of describing what you, as an aficionado of music, find to be the satisfying qualities of a particular band/group/musician/genre in music is “intellectualizingâ€

aaron wrote:sun ra is not really from outer space. is he bullshitting you? is his art a lie?

such is the beauty and freedom of artistic expression.

No. He's not bullshitting, he is for real. He is merely asking you 'suspend your disbelief' to point you towards a deeper profundity. If his music was shit you could say that his whole stage act was a hokey gimmick; a strategy to sell you something.

In the film 'Space is the Place' when Ra goes the Black Panther HQ they ask him who the hell he thinks he is and replies along the lines of:

Black people in this society don't exist, they are myth. I have become pure myth.

Once we allow ourselves to enter his myth space we can understand the power of his vision. I would take issue with Steve and say that you can't seperate the artist from his work.

Much like watching Hulk Hogan wrestle, if your not going suspend you disbelief for a while, then you will not be entertained. Personally I am fan of the Hulk's work.

Orson Welles hoodwinked the america with his 1938 'War of the Worlds' broadcast, he was one of the world's greatest artists. You wouldn't say Klaus Kinski is great liar, you would say he is a fantastic actor.

Mark Kostabi is a liar. Julian Schnabel is a big fat liar.

I would say it is all question of intent and good or bad faith.