Brad, Artists make the mistake of constantly misreading teachers. Teachers take chances as well. If the teacher was a good one then the comment says more about Christopher Alexander's artistic blocks as a student than about the teacher's artistic point of view. Students project off of me all the time. "Transference" was not invented by psycho-therapists and psycho-therapy is in reality simply unteaching bad teaching in the first place.
I read artists and art critics misreading the events they describe all the time. I read an article by the art critic Hilton Kramer sometime ago where a prominent French art dealer, who "knew better," used words to make a fool of Kramer for profit. It was so subtle that Kramer didn't get it and later published the conversation as if it meant something else. Kramer couldn't imagine that the son of one of the world's greatest painters would treat him so shabbily so he chose the less obvious interpretation to the event and put it in print making an idiot of himself. I'm reminded of one of those anonymous quotes, maybe you even know who anonymous is: "To admit you were wrong is to declare you are wiser now than before." regards, REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 3:02 PM Subject: [Futurework] And now for something completely different: A recently deceased emperor's new clothes > Of course I -- I don't know about you -- "enjoy" > taking pot shots at Postmodernism since I can't > capitalize myself enough to be able to > just ignore it.... > > But postmodernists aren't the only pompous -sses > in this world. Sokal and Bricemont, with their > article on the political correctness property of > quarks (or whatever it was), did not discover > something new in the world, only new instances of it. > > Here's something from yesterday's NYT about > Christopher Alexander's architecture education > back before pomo: > > Asked as part of one assignment [when he was > studying architecture at Cambridge University] > to design a house, he instead submitted a spoof > of the formalist theory he had been taught: > a glass box slashed by giant brick walls. > "A completely abstract, pointless notion," > he said. To his amazement, the head of the > department called him into his office to > congratulate him. "He said, 'Christopher, my > boy, this is exactly what we want,'" Mr. Alexander > recalled. "I thought, Oh my God, I've walked > into the nut house." > (Emily Eakin, "Architecture's Irascible > Reformer", NYT, 12Jul03, p.B7,9.) > > \brad mccormick > > -- > Let your light so shine before men, > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) > > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) > > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
