We write letters

[libertango]

jerrykaufman told me at the pub meet that The Stranger had published a letter from me. Doing a quick search here, it seems I never posted that one, so here it is:

*^*^*^*

ART IS DEAD

TO THE EDITOR: While reading "Eye of the Storm" [Jen Graves, Nov 15], I was reminded of a presentation recently given by Erin McKean, senior editor for the Oxford University Press North American Dictionary Program. She had a slide up with a photo of James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, who was in scholar's robes and an octagonal hat, circa 1880. Her point was how little dictionaries have changed since Murray's day: "When a guy who looks like that, in that hat, is the face of modernity... you have a problem."

In the same way, when Scott Lawrimore says his hero is Marcel Duchamp, all it does is illustrate how little art has changed in the last century or so. Art is no longer "modern"; it is no longer "contemporary." It is reactionary as hell, and it's trying desperately to keep itself locked in a time capsule that reads, "1917." It has become as fetishistic as a U.S. Civil War reenactor making certain his greatcoat contains nothing but wool.

Hal O'Brien

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

And drama teachers still sometimes refer to Aristotle. Hopeless.

Novelty

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

While not bad as one liners go, that's not the point at all.

If one believes that precedent matters, and that art builds over time, then pointing to Aristotle is all very well.

The problem is, "modernism" deliberately and specifically eschews such things. It's always trying -- at least if one believes its own press releases -- to, as the parody of Steve Jobs goes, "...to revolutionize the way you think about egresses -- forever!" You can see this throughout in the language used in the article by Graves I linked to (and that my letter is in direct response to).

But, rather than be constantly inventive and creative, I would argue "modernism" has become as scholastic as anything in medieval times -- in direct contradiction to its precepts.

It not novelty qua novelty I'm advocating. It's a recognition of the disconnect between preaching and practice.

Or, to use a hideously unfair James Carville paraphrase, "It's the hypocrisy, stupid."

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I have a saying of my own, "Live by the cutting edge, die by the cutting edge." Nothing goes out of date faster than that which strives to be most up to date. And continual revolution in art is most tiresome.

But what does this have to do with James Murray? His principles of dictionary-making (and Murray was not a prescrivtivist as the term is now used) may or may not still be useful today, but that has nothing to do with how old they are. Science, like art, can build over time.

Novelty

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Point of housekeeping -- gmail, my email client, threads messages I receive from LJ. However, it only does so when they have a Subject line, otherwise they go into an undifferentiated mass. Stripping Subject lines for no good reason after I've inserted them is most charitably absent-minded, and least charitably monkey warfare. (One notch down from guerrilla warfare.) I'm reasonably sure I'm not the only person on LJ who uses gmail, so you may want to take that in consideration in the future.

That said, I can only say my writing must be genuinely terrible for so little of my meaning to have come across. I, like McKean, was making a joke, and as E.B. White said, "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." Still...

* At no point do I (or McKean) describe Murray as a prescriptivist. So I'm not sure where you're getting that.

* Again, it's not a question of how old Murray's principles are as such. The issue is that no one else has developed anything since. Hence, the idea that he is the "face of modernity" when it comes to dictionaries, even though that face looks nothing like current fashion.

* In the same way, even though the modernists loudly proclaim otherwise, I would hold there's been nothing genuinely new in art since WWI. It's as if physics never got past phlogiston, even while announcing to all and sundry how "new and improved" contemporary theories are.

Re: Novelty

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I have an aesthetic dislike for subject headings on LJ comments, which is why I deleted it from my reply. I had no idea that you, or indeed anybody, threads e-mail in this manner. I personally find the subject heading "Reply to your entry" and the presence of the post text in the automatically-generated e-mail to be guidance enough. However, I will try to remember in future that you prefer otherwise.

1) I got the idea that McKean considers Murray a prescriptivist from her metaphor about the traffic cop and the fisherman. Indeed, I cannot guess what this could possibly mean other than the prescriptive/descriptive dichotomy, and her identification of Murray with the public image of lexicographers as traffic cops seemed definite.

2) If it is true that nothing has been developed since Murray's principles, then they are the modern principles, regardless of when they were developed or what funny hats their developer wore.

3) I stand incredulous at your claim that "there's been nothing genuinely new in art since WWI," and even more so if by "art" you mean "the arts" and not just "painting and sculpture." By any definition by which this claim is true, it would seem to me that there's been nothing "genuinely new" in art at any time within recorded history.

Re: Novelty

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Actually, an American Civil War greatcoat could quite properly contain materials other than wool -- linen thread, and even cotton (if a variety used at that time). (For the English Civil War, I'm less certain about the authenticity of cotton.)

The OED reference still puzzles me, however. If the original process still works well (and I think it does) why should there be any call to change it? (Mind you, I'm sufficiently Reactionary as to prefer old-fashioned methods of making beer and bread.)

Re: Novelty

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"The OED reference still puzzles me, however."

Don, have you read through the other comments? Because I don't feel I have anything useful to say beyond that, and the horse has been beaten most thoroughly. If it's a chacun à son goût issue, then it is, and there's nothing for it.