In a message dated 10/5/09 10:20:33 AM, [email protected] writes:
> He makes fun of Bell and stretches Kivy to make him an ally for his own > heavily biased and unexamined, "naive realist" philosophy. And listers > call that "cogent" > I say it fails on the first step by exposing a false interpretation based > on pejorative adjectives before analysis. That is the opposite of cogent > which means a forceful appeal to reason. > His initial offering didn't include his silly attempt at innuendo and did seem to be a good try at a precis. He was very cogent for him. It is his comment on his own first letter which returns to his usual overtones of condescension and envy-rather like a second rate academic at a second rate school,which, with his mind, may be all he can envision of critical thinking. To quote him directly: It's amusing - or sad -- to think of that poor man trying so diligently to avoid any "ideas of life" while auditioning a concert - as it is to think of a painter who heroically strives to make his work appear meaningless. we have all read this sort of thing before in literary society publications,or been cornered by the man in the Greek fisherman's hat who talks gravely of his opinions on-Kivy,perhaps,or even Derrida-and who gently explains the longer words so we will understand his meaning. What Bell said,if Miller copied it correctly, was: "At moments I do appreciate music as pure musical form, as sounds combined according to the laws of a mysterious necessity, as pure art with a tremendous significance of its own and no relation whatever to the significance of life" -- while at other moments "Tired or perplexed, I let slip my sense of form .. and I begin weaving into the harmonies , that I cannot grasp, the ideas of life" Miller seems to have assumed that Bell went into a concert determined to ignore the subject of the instrumental concert when he seems to have gone in bright and alert and later gotten tired and let his mind wander. While it is possible that Miller always listens carefully in a concert and never tires,it is also very possible that his idea of careful llistening is to think constantly of his own reactions and what he can say about them later. I would like to ask if his idea of listening or viewing or reading something he considers art includes this process of first forcing or generating some sort of reaction and then describing it to himself or others. Kate Sullivan
