Whither Genius? Whither The Audience?

That Thursday Dude has tweaked and re-posted an earlier entry that I thought was worth my reconsideration as well. It seems TTD is worrying over a particular topic that sits at the bottom of his brainpan the way sand sits in an oyster. He's puzzling over some astutely rendered dichotomies: creative vs. critical, taste vs. genius, and one or two more to boot. His post is a nuanced exploration of character, biology, primal impulses and the assumed role of the critic.

Reading it, my own (post-nasal-drip-clouded) brain swerves in several directions at once (no Hindu monkey, I). My inclination is to think of these classifications as representative of a particular internal tension, rather than warring factions or dichotomies. I love reading criticism, and have whiled away many a pleasant hour in its consumption and production. If it's good criticism it has an aesthetic all its own. But at the end of the day, it's just a quick improvisation off a larger composition that required greater energy and devotion of the artisan. Working with the definitions that TTD supplies, can criticism ever be a work of genius?

(A: Yes. Goddard's maxim is the one to remember.)

I think the more pertinent question is, what's a genius without an audience? The most competent creative types have a shrewd understanding of their audience's expectations; the best authors/singers/auteurs realize, in other words, that they are performers. A performer recognizes boundaries and limitations, imposed from within and without, then works at delivering a surprise.

So who is the greater genius: Franz Kafka or Max Brod? One more dose of this cold medicine, and I believe I may just have the answer for you.

The Time I've Wasted On Progress...

...could never be measured in coffee spoons -- a sturdy aluminum snow-scoop, maybe, but not coffee spoons. At least, certainly not if this cheeky comparison holds any truth. All the DOS command lines I've typed since 1983, all the code brackets I inserted into my early WordStar documents, all the hair-pulling anguish over proper Mac OS extensions .... When I think that my forefathers cleared brush and tilled the soil to ensure a better future for the forthcoming generation, my puzzling over what makes the 1s and 0s dance to my tune seems shamefully trivial.

Oh well -- so it is, and so it remains. At this late juncture I heartily endorse Ubuntu as the gentlest Linux Operating System. It does what you need it to, unless you're an online gamer or addicted to that (ab)user-friendly commercial purveyor of music files and television episodes. HOWEVER, like any other Linux OS, Ubuntu does require some willingness from its users to engage in a little code-work and personal fine tuning.

All this to say, I spent a good portion of the day upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon. And still there's work to be done before it feels like a room I can call my own. Throw in a headful of cold germs, and my brain is not fit for prose composition. I know it's NaBloPoMo, but I'm sorry: the dog ate my homework.

Straddling Political Ideologies, While Bolstering My Bookshelf

Today marked a first for this Canadian consumer: I ordered two items from the US Amazon site that I could have purchased at Amazon.ca. Had I ordered these books from the Canadian site, I'd have qualified for free shipping. But even with the US shipping charges, it was cheaper to get the books from across the border. That's what a better discount and a superior dollar gets you.

I've got enough Trudeau-era ideological residue to feel just a little guilty for sending my Canuckle-head bucks across the 49th parallel, but I also came of age as a witness to the Mulroney Trade Deal. We get to buy our oil back from the US; they get first dibs on our diminishing freshwater. And I get cheaper books. Everyone is happy.

Spending One's Daylight Savings

My family had a daylight savings ritual we followed for a number of years: my father would take me and my brother out to a local hockey game, to watch the farm teams duke it out on the ice. If this sounds like modest fun, bear in mind we all had to be in church the next morning.

I was thinking about this last night as I drove my wife and daughters home from a family do. The girls were fighting sleep. I glanced at the clock on the dash -- 7:42, 7:46, 7:49, etc. The minutes were as painful for me as they were for my girls. At this rate, I figured I could just about count on a very early wake-up. Somehow we covered the right conversational material to keep them awake until we got home, but the sanity of my father's tactic became impressively clear.

The Reverently Befuddled Aesthete, Continued

Sometime in High School I got the impression that if I wanted to play in a rock and roll band, playing bass guitar was the fastest, easiest route. I had no empirical evidence of this. The bass players I could name had genuine musical chops — Geddy Lee, John Entwhistle, even Michael Anthony from Van Halen. Anthony sure jumped around a lot, though. Maybe that's where the idea took hold.

A friend of mine generously took me on a tour of the city’s music shops, to give me a few tips and keep me from making a completely disastrous purchase. I loved walking into all these places, even the pawn shops. It felt like I was entering the pantheon of some exotic house of worship, where the elements gleamed and beckoned to be picked up and played. I lived in hope that I’d someday be worthy of just such an honor. My friend would take down a Les Paul, hook it up to a Peavey amp and coax all manner of incredible music from it. I, on the other hand, would reach for a cheap Ibanez knock-off, plug it in and ... well, even in 1981 when everybody and their gerbil could play the opening bass riff to “Turn Me Loose” or “My Sharona” I clearly marked myself as an infidel in the House of Music.

I bought the knock-off and farted around with it for a few months, but never got anywhere close to actual proficiency. I sold it a year later and gave up on my rock and roll dreams.

For the last 20 years I’ve owned and played a simple acoustic guitar. I’ll happily strum it at any bonfire; I even know a couple of scales. But I don’t know it nearly so well as to prompt me to buy anything so sweet as this stuff (same friend, BTW). Still, I love to look at it. These are the doors that grant the true disciple access to such terrific sounds. And for that I revere it.

Post-Script: since I'm talking bass guitarists, it behooves me to link to at least one interview with Lemmy from Motörhead. "Q: Is it true you tried to teach Sid Vicious how to play bass?" "A: Yeah. It was all uphill. And he still couldn’t play bass when he died, I mean, ****ing hell."

The Reverently Befuddled Aesthete

In the 80s I used to hang out in my friend’s garage, listening to FM radio and watching him take things apart. He was a gear-head, and keen to look deep into any crap vehicle that left an oil patch in its wake. Whenever he needed a third hand I’d step in, but beyond that I wasn’t much help. I could rattle off the basic components of a combustion engine, but couldn’t reassemble one to save my life.

He finally turned to me and said, “You’ve got no head for this, so why do you bother?”

“It’s not about being practical,” I told him. “I like looking at engines. I think they’re works of art.”

He gave me a queer look, and returned to his work. After a few minutes curiosity finally got the better of him, and he broke the silence. “What do you mean, ‘Works of art?’”

“I mean I think they’re beautiful. They have this terrific balance between function and form. All these meticulously crafted geometric shapes put together for optimal mechanical performance; in the process they attain an aesthetic balance as well.”

He snorted. “You’d probably surprise a few engineers with that thought.”

“Would I? Just look at the block of a V-8 engine and tell me someone wasn’t concerned about it actually looking nice. It’d be one thing if it were just a hunk of metal with 8 holes bored into it, but it’s actually a smooth hunk of metal, with well-defined edges. The holes are perfectly round, evenly spaced. It’s very tidily designed. I’m telling you, if you shone the right light on it and photographed it from the right angle, you would think it’s beautiful.”


I still believe that to be true. In fact, someone with the right talent could make quite a snazzy coffee-table book out of photographing the guts of a car (hey, JD: you listening?). But my fascination is spurred by more than some Platonic sense of perfect balance. I can remember the awe I felt when I saw my first motorcycle dismantled, staring into the tabernacle of those combustion chambers and thinking, So this is where it all happens.

It’s a little like looking inside the human body. I sort of know how it all works, and in the case of the combustion engine, I have some glimmer of the reasoning applied to its design. And of course the way an engine “goes” isn’t in the same league of mystery as the way recombinant DNA “goes.” But still: wow!

Reverence — that’s the word I’m looking for. I actually revere this stuff. Tomorrow I'll post another example from my youth.

Launching Into NaBloPoMo With A Post-Halloween Tidy

Curious how each Halloween is different from the last. There have been years when we've run out of goodies. This year we've got a heap of leftovers, so it's Rockets galore for this family. Last year I gave away Coffee Crisp, and was left with nothing. Looks like I picked the wrong year to cheap out.

My wife took the girls out begging; she had the impression this was one of the busier years. Hordes of kids and parents, trolling up and down the different drags. Nevertheless, at one of the girls' last stops, the lady of the house gave them mounds of candy. "I can't be trusted with this stuff," said she, "so I'm trusting you with it."

The police paid the town a visit, but didn't see fit to flash their lights or hit the siren. Our village had a quiet Halloween, by police standards. Even our family jack-o-lanterns, which I pointedly leave out overnight close to the sidewalk curb, were left intact. I'm disappointed. No doubt if I kept them there over the weekend, I'd be obliged, but that's not the way it works. As soon as I've posted this, they'll be going into the compost.

On second thought, why don't I just bite the bullet and take care of it now?



Aah! Now on to November...