On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 8:42 AM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 8:36 AM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 8:31 AM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 7:14 AM, William Conger >>> <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> An interesting article in today's NYT contains comments by leading >>>> critics about >>>> the diminishing role of shock in the arts, or the difficulty of doing >>>> anything >>>> as art that is also shocking. >>>> >>>> Almost nothing seems to shock us anymore in the arts because the last >>>> boundary >>>> is the imaginative separation of life and art, regardless of efforts to >>>> breach >>>> it. The most vulgar, violent, bizarre imagery in the arts is always, >>>> well, art, >>>> and thus safely distinguished from real life. We can calmly watch a >>>> cimema >>>> rape, murder, and mayhem, knowing that it occurred on the screen, in >>>> imagination, and not in real life. We can enjoy looking at a Peter Saul >>>> painting >>>> of the same -- so beautifully painted -- and walk away feeling good. >>>> So argue >>>> the people quoted in the article. >>>> >>>> But the ancient Romans went one better. When they put on a show of >>>> rape, >>>> murder, mayhem, they did it for real. As everyone knows the fighters >>>> in the >>>> daily Coliseum (and elsewhere in the antique world) the 'entertainers' >>>> actually >>>> killed each other; the misfit Christians were tossed to the lions for >>>> real. Now >>>> today that would be shocking. so there really is one shock line that >>>> hasn't yet >>>> been crossed. Maybe. It the early 70s there were rumors of so-called >>>> porno-snuff films in which female victims were actually said to be >>>> killed or >>>> "snuffed" on screen. I don't know if any of those rumors were true, >>>> but the >>>> idea alone was horrifying. Maybe the next action movie will record the >>>> actual >>>> shootings and axings of the actors. Then the audience can send flowers >>>> to their >>>> families. >>>> >>>> I once suggested that since the museum is the only venue where >>>> moral-societal >>>> views can be tested or transgressed in neutrality, such as 'safely' >>>> displaying a >>>> desecrated flag or religious image, they should be the location of state >>>> executions. That would bring home, i think, the reality of 'official' >>>> murder, >>>> making it a topic for moral discussion, at least. It would be far more >>>> shocking, I'm sure, that the blandly reported executions now going on >>>> behind >>>> prison walls. >>>> >>>> On the other side of the issue, one can say that the shock-bar has been >>>> crossed >>>> so many times that most people are now numb to the usual, everyday sort >>>> of >>>> transgressions like four-letter words and all sorts of sexually explicit >>>> imagery, to say nothing of headless, blown-apart corpses and blood >>>> puddles >>>> covering our living rooms in lurid 3-D TV imagery. It's freedom of >>>> speech of >>>> course. But I'm not sure that the proof of freedom of speech needs to >>>> be a >>>> great loss of civility and dignity. Why is it that freedom of speech is >>>> mostly >>>> exercised with extreme vulgarity and incivility? I can't get past page >>>> one of a >>>> daily free newspaper in Chicago without reading the f-word in several >>>> hyphenated >>>> forms. If I were to complain, I'd be blasted as a terrible >>>> anti-free-speech >>>> person, a Republican, or worse. What ever happened to well-reasoned >>>> language and >>>> good ideas? Aren't they the real substance protected by free-speech? >>>> >>>> If you want to do something radical in the arts, try doing something >>>> that's >>>> civil, passionate, and thoughtful, without the f-word and its variants >>>> in deed >>>> or image, if you can. How did Montaigne manage to write so much without >>>> resorting to ugly language? There's a model for the real free-speecher >>>> radicals >>>> to follow. >>>> wc >>>> >>>> >>> - Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a >>> steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions >>> of modern life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - >>> conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. >>> >>> Susan Sontag >>> >> >> - *It*'*s* *hard* to be subversive in an age that retains no shared >> values to subvert. >> >> Geoffrey Woolf >> > > - A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by > whooping up a new formula. > > H. L. Mencken > - The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from *adultery* to *zoology*. H.L. *Mencken*.
