Ordinary Sunday Brunch
Ordinary Sunday Brunch
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gn9A-kdsRo&w=560&h=315]
Music Links
[Mu1] “How country music has-and hasn’t-addressed the #MeToo movement in a difficult year.”
[Mu2] “As OffBeat magazine’s founder, publisher and editor in chief, Jan Ramsey has been determined to make the world aware of the diversity and economic impact of New Orleans’ music.”
[Mu3] “Slate’s New American Songbook, a project dedicated to predicting which songs from the past 25 years will make an enduring impact and become “the new oldies,” reflects several of the most prominent contours of the pop cultural terrain of the past quarter-century: hip-hop’s rise as our most influential form of pop music, the triumph of late ’90s R&B girl groups, and even the persistence of rock more than 60 years after its birth. But what’s less represented is Spanish-language music. Other than a nod to the mortifying salsa-rock kitsch of Santana and Rob Thomas’ “Smooth,” the contributions of Latinos and Spanish-speaking communities are largely absent.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUsoVlDFqZg&w=560&h=315]
Art Links
[Ar1] Dungeons & Dragons Art Is Finally Getting the Respect It Deserves, according to Wired.
[Ar2] “What Do Art Critics Actually Do? Artists, collectors, curators, and dealers are all needed for the system to function, but the role of critics is up for grabs.”
[Ar3] “Cristopher Cichocki’s Root Cycle combines installation art with existing architecture in an effort to spark a discussion regarding the relationship between design, both contemporary and historical, and environmental sustainability.”
Speaking of art critics:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2nO2abXXrk&w=560&h=315]
History Links
[Hi1] Sears may be heading to the dustbin of history, but their mail-order houses from the catalogue days endure.
[Hi2] Trust helps preserve history, Yorktown battlefield.
[Hi3] “For decades, the principals at a boxy, two-story kindergarten in downtown Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, unwittingly pored over their lesson plans just a few feet above one of the city’s most sacred sites. Today there is a gaping 10-foot hole in what used to be the principal’s office, exposing masonry that once was the back of the bimah, the central platform from where the Torah was read in the city’s 17th century Great Synagogue.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFSwkIgN2oM&w=560&h=315]
Food Links
[Fo1] Debate! “If You Had to Survive on One Food, What’s the Best Option?”
[Fo2] I doubt it, but interesting to think on: “The New Food Movement And How Blockchain Could Solve Food Security Issues“.
[Fo3] We kind of already know the answer here…”Does microwaving food cause nutrient loss?”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp33ZprO0Ck&w=560&h=315]
A1: I’m not buying it. D&D artwork might be selling for more money because we have a class of affluent people willing to spend money on it. That doesn’t mean its respected. Respect in the art world comes when important museums put on an exhibit on fantasy art. As far as I’m aware of, not even local museums have done so. Art critics and scholars do not study D&D art. The type of money it sells for is still very low by art market standards even if it is high by ordinary standards. To go full snob, many people in the art world would describe and deride the D&D artists as illustrators.
A few years ago, a few serious art critics decided to tackle the work of Thomas Kinkade in the book Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall. When the New Republic reviewed the book, the entire point of the review is that somebody like Kinkade is not worthy of being taken seriously by art scholars because he produces what is obviously sub-par commercial art as opposed to the work of real artistic geniuses like Picasso and Matisse.
Getting the respect as an artist means more than selling your work for a handsome profit. It means to be studied and taken seriously. I doubt that any future art historians are going to write tomes about the D&D movement and wax rhapsodically over the convention of the early 1980s. The serious artists are probably going to be those people living bohemian lifestyles and producing things that most people do not like and will not like in the future.Report
It is not accidental the next link after that one is ” “What Do Art Critics Actually Do?”
I have no dog in this fight, as I was never a D&D player and I do not consult art critics very often. So from my purely philistine POV on this, I wonder if in the long run the current – lets say last 30-40 years to get to the early 80’s you alluded too – the “serious art scholars/critics” have built such an impenetrable wall of self importance that there is much talent that just goes another route out of necessity. What they may deride as illustrators is to many peoples eyes amazing art work full of vision and talent. Say what you want about Kinkade but his works and style will be viewed and remembered far longer than the critics who derided him. Graphic illustrations and digital art work are ever more present. I wonder if the generational passing, where more affluent and influential people perhaps grew up with things like comics and gaming, will change this attitude and how we define “art”.Report
I think your wrong in your second paragraph. Its entirely unsupported by history. Critics have a very strong power to shape popular perception on what is important. Much of what we actually remember what which artists, musicians, and writers are important are shaped a lot by what the critics think. They used to say that “a million Connie Francis fans can’t be wrong.” Well, it turns out that they can be wrong. Connie Francis is barely remembered while the musicians of the 1960s that were remembered were the ones that had the critics advocated for them. ”
Its the same with art. There artists advanced by the critics are generally not the ones that are really popular with the general public. Representational art was more loved than impressionism or abstract art during the late 19th and early 20th century. However, the artists that we cherish in the present are those that the critics and to a lesser extent wealthy patrons enjoyed. I do not see this changing.Report
You have a point historically, but in this modern age of instant, universal information critics are no longer the gatekeepers like they were. I wonder if it will continue to be true.Report
But is that why Connie Francis is no longer remembered? Or is it that the tastes of a generation, a massive generation, are now held up as being some kind of pinnacle, whether they are truly good or not, critically. Do we remember the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the post-coital screechings of John and Yoko? Lou Reeds Metal Machine Music? Those were all critically acclaimed at one point or another, none of which has passed the test of time. Whereas Styx or Van Halen, neither of which were critical darlings, seem just a beloved today as they were at the time. Indeed, Rockabilly is having a revival, much like country music artists such as Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and others find a way to newer and younger audiences.
In the painted art word, critics universally loathe the Pre-Raphealites, but those artists continue to be loved, reprinted and enjoyed. Much to “art lovers” horror. And the sheer number of critically acclaimed novels that have fallen by the wayside is staggering. We could go on with examples of critical failures in pretty much every field of artistic endeavor. Chip here often talks of architectural darlings vs. what people really want to live in.Report
I’m an unrepentant modernist when it comes to art. I don’t know if I would call this a minority opinion per se but it is an opinion reflective of a very specific subset of art lovers. What I’ve noticed about a lot of people though is that they never got over the 1913 Armory Exhibition. They still see Picasso and Matisse and Duchamp as radical even though the Armory Show is now over 100 years old.
AD&D art is just as bad a Kinkade and the Pre-Raphealites because it is a hyper realistic style that ultimately shows how false it is.
I hope not!!!Report
I’m honestly curious, and again I am not artsy and respect your unrepentant modernist tendency so I genuinely want to know; define that, when you say “hyper realistic style that ultimately shows how false it is” just what that means, at least to you.Report
When I look at hyperrealistic art or the fantasy/science fiction art, I often wonder what was the artists trying to achieve. Their drawings, paintings, and illustrations might be beautiful to look at but there seems to be no motivation besides this is pretty, this is cool for the D&D style stuff, and this will make me money. The modern artists from the impressionists and onward were engaging in some abstract thinking and experimentation in their art rather than merely trying to copy reality or put their fantasies in illustrated form.
“Hyper realistic style that ultimately shows how false it is” could mean that the thought that went into creating the art is ultimately empty or superficial. It is art without a philosophy so it is really not art at all but at best craftsmanship. The more abstract forms of art count as real because they come with motivation and thought. They are more intellectual.Report
The art is realistic in that it looks like actual human beings and things.
But it is meant to provide a kind of idealized view of things whether it is the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Thomas Kinkade, or AD & D art.
This is Mariana by John Everett Millais:
I suppose it is technically pretty and well-done but I find it boring. Everything looks very realistic and as close to real as can be without being a photograph, film, or real live things in front of your eyes. But it is boring. It is a Middle Ages that never existed. Everything is too clean. It is too posed.
By contrast, Here is Richard Diebenkorn’s Seated Figure with a Hat. The lines and details are more basic. The color range used is more limited but I find it more real. The pose is more natural and I find this more beautiful than some idealized Middle Ages princess or some figure of a muscular barbarian and comely sorceress fighting a dragon.Report
And now, an editorial reply…
What I find endlessly delightful in the Pre-Raphaelites is their very anachronism.
They were very consciously painting romantic ideas of things that never existed, things they never knew, but longed for.
They imagined a world of meaning and purpose, of drama where good prevailed. And the obvious anachronism is what gives it such a poignancy, I think, where they invite the viewer to draw the comparison.
So the viewer can come away wishing for that idyll to return, but more astutely, feel the pang of loss knowing it is impossible.Report
They were a weird bunch of romantic reactionaries that believe the medieval ages was a more just time than the age they lived in. It took them to see interesting places. Many would convert to Roman Catholicism or at least have sympathy towards it. They would protest against the work houses of the Victorian era as un-Christian and argue that the monasteries of pre-Reformation England gave out aid freely and with love.Report
That is a reactionary aesthetic philosophy to me.Report
This is all just an appeal to authority though, a basic logical fallacy. It matters not what the New Republic thinks, nor where a piece of art hangs. The final judge of any creative work is in the eye of the beholder. Not to mention that dealers in ephemera have been searching out items such as this, or commercial art, interesting postcards, memento mori’s (Wisconsin Death Trip is a wonderful example of that in a very respected art book), etc. for as long as can be remembered, much of which gets hung in places such as MOMA and other famous museums.
And yes, I would spend good money on an original Erol Otis.Report
Being the pragmatist that I am, I consider the success of art not based upon the critical acclaim of critics, but upon a much more basic metric:
Did the artist get paid, and was it enough for them to make a living?
How many critically acclaimed artists are alive today and able to support themselves/families from the proceeds of their works? How many were long dead before anyone really noticed them and was willing to pay the kingly sums to estates or the lucky few who happened to pick up the originals for less than the canvas and paint probably cost?
If the critical acclaim doesn’t let the artist make bank, it’s pretty much elitist posturing and otherwise worthless.Report
This subject, wrt novelists, comes up from time to time at Charlie Stross’s place. The consensus as I read it from the writers there is that in the future there will be a tiny number of novelists who can make a living at it. They think the vast majority will be written by people who either have day jobs or have a spouse to support them. Or retirees — lots of people at Charlie’s think that writing novels will become largely the domain of the elderly.Report
If an artist can sell their work for a price they consider acceptable, then I consider them successful in their own right.
If they can make enough to be a full time artist, even better. But the full time artist, the one who can live comfortably off their talent, is, and probably should be, the exception, not the rule.Report
People get paid for crap work though. Sometimes people get paid very well for crap work like the Left Behind works.Report
Well, while there are only a small amount of ways to be excellent, there are infinite ways to be crappy.
Go to the State Fair next year and wander through the arts and crafts pavilion and then wander through the Modern Art pavilion if you dare.
You’ll see a lot of stuff that doesn’t even rise to the equivalent of the Left Behind works. The only thing that they’ll have going for them is that, yep, they’re not even trying to be Larry Elmore.Report
Sure, but what qualifies an art critic to be the trend setter? Often, it’s nothing other than they can convince enough other people that their opinion (not their objective analysis) is worth listening to.
Think of it this way. Jim Butcher sells a lot of books. A lot of books. He makes bank. He’s invited to conventions, and hundreds, probably thousands, of people at every convention want to see him and hear him speak. He does signings at book stores, and draws a crowd. He pretty much gave birth to, or at popularized, a genre (Urban Fantasy). He’s a pretty successful author, but no one is going to consider him much more than a popular pulp novelist. He does not get that ‘critical acclaim’. He will probably write and sell more books in his life than any 10 authors who are ‘critically acclaimed’. And his work isn’t crap like “Left Behind”, it just doesn’t hit the buttons that draws the attention of those critics who are the gatekeepers of such things.
In short, a lot of critical acclaim is cultural signalling. Be it writing, music, acting, graphic arts, sculpture, etc. I mean, how often does critical acclaim align with significant financial success? Sure, it hits from time to time, but it’s not a consistent indicator. If your art is critically acclaimed, but largely inaccessible to the public at large, then how is the acclaim anything but signalling to the elite that they should appreciate this art, as should anyone trying to become elite?
If your art is inscrutable, are you sure that the clothes are really there?Report
@oscar_gordon
I share your scepticism. If Art is simply whatever Art Critics happen to like, how is it different from any other clique deciding what is and isn’t cool base don ti sown arbitrary criteria? I had no tolerance for that at High School, and I’m unlikely to develop any tolerance for it any time soon.Report
Well that’s what art is about. Really good art peaked back in the 1700’s or 1800’s when we mastered color and perspective. But everybody like still lifes and landscapes so liking such paintings didn’t say anything about the beholder, other than he was a hominid with 46 chromosomes.
But appreciating art is meant to signal status through the free availability of leisurely pursuits and access to things that are virtually denied to the masses, or which the masses can’t appreciate because they lack the intellect to appreciate it. Since everyone could obviously appreciate well-executed paintings, art had to move into the realm of bizarrely-executed paintings that often look like a monkey had flung paint on a canvas.
By pretending to like it, you signal to others that you have rarefied, elite tastes – because you’re a member of the elite.Report
There’s a great line in the It Might Get Loud documentary where Edge is saying “I’m just trying to create the sounds that I hear in my head.”
A lot of the D&D art is someone similarly crazy trying to create the images that they see in their head. You read Dragonlance and you want to know what these characters look like? You talk to Larry Elmore. You read the book a second time and want some cheesecake shots? Well, you call Clyde Caldwell.
It’s the art equivalent of a power chord. Could these guys pour their efforts into making art of, oh, I dunno… Native Americans riding Appaloosas or something similarly classy?
Probably. Probably make some dough doing it, too.
But they’re crazy. They instead are inspired by their muses to make paintings of women wearing chainmail that shows off their cleavage.
But people are going to be looking up these guys for as long as people will be reading the Dragonlance novels. And people are going to be reading Dragonlance for as long as D&D sticks around.Report
I think this makes sense regarding how fantasy artists operate. They have rather rich imaginations and use art as a means to express what they see inside outside.Report
Fo1: No single food is going to do it. One of the simplest diets that could support you for years is white potatoes, milk, oatmeal, and an occasional serving of kale. Think of the world’s blandest casserole, three times a day, day after day after day… Beans and brown rice with a mix of vegetables also comes very close.Report
Hi1 – The house across the street from me is a Sears house, a craftsman style bungalow. And I am sure there are more in the neighborhood, as I live in a historic district.Report
I love the craftsman style houses. Such a neat piece of history that you could mail order them.Report
My house is bungalow from 1913 designed by a local. It is fun living in a neighborhood like this.Report
I really dislike the way in am area like mine the cookie cutter subdivisions of rapid growth. I’m thankful to have a rebuilt/updated older house in an established neighborhood Report
This was one of the things that my wife and I looked for when we left the bay area. We wanted a home, not a house. And eventually those cookie-cutter neighborhoods will grow into that, but we didn’t want to be on that timeline.Report
Point of order – I’d call that brunch Extraordinary, not Ordinary.Report
Mu3 – I totally love Smooth non ironically. I’ve seen Matchbox Twenty in concert twice at music festivals, and Thomas once more when he sat in on a set played by Cowboy Mouth in a small venue in Hawaii, and they & he brought it every time.Report
I’ve seen Thomas in several settings where he was alone or with another group and found both his music and personality very appealing despite the hate. I wasn’t a huge Matchbox 20 fan but it’s hummable rock, and he wrote a bunch more hits than most of his detractors so good for him.Report
This was the toast of snark on the Internet for Friday:
https://www.businessinsider.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-hsbc-executive-melania-edwards-2018-10?fbclid=IwAR1lpwtrI2t-4VA5OYrvrznwt8Q_uB3tk8uPxfmBEWbl-QtnC1FoHp1oSQw#after-dinner-they-walk-around-the-neighborhood-which-has-become-their-evening-ritual-16
Like the rest of twitter, this did not sound like a human being to me. Who says things like this?
She also seems to work only 4-5 hours a day and those appear to be mainly meetings. I’m also surprised people sign up for these things. Is she so lacking in awareness not to know that she will be mocked by the Internet? This seems like a parody of the Winner Takes All complaint.Report
@Vikrambath will have a post being featured on this tomorrow morning so make sure you don’t miss that.Report
She might have been offered enough money to make being a human sacrifice worth it. We must also remember that many people turn out to be shockingly unaware of the world. Its sort of like those stories about high school students from the middle of nowhere asking whether MIT is a good school. Its slightly more unusual for somebody who lives in Palo Alto and operates in her socio-economic set but she could have been unaware that these types of profiles are savagely mocked if she never participated in the forms where they get ripped apart.Report
It’s like someone took a millennial’s Instagram feed and slapped the title of business executive on the owner.
It’s incredible how vapid some of this stuff is.Report
People aren’t as original as they think they are.Report
The going theory on the net is the HSBC tried this to recruit people and it backfired:
https://www.mamamia.com.au/melania-edwards-day-in-the-life/Report