Jim said:
> > I don't intend to start a flame war (honestly), but I did want >to
respond
> to some of the more benign, sugar-coated >interpretations of Joni's
motives
> behind the MOA comment >with my far more critical one.
>
and then Kakki said:
> It's interesting, Jim, that you are concerned about expressing your
critical
> opinion here, yet you yourself diss the opinions of myself and some
others
> by calling them "benign" and "sugar-coated".
And to both of you I say: Although I would never discourage anybody
from expressing an honest opinion in this forum, I too found the
'sugar-coated' comment to be on the condescending side. The
implication is that Jim's opinion is the objective, reasonable one
while some others are tainted because of their 'adoration' of Joni.
Whether you were doing it individually or collectively, it sounded
like dissing to me.
Jim said:
> > I bought MOA when it first arrived, and was immediately
>unimpressed with
> Joni's attitude towards her audience, as >exhibited in that moment.
It left
> a bad taste in my mouth >from the beginning. Say what you will about
the Van
> Gogh >comment, but it comes from a very conceited point of view, >is
> delivered with holier-than-thou exasperation, and is most
>definitely a "put
> down" of the audience.
And if some of us are 'sugar-coating' it seems to me that this is
going the opposite direction, putting a negative spin on what I've
always thought was a fairly innocuous bit of stage patter. Where do
you get 'conceited' or 'holier-than-thou' or 'put-down' out of it?
She giggles during part of it and the audience is attentive & seeming
to enjoy hearing what she has to say. She doesn't say something like
'nobody ever said to Van Gogh - you bimbos do know who Van Gogh is,
don't you?' At the end of it she sings one her best known songs. And
Fred, I don't think that was a smooth edit to a completely different
part of the performance. If I remember it correctly, immediately
after she says 'he painted it, that was it' she says 'Let's sing this
next song together, ok?' She hardly sounds like she's thinking 'Oh
God, I have to sing this dull old piece of crap *again* for yet
*another* group of morons!'
Joni is human and she's said & done things that I haven't always
agreed with or liked. There are times when I have thought she has
sounded extremely arrogant. But I have never thought of the Van Gogh
monologue as being even remotely in that vein. What am I missing
here?
Mark in Seattle
