On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, adam.florin wrote:
quoted 4 lines the following is a bit of pro-reynolds propaganda... because i feel that
>
> the following is a bit of pro-reynolds propaganda... because i feel that
> people, especially those that are convinced of being "undergroud," tend to
> pick on successfull people. reason . r ea s o n . . .
[snip]
quoted 10 lines some while ago on the idm-list, franco ingrassia cited reynolds' passage on
> some while ago on the idm-list, franco ingrassia cited reynolds' passage on
> what he calls 'geektronica'. (http://members.aol.com/blissout/over98.htm)
> is there anything there that isn't true ? would anybody here not call
> himself a geek ? (because i know someone will say it : 'himself' is here
> sexually ambiguous) essentially, the main point that reynolds criticizes
> about this genre is one that even its own members resent, and dispute
> ceaselessly : the bug of 'elitism', the secret desire that no more than 300
> people should deserve this record, the quest for more music and the delight
> in connoisseurship, the selfish joy in owning and knowing something secret
> that the the rest of the world finds unattainable.
On a tangent... An article in this week's NYTimes Magazine, by Tom
Wolfe, memorializing Frederick Hart--a neo-classical sculptor completely
ignored by critics and the art world who happened to be the most
financially successful, popular sculptor of his day--had this to say:
"Art worldlings regarded popularity as skill's live-in slut. Popularity
meant shallowness. Rejection by the public meant depth. And truly hostile
rejection very likely meant greatness. Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc," a
leaning wall of rusting steel smack in the middle of Federal Plaza in New
York, was so loathed by the building's employees that 1,300 of them,
including many federal judges, signed a petition calling for its removal.
They were angry and determined, and eventually the wall was removed. Serra
thereby achieved an eminence of immaculate purity: his work involved
absolutely no skill and was despised by everyone outside the art world who
saw it. Today many art worldlings regard him as America's greatest
sculptor."
Substitute, say, IDMers for art worldlings, and your favorite obscurist
act for Serra, and reread.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000102mag-wolfe24.html
Sam, dumbass populism's live-in slut
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