November 17, 2005
"Note just what it is about your work the critics don't like..."
"... then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping." Jean Cocteau said that, quoted, recently by RLC. I've been thinking about that quote all day. It's quite inspiring. So look out.
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11 comments:
Jesus, I hate that con law stuff. Amendment this, orginalist that, who the hell needs it?
I guess this means that Althouse is about to become the new home of "Open Sores Media" criticism!
Yeah, the quote is a little too useful. It could be a slogan for a serial killer. The trick is to find the right value in it for yourself.
I like that little quote. It's hard to apply, though, because we (I?) are always fretting over the silly way we put things or the way our brain works. This will sound snottier than I mean it, but originality seems to cloak itself in uniformity so often resulting in a whole lot of the same thing "signifying nothing." Is the trick to trust your instincts when you're writing? I admire writers who don't care if the words "fit" or if critics will approve BUT don't write just to confuse the reader and annoy the critics.
Molotov Cocteau.
Sometimes critics are right though. Often enough, whether in our characters or creativity, the thing we most hold on to, and wrongly, is the thing most criticized, because we all contain a special little inability to truly know ourselves or see our own worst flaws.
One thinks of how Prince, freed from the critical eye of the corporation, released several self-indulgent, meandering albums.
Or, as Julian so hilariously pointed out, someone like Jar Jar Binks. Wisely Lucas listened to critics, verbally and visually castrating Sir Jar Jar from the last two films.
(As a side observation... Jar Jar, Prince, Lucas, Cocteau are not Althouse Men)
About George Lucas: He's also squandered his talent by pandering to "Star Wars" fans, giving people gobs of what they already loved. He threw away art for entertainment. Much of what he found on that path was sheer crap. Maybe he could have found a way off the path by challenging his critics.
Finn Kristiansen: You might be mistaken about Prince not being an Althouse man. It's been my observation that she is predictably complex and eclectic in her tastes.
"Tonstant Weader fwowed up".
If Nabokov were still around, he'd gleefully say that Foucault and A. A. Milne are indistinguishable. Heck, if he ever heard of Foucault he probably did say it.
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