Bob wrote: > I also appreciated that Joni referred to herself as "arrogant". We > instantly cringe when we hear that word, but I think its denotation > can be overshadowed by its connotation. Nothing wrong with > knowing that you're the best, why do we admire it in athletes and > shun it with artists? I think it's easier to accept from an athlete, because they deal in absolutes, and finite goals, rather than opinion. If Cathy Freeman runs the fastest 400m of any woman in the world (or at least at the Olympics) then she is, by definition, the fastest woman in the world over 400m. The same cannot be said about artists. Some people might say that the Cubism period produced the greatest paintings in the world. Personally I don't like them too much, and prefer more traditional styles. That's not to say Cubism doesn't have merit, it just doesn't appeal to me. Likewise with the performing arts. It's all subjective. One person's Hejira is another person's Mingus - or vice versa! That's not to say either is better than the other, they just appeal to different people for different reasons. But how can you argue with Cathy Freeman if she says she's currently the best female Olympic 400m runner? It's not arrogant, it's a finite truth. Joni sounds arrogant when she says she's the best (and personally I think she is!), because any form of art is open to so much interpretation, its meanings become infinite. I would prefer to call her arrogance "confidence". Arrogance, to me, is THINKING you're the best. Confidence is KNOWING that you are. Hell - who spent FAR too long thinking about this post, and should have been asleep an hour ago! ____________________________ "To have great poets, there must be great audiences too." - Walt Whitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hell's Personal Photo Page: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hell/main/personal.htm Visit the NBLs (Natural Born Losers) at: http://www.nbls.co.nz
