Cambridge

July 6, 2011

Early morning, to do a laundry before the others get to the machines. My blackbird preens at the window, knocking her head very now and then against the glass.

Lucy Cavendish is third-world regarding Internet service. It comes and goes, and one never knows when one will be in contact and when one will not.

Dream last night that Titus was dying, only he couldn’t die until he saw me again. He buried himself under a pile of leaves in the yard, and came crawling out when I rolled down the walk with my luggage. He could speak, and told me his plans for the afterlife, though I forget what they were.

Reading away at City of Sin. Reading about all that debauchery is actually a little sickening. Interesting perception: different things at different times are thought to change a person’s identity. In days of yore one sexual encounter would make (officially) a woman “fallen” and a member of a separate class. Today it is merely an adventure. Today a homosexual encounter slips a man into a separate category, gives him a new definition, though in days of yore it was just one of the adventures he might have sodding his way around appalling London. What is the apparatus which makes us form new classifications in our view of our fellows?

RS has had to suspend the review system she set up for MountainX. It was a good idea, but it supposed people to be very much more disinterested than they are, and abuses made it almost pointless. Since arriving in Asheville I’ve thought that the thing which stands between its art scene and completeness, sophistication, the ability to affect the culture of other parts of the country, was a mature critical tradition. Reviewers then were enthusiastic annotators of cast lists. The major media ignored events that were not themselves long established and “popular.”
The level of critique now is often quite sophisticated, and the media are far more catholic in their attentions. Now the problem is like Aesop’s frogs who cried for a king and, receiving him, didn’t want him. Asheville’s critics are hampered by the inability of artists and arts organizations to live up to their own call for good criticism. They don’t really want it. They want free public relations. They want praise, and praise is not always called for. For a while some one had the idea that reviews should be anonymous (this is actually a good idea) but then offended review-ees would, instead of taking to heart the exposed faults of their offerings, try desperately to discover the identity of the reviewer, in order to excoriate him or her. It was a case of “yes, I shit on the stairs, but the important thing is to find out who told on me.” More recently, arts organizations or individuals invent fictional “neutral” respondents to contradict reviewers in the comments columns, and flood Facebook with puffing messages in an attempt to control public opinion. All to the end of fending off the healthy and complete arts scene which everybody, publically, says they desire.
All this makes me consider what criticism is for in a community like ours. The media likes it for a consumer guide, to tell people what they should spend money on. I suppose to a degree it is, though shows seldom play long enough for that to be a real factor, and what I praise for very good reasons may irk somebody else, and their money will be spent anyhow. I think the media cite consumerism to avoid accusations of elitism. A whole section goes to sports and yet readers resent a page dedicated to the arts, though locally (at least) the arts are a greater revenue source. A review may rightfully funnel consumers to an event they would otherwise not know, though keeping them away from things they won’t like is iffy..
Artists who want any sort of larger career can’t get one unless there is a certain patina of critique around their work, which means that for most of its history, a performer had to leave Asheville to build a career. No reviews, no track record. Are we going back to that? When I review, I think of it in part as a dialogue with the performers, writers, designers, as one might have if sitting around a supper table or in a bar, having been asked, “So, what did you think?” Even more, I think of it as audience development. Sure you liked it, but isn’t it nice to understand some of the details which led to this liking? Yeah, there was something wrong, and this will help us understand what. Criticism is teaching, and greater awareness arises from the best of it. It should work that way for the creators of art as well. Even reviews which are not accurate about the qualities of the piece art may be pretty good guides to audience reception.
Finally, the critic owes something to the future, to tell people what was happening when, done by whom and to what effect, and to do so at the upper edge of his perceptions and capabilities. Commentary is history, Puff pieces that spare the feelings of one’s friends or avoid the retaliation of the offended achieve none of the above. There are some Asheville artists I won’t review because the burden of consequences is too great. Of course, I too hate getting bad notices, but I hate getting fat when I eat too much and burned when I lie out in the sun, but all those things may rightfully be laid solely to my ledger.
There are faulty or vicious reviews. In a town where actually financial survival seldom rests on a review, maybe the best thing to do about them is let them ride, let audience decide, to stick one’s nose in the air and go on. It’s gauche to comment publically on a personal review. If you are commenting on somebody else’s review, it is probably best if you really are somebody else.
Arts criticism is important. I’m sad to see it founder once again–once from lack of interest by possible outlets, once from the artists’ not knowing how to behave. Maybe somebody will try again.

Odd to be thinking of this in Cambridge, where anybody can say anything and everyone seems to know exactly how to take it. Maybe we need another six hundred years.