I like everything Michael says here. But I don't understand his habit of using examples from popular culture to illustrate his reasoning. There must be some unconscious effort on his part to be a regular smart guy, one who seeks the validation of the common man as a strange twist of the same idea that Miller promotes when he proposes a common man museum filled by stuff the common man likes.
Michael is an intellectual, an elitist like the rest of us, a person in the rare upper-airy strata of the learned. From up here the cop and robber tv shows, the Hollywood movies of the 70s, and the like are soggy fogs in deep dun valleys. Don't swirl them up. They cake our colorful, rare, and wispy feathers and sink us to the mud below. I've probably not seen 25 popular movies in 25 years. And those tv shows...never saw 'em. Weird, I know. And I don't have a cell phone either. Rare bird, sharp talons. WC --- On Thu, 2/12/09, Michael Brady <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Definable and measurable truths > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, February 12, 2009, 10:14 AM > On Feb 12, 2009, at 10:44 AM, William Conger wrote: > > > a fascinating glimpse of how people are so easily > coerced to accept abstract human images as if they were > natural and correct > > "Coerced"? Maybe, maybe not. But your point is > well taken. > > All representations are reductions of the totality of the > referent to fit the smaller scale of the referring thing. > It's a matter of mapping, essentially. And with that > mapping comes a tacit or explicit agreement between both > parties, the map maker and the user, that because of the > limitations and reductions necessary in the mapped image, > there will be certain abbreviations, abridgments, > approximations, and the like. Eventually, these agreements > become standardized into styles or canons, which serve quite > well for a period of time until external factors introduce > variations in the standards or even an outright rejection of > them. > > Consider how "dated" movies made in the 70s look > to us today. I'm referring to the cinematography and > other filmmaking matters, not to the sideburns, fashion, and > automobiles. These cinematographic matters--lighting, camera > angle and tracking, editorial cuts, use of music, > etc.--correspond to the agreements of the mapmaker and user, > to the standards and canons of representation. For a while, > the standards are almost imperceptible, and the, as time > passes and the incremental changes have accumulated, we can > see the independence of style from referent. > > For an example of an abrupt change of style, remember back > to when "NYPD Blue" (American TV series) debuted. > It used a jittery hand-held camera technique, ostensibly to > impart a sense of cinema verite to the scenes, but many > commentators criticized it for being annoying or > distracting. That particular technique of representation was > still opaque and easily perceives separately from what it > showed. > > > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Michael Brady > [email protected]
