Are temperatures finally descending? Not so fast...

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Are temperatures finally descending? Not so fast...

     Thanks very much to Neil for the description of _Wogan_!
     Thanks to Julian for his formula. It seems to IED to be an
excellent means to an end: the end being the development of
a capacity in various trigger-happy Love-Hounds like Drukman
to _support_ their criticisms with examples of how the flaws
which they claim exist in Kate's work could be fixed. It's
an excellent idea, Julian. (IED also agrees with you about 2001.)
     IED didn't, Julian is right in pointing out, succeed in explaining
his idea of "perfection" in Kate's work, or in art in general. That's
because he doesn't really know how. What he was trying to get at
was that "perfection" in art may not actually be definable as
a parallel to "perfection" in other aspects of reality. IED meant
to say that there may indeed be "flaws" of a technical or even of
an expressive kind in some of Kate's work; but he questions not
only whether their removal or "correction" would "improve" the
work, but also whether those "flaws" are evidence of _imperfection_
at all. Perhaps they--like the evil which religious people cannot
explain, but which through their faith in God's omniscience they
assume must have a purpose--are aspects of the Perfect Work which
we mere listeners cannot understand.
     This religion analogy is dangerously misleading, however, because
IED does _not_--he wants to emphasize again--consider Kate herself to
be any kind of Godlike figure at all. IED does suspect, however, that
there is in Kate's _work_--as perhaps in all parts of our universe--
an element of some kind of indefinable, eternal perfection. IED doesn't
see this aspect of existence in many things, nor does he experience
it often, but he does believe that it exists in all of Kate's work.
To draw a prosaic parallel, so (in IED's view) does it exist in
all of Mozart's or Beethoven's works--their minor, even awkward
early pieces and potboilers included. Wherever the hand of the
supernatural touches the hand of an artist (or the hand of any
creator or any object of nature), perhaps there is a spark of
perfection which the "flaws" obtained through transcription to
our mundane plane cannot extinguish.
     So IED is offering a somewhat different definition of "perfection"
than Julian's, therefore: cannot perfection in a work of art exist
_with_ "flaws" in its final presentation? Is not the property of
"perfection" in a work of art real _in_spite_of_ the _human_
_imperfections_ which that work will inevitably acquire in the process
of transcription from the spark to the page? For does the kernel
of a great work of art lie in its pigments and brushstrokes, in its
DX-7 and Ampex-master? Or does it hide in some richer, deeper, more
ephemeral and less definable region?
     Nevertheless, one can still request that those who see
faults in a work of art point to specific properties that they
find wanting in it, and to explain how those might have been
improved upon by the artist. Otherwise, how can the critics
expect to convince their listener of the acuity of their judgement?
     IED realizes that he still hasn't defined perfection itself--
whether it be found in the work's final form or contained in its
conception only. Even in the latter case Julian's formula may apply, but
if so, IED would have no way of testing it, given his inexperience
with divine phenomena and consequent inability to analyze them.

 >   *ANY* judgment of anyone's work is solely a result of one's own tatse,
 >and can have no "concrete support" -- including judgment of the music
 >of Madonna and Lionel Ritchie.  Is this going to stop me from saying
 >that Lionel Ritchie's music sucks.  No way!  I think that any
 >intelligent listener has the ability to determine that any objective
 >statement about inately subjective phenomena really indicates just a
 >certain degree of strength of belief in the opinion.

     This isn't true, and is, furtherfore, a cop-out. Not all judgement
is based entirely on personal "taste", :>oug. There are, as IED's
brief consideration of some aspects of _Reaching_Out_ showed, a great
many things to be considered in judging the effectiveness of a piece
of music. Now, perhaps in some ultimate sense all of these things
can be traced back to subjective values, but that's hardly relevant
for practical purposes. By saying that all judgements are equally
subjective, you are not being "objective"--you are just giving yourself
an excuse for failing to offer any intelligent _reasons_ for your _own_
judgement. Drukman recently wrote the following:

 >discussion of the classical roots of "Reaching Out" left me in the
 >dark.  It still has no bearing on my opinions.

     Evidently, therefore, Drukman's _reasons_ for disliking _Reaching_
_Out_ are unrelated to and impervious to IED's highly specific reasons
for considering it a success. The important distinction to be noticed,
here, however, is that, whether ultimately based upon values which
Western civilization has developed along subjective lines or not,
IED provided _reasons_--and highly specific ones, at that--for his
judgement, whereas Drukman did not. We are all, nevertheless (if
we are to accept Doug's or Drukman's lazy attitude), supposed to
give the same attention, respect and credit to their judgements--unex-
plained or supported by reasons as they were--as we do to IED's. Does
that make sense? Especially since Drukman not only fails to
present any support for his own judgements, but (with typical
complacency) proclaims--above--that he didn't even _understand_ IED's
arguments in favor of the song (arguments which, though it's IED
who says it, were pretty damn lucid and easily testable by the
critical reader). If, as Drukman puts it, he is "left in the dark"
by IED's explanation, how is he able so confidently to conclude that
his own judgement has greater--or even equal--validity? Does Drukman's
"I just don't like it!" judgement convince? Does it persuade _anyone_?
Is this the level of intellectual intercourse we are to be left with
in Love-Hounds? IED hopes not.
     Perhaps what IED deplores most about Drukman's and Doug's shared
attitude is reflected in Drukman's final statement:

 >   Of course I'm detached.  It's only music, after all.

     IED mind reels to find that anyone who professes to understand and
respond to the music of Kate Bush can say something as baldly Philistine
and meaningless as the above. (And any comparison of Drukman's
statement with similar recent remarks by Kate to the effect that
_TSW_ is "just an album" is inapplicable in IED's opinion, not
only because Kate is clearly trying for therapeutic purposes of
her own to convince _herself_ that such is the case, but also
because Kate's view of her own work is just not something which
we are any of us in a position to understand.) Anyway, if indeed
Drukman can dismiss the importance of music as cavalierly as that,
how, then, is it that he is apparently quite incapable of
offering correspondingly dispassionate and rational arguments in
support of his judgements? Anyone to whom music is so insignificant
a phenomenon that he can remain detached even about Kate Bush's
recordings has _no_ excuse for failing to provide intelligent, coolly
explained _reasons_ for his musical judgements.
     So let's see you try, Jon: apply Julian's standards to
_Reaching_Out_, and tell us all what you would change, add
or subtract from its components in order to bring it up to _your_
high standards--different though they must be from IED's, whose
remarks about the song simply left you in the dark--?

-- Andrew Marvick
   > There was nothing wrong with <Love-Hounds>, other than the lack
   > of willingness on the part of the moderator to moderate it.

     That's sure not what :>oug was telling us at the time, if
you recall, Jon. He had all kinds of technical problems on his
hands, if we were to believe him...