At 6:11 PM -0800 3/5/03, Ryan Griffis wrote:
>hey everybody,
>
>"It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing" –
>Duke Ellington
>
>well, i certainly can't argue with the Duke!
>and marc's right, i'm all talk, but i try.
>i definitely didn't mean those questions to seem
>rhetorical, well, not completely anyway. i don't have
>any "answers," and give Dyske credit for putting her
>attempts at answers up.
>but i do value keeping things more arbitrary


I've got no problem with arbitrary – I listen to a lot more free
jazz than Ellington, and I've no interest in authority in the arts
for its own sake.

>- in
>other words whether you're going to adorno, ellington
>or l. anderson as authority, it's still using the
>rhetoric of authority and authority as rhetoric. i
>could say it's more useful to try to talk about things
>without the shield of example and precedence, but i
>don't know that i believe it possible. ellington
>usually trumps adorno in coolness though.
>
>>>What ideology would you say an Ansel Adams
>photograph of Yosemite
>represents?
>
>but this is an easy one:). Yosemite and other national
>parks benefited from adams and others like watkins.
>adams was commissioned after all by preservationists
>in Congress, after all, for many of those works. his
>compositional choices, high depth of field/focus,
>incorporation of monumental geography and man made
>structures, lack of figures in the landscape (outside
>of pueblo indians who were considered part of the
>landscape anyway, just not in the parks)

Maybe he just liked to take and look at pictures that used those
techniques and subjects.

…
>theory program, this is just what i'm interested in.

Me, I just like to look at pictures and listening to sounds that
imply something beyond what they state-:) That could be Ansel Adams,
Kandinsky, Sam Frances, Ellington, Trane, The Dead, Sun Ra, etc. etc.
For myself, (and others can and should please themselves) art is
about mystery and transcendence, and very little "socially aware" art
provides me with much of that.

This presents the critical writer with a well-nigh impossible task,
to describe in words that which derives its value from the fact that
it can't be described in words. Critical writing is useful as a
conveyer of techniques and influences, as a describer of connections,
and (mostly) as a way for one enthusiast to turn others on to what
s/he likes.

The problem that much critical writing encounters (IMO) is that it
attempts a deeper level of intellectual explanation than is really
possible or desirable.

Could say more – time to make some music before bedtime.


>bowling for columbine was great, and the animated
>sequences were a nice addition!

Indeed, yes.

> i still think i liked
>roger + me more though.
>take care,
>ryan

Haven't seen that yet, so can't compare. Definitely on my list.

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