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Wow...when it went to Page 38, the "38" wound up on another line in my window...I'll stretch the window and see what happens...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Yeah, just a factor of my window size...I can squish it all the way over and get the page numbers on several lines...
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Okay, a little exercise, a lot of sun and I think things are back on track. I made friends with a squirrel at the park yesterday. She was taking stuff right from my hand.
I think I just needed to recharge my solar batteries.
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So I have a question, Do you find that knowing too much about an artist affects you're ability to appreciate the art? I have notice in the past that when an artist (for me this means musicians, writers and actors) does or says something that I find extremely disagreeable or offensive, I have a hard time enjoying their music/books/movies. Other people have told me that I shouldn't let the person interfere with the art, but I have a hard time separating the two. Because of this I rarely try to find information about artists. I have even turned off the TV or stopped reading a magazine/newspaper when one of them started talking about something I might not like. I have only recently started going to writers websites and reading blogs for fear of this. So, does anyone else have this problem?
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My art never got past high-school art class...but with music, I found my appreciation for it grew after I learned to play a few different instruments, in particular the guitar.
Writing? To a certain extent, doing influenced my appreciation of, but it was a more gradual process.
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jayazman, I have the same issue. If I personally dislike an artist I have trouble enjoying their work.
I actually work in place where we get a lot of celebrity clients. There are some I can't stand to watch and some that I like better because I know they are a nice person.
If they don't do anything terribly offensive I try not to let it interfere but if they're extremely rude they can ruin a movie for me.
It just goes to show that no matter how big and important someone is they shouldn't forget basic manners.
quote:I made friends with a squirrel at the park yesterday. She was taking stuff right from my hand.
Many years ago, while I was working at a group home for troubled children, one of the kids tried to pet a squirrel. It bit him and he had to undergo a couple of months of rabies shots. BE CAREFUL WITH SQUIRRELS - they look cute and cuddley, but they can be vicious little creatures up close (of course that also describes some children).
Posts: 2003 | Registered: Jul 2008
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The artist thing is big for me, but I try not to let it be. I can't read a Percy Shelly poem because I know how much of a jerk he was to Mary. (As in Frankenstein Mary Shelly.) I also just learned that Lewis Carrol had a hobby of Photography, his favorite subject: nude children. It's going to be hard for me to get through Alice in Wonderland now. But I really want it to not affect me, especially when the person is dead. (If they are alive I don't want to support their lifes, like I celebrated Micheal Jackson's death by buying a Beatles CD.)
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Thanks philocinemas, I appreciate your concern.
I will tell you that this squirrel took the food from me very carefully. I also made sure that it was a large enough piece where my fingers wouldn't be too close to her teeth. I was actually surprised when she came all the way up to me. And I certainly would never try to pick one up or pet it.
But I also have a lot of experience with animals. We had a large variety of pets when I was growing up, including hamsters and rabbits (and dogs and birds and lizards and fish and frogs). And I currently have mice. So I feel I have a little understanding of critters. There is something to be said for knowing how to approach them.
[This message has been edited by genevive42 (edited January 16, 2010).]
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I can't think of anybody who I heartily dislike whose work I still manage to like. Usually it's dislike them, dislike their work. (Streisand falls into this---I felt this way long before politics entered the equasion, so it's not that.)
A lotta ones I admired (and admire) are among those who, I belatedly realized, behaved like jerks, or were seriously wrong-headed about one thing another. (Asimov and Heinlein, and all four Beatles, have done lots of things I disapprove of.) It hasn't affected my opinion of their work---or, at least, I don't think it has.
Of course I don't know any of these people personally---which would make or break the relationship.
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There are many people in Hollywood and in the music industry I do not particularly like regarding morals or politics, but I enjoy their movies or songs. It's the same way with art; I really love Salvador Dali's work, but he seems to have been very flakey and I don't like what I've read about him. I feel the same about several authors, past and present.
However, I tend to be able to overlook things I do not like about individuals and try to relate to them in other ways. Some of my past and present clients have done some very bad things, but I focus on what they are doing now or at least are trying to do. My chess partner in college was very liberal and I was very conservative. We often had political and philosophical debates while battling on black and white squares, but we were always respectful to one another and ended our games and debates with proper amiableness.
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It's said that Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda nearly busted up their friendship when they started arguing about politics---till they agreed one day never to discuss politics with each other again---and their friendship lasted till the end.
Politics is hardly the only subject that will get on people's nerves---but, of late, in the USA, it seems to be the main one. Probably it's because the outcome of politics is so important...
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Usually, I don't let my dislike of an artist interfere with enjoying their work...
HOWEVER
There are two writers whose work I will not buy any longer. One because he doesn't like me and I don't like him. The second one is a little different as I had no idea what kind of guy he was til I visited his message board. That was an eye-opener. It also made me rethink his attitudes in his novels as I think he's allowed his personal issues to interfere with his work.
I think it's easier to ignore an artist's faults when he or she is dead (Carroll), but it's harder to do so when the artist is alive.
quote:I think it's easier to ignore an artist's faults when he or she is dead (Carroll), but it's harder to do so when the artist is alive.
In a limited extent. On one hand, most of the "fault" I've found with Asimov and Heinlein has come after they're dead, some of it through changes in my own opinions, but some of it from finding they'd engaged in certian, er, "activities" that I thoroughly disapprove of. (Not the same ones in each case.)
They're hardly the only deceased writers who've done that, either. Recently it was put about in the SF world that Lester Del Rey (y'know, of Del Rey Books) shoveled with both hands about his life before he came into the SF community. The ultimate effect on me was to diminish him in my eyes.
I suppose some of it is a byproduct of my own growth (or my going from youth to middle-age). Once they seemed like gods to me, and now they seem like men---and maybe lesser men at that.
*****
On the other hand---I bet you thought I forgot about the other hand, didn't you?---I don't share the same political belief system or opinions as the still-living-as-of-at-least-a-few-days-ago Frederik Pohl. But my high regard for him as a writer and editor hasn't shifted any, and I regularly read his website blogging, no matter what point on the political spectrum his opinion may be coming from.
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Wow, we've finally had the same conversation twice. (By the way Cake > Pie.)
The most interesting couple I've ever know used to live next door. One was a strait laced Mormon the other a chain smoking Methodist. They could discuss nearly everything with each other. (And they disagreed on nearly everything.) The one thing they could not discuss was the Vietnam war. She protested against it and he volunteered for the army. Every time it came up they got divorced for about a year then got back together. (It's happened about four times.)
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Musically speaking; a very high percentage of performers, especially the really famous ones are real jerks and are into the freakiest things. Jaco Pastorious was known as one of the best bassists ever, but a colossal jerk to work with. When I listen to Joni Mitchell, Hejira (Jaco on Bass) I have no clue about Jaco's irritable personality. But then his socio-political-religious beliefs don't come through either. I tend to part company when someone tries to dominate/over-throw my beliefs using their art form as a bludgeoning device. But I am very willing to give anyone as much voice as I take for myself, artistically or otherwise. For what that is worth...
[This message has been edited by dougsguitar (edited January 19, 2010).]
quote:Wow, we've finally had the same conversation twice.
Actually, after being here, what is it, four years now, I've used up most of my "A" material and have wound up repeating myself. How many different ways can I say that I'm suspicious of the Scientologists and don't submit to the WotF for that reason? Or that I've read and liked a lot of Orson Scott Card's work, but the "Ender" series is not among them?
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Robert, how about you skim through a copy of Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, or Ender's Shadow sometime? Then you can no longer say you've avoided the novels.
As I recall, your suspicions of the Scientologists running WOTF arose because of junk mail received after either joining the WOTF mailing list or submitting a story. Interestingly, the rest of us haven't noticed a correlation. What happened to your Inbox could have been a coincidence or the result of someone stealing email addresses.
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Junk mail is hardly the only reason I'm suspicious of Scientologists...
...and I did read the original of "Ender's Game" when it appeared in Analog all those years ago...reread it a few years later (but still a long time ago now) when I went on an Orson Scott Card kick and reread everything of his I could (then) lay my hands on...but still didn't care for it...
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I'm suspicious of Scientologists because they jump on couches. Jump on couches one day, and the next day everyone's wearing Nike's and jumpsuits and drinking pink lemonade. See the correlation?
Posts: 2003 | Registered: Jul 2008
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GUNS!!. i like to use them, Big Guns, Small Guns, Future Guns, Old Guns, Stupid Guns,all kinds of guns, and Ruck Marching, Mountain Tossing, Mountain Blasting, Supper Repelling, Parachuting, Volleyball, and Death Blossoms. i make chuck e cheese like he!!
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i carry a gun just to use. on what or who i will not say. but they start with a H and end with a i and the second starts with a A and ends with s. you fill in the blanks
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As I was told, swords are legal in more U.S. locations than guns are. Most places don't even offer a permit to carry one.
I carry around a dull sword now and again and may in the future walk around in public with a sharpened blade, so I guess I should research local law. Rommel, as you're moving to my region, I'll let you know what I learn.
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Somewhere I read something about somebody being busted for carrying a concealed weapon because the sword was in the scabbard. (This happens in Heinlein's Glory Road, but I remember somewhere seeing it applied for real.)
I believe in Japan swords are regulated as strictly as guns---given how sharp a Japanese swords is, I don't find it surprising.
I should say, especially after what I said yesterday, that I don't own a gun. I'm all for the right to keep and bear arms, but I just don't own any. I could, but I don't want to.
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There is some haunting chanting coming from the hall, I think they've come for me. If I don't come back in ten minutes . . . it probably means I'm doing something interesting.
In Highschool I made a sword in the metal shop. I never actually took it home, I wonder if it's still sitting there in the back room. I did use it once for a presentation in mythology, but when I walked through the halls with it I got the most fantastic looks. Now I want that thing, blasted social anxiety.
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Hey great news Sheena, I've been catching a few minutes of the tryouts on TV down here and it always amazes me how great the gap is between the really bad and the really talented. Glad your friend is on the upside of that scale - whatever happens now they know they're at a level they can work from.
As for guns, and irrespective of political views, I've often thought about something my dad once said: Only carry a gun if you're prepared to have it used against you.
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Any of my buddies ever get famous? Well, I gather one of my old grade school / middle school chums is now Congressional Budget Office director...I suppose that's as famous as any of 'em got. Previously it was always somebody a couple of years before or a couple of years after.
Somehow I always hoped it would be me who got famous...
quote:Only carry a gun if you're prepared to have it used against you.
I completely agree.
I talked to a police officer yesterday about my city's sword laws. He told me any blade--regardless of sharpness--over three and a half inches must not be concealed. Sheathing counts as concealment (which surprised me). Also, anything that "alarms the public", at the determination of the responding police officer(s), is illegal. My city isn't as lenient as I'd thought.
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