What I mean is that we look for the same things, and we enjoy the same things in all forms of entertainment. It bothers me that people think that poetry is more important than lacrosse.I enjoy poetry more.
I find the lives of poets more interesting than the lives of rock stars, but rock stars and poets are equally important, and that isn't very.
The calculations that fly through David Beckham's brain as he estimates the wind's effect on the ball as he twists his foot to launch it into a spiraling curve for a spectacular goal probably rival those that light up Robert Hass's grey matter as he puts words together on a page to construct a spectacular poem.
People idolize Michael Jordan for the same reason people cherish Shakespeare. We enjoy seeing them play the game. I mean, I don't even like basketball, but I think that Michael Jordan flying through the air is pretty remarkable.
Shakespeare and Michael Jordan are equally important; neither are very.
People who think that they don't enjoy poetry love Robert Frost.
People who think they don't like theater love Hamlet.
People who think they don't like television comedy love Lucy.
That's important: how certain pieces of art can convince you to like things you didn't know you liked. That's what I want my work to do.
Poetry can be cool.
Book covers and posters can be art.
A blog can be artistic expression.
I just have to figure out how.
4 comments:
I think that what you are thinking of is exportance... or perhaps should be thinking of. We could all think a little more about exportance.
Sometimes it is hard for me to separate Michael Jordan flying through the air from the Michael Jordan most people in Chicago know to be something of an asshole. Now Walter Payton was a class act on and off the field. Although my dad said once that it wasn't that he was such an amazing person, but more like he just never used his athletic prowess as an excuse to act sub-human. If the response to this is that how athletes or others act off the field of their prowess isn't relevant, I'd just suggest that maybe it can become so once a person starts selling themselves as a "personality." I'd say Michael Jordan fits in there squarely.
But their personalities are independent of their art. Why we love artists and athletes might be partly due to their personalities, but why we love what they produce is not.
I haven't heard any art since 1987.
Post a Comment