"I delivered talks at universities and lecture halls arguing that the fan’s capacity for enthusiasm was as holy as the works of art we lived by."

"I would quote a passage from Salinger’s 'Franny and Zooey' comparing a performer’s audience to 'Christ Himself,' a righteous entity worthy of serving. I found similar comfort in a scene from 'Manhattan' in which Woody Allen’s character asks what makes life worth living, then rattles off a mix of cultural touchstones (before landing, of course, on 'Tracy’s face'). At nineteen, I wrote in a private journal that 'the knowledge that anything I feel has already been expressed in a work of art' was my version of feeling watched over by a higher power. I still value the sanctity of the artist-audience exchange, but it worries me when conversations about artists’ misdeeds end up centering on it. When an artist is revealed to have abused someone, we ask, 'Can we still like their art? Is it still O.K. to?' These questions treat every individual’s response to art as a morality test. They confuse optics with ethics, muddying a useful distinction between reacting to a work of art—an act that, after all, is something visceral and involuntary, like laughter—and materially supporting it.... "

Writes Tavi Gevinson in "What 'Tár' Knows About the Artist as Abuser/Todd Field’s film about the downfall of a world-famous composer shows the toll that untouchability takes even on the person it supposedly benefits" (The New Yorker). 

ADDED: Here's the passage from "Franny and Zooey":

"Billie Eilish wants you to know she is in charge, brash and self-assured enough to scrap the raffish image that helped garner her a world of fans in favor of something a little more … adult....."

"The singer... swapp[ed] her trademark sweats for a style more domme than deb: pink Gucci corset and skirt over Agent Provocateur skivvies, accessorized with latex gloves and leggings. The choice was her own, Edward Enninful, the magazine’s editor in chief, wrote in the June issue. 'What if, she wondered, she wanted to show more of her body for the first time in a fashion story?' Mr. Enninful recalled. 'What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved? It was time, she said, for something new.' To that end Ms. Eilish embraced the shopworn trimmings of female allure, offering the camera, without apparent irony, a nod to the sirens of golden age Hollywood and some of more recent vintage: Taylor Swift, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion among them." 

Writes Ruth La Ferla in "On That Bombshell Billie Eilish Cover for British Vogue/The pop star known for defying gender stereotypes got a glamour makeover with a corset. Not everyone is happy about it" (NYT). 

First, "garner" — she garners her fans. Doesn't just get them and doesn't quite win them. She garners them, so picture her storing them in silos, like grain. 

If you've already garnered a "world of fans," what do you do next? Maybe offload some of them. Offend. Disappoint. She was the girl who covered up her body with big, heavy tracksuits — which she said she wore so people wouldn't focus on her body — so the opportunity was there, inside the suit, to put the body on show. 

Enninful's quote challenges our credulity. It was all her idea. And it was "play"! Oh, was it? The NYT critic, La Perla, says she went for "the shopworn trimmings of female allure... without apparent irony." If it was play, why does it look so unplayful? Maybe the photographer's attempts to make it seem playful looked staged and creepy, and the glum face — hostage face — seemed at least arguably sophisticated. 

Let's break the Enninful quote in half. The second half is believable:

"Next time someone is wasting your life with their voice, any look from this rainbow of options ranging from passive-aggressive..."

"... to aggressive-aggressive will help ward them off. Some might call you insensitive or rude, but to those haters, just shoot any other one of these looks right back at them. If you are continually criticized, just keep bitchfacing. Forever. And ever."

From "How to Bitchface" in "Rookie," the online magazine built on the persona of Tavi Gavinson, who started a fashion blog when she was 11 and is now 16 and profiled in this long NYT Magazine article.

In reaching out to young girls like herself, Ms. Gevinson seems to be positioning Rookie as a kind of antidote to what they are reading elsewhere.... [S]he criticized one of her competitors, Seventeen magazine: “I feel like if I followed their articles about boys and truly believed it was as important to do certain things or avoid certain things as they say, I would probably go crazy. Sometimes their ‘embarrassing’ stories are literally about boys finding out that you have your period.”

Indeed, it’s possible to see Rookie as a rejoinder to a teenage culture overrun by synthetic pop confections like Justin Bieber and “Twilight.” In her (decreasingly) eccentric attire and deadpan prose, Ms. Gevinson has carved out a distinct countercultural voice, the kind that existed in full force during the bygone decades she celebrates.

"I mean, I would rather dress like a book character — I don't really want to spend brainpower...

"... strategizing about [what to wear for] street-style photographers when I go to Fashion Week. I also value being comfortable now more than I used to."

Tavi Gevinson gets jaded... and old. She's 15.

"I hope she sees her blog as the thing, rather than as a path to somewhere else."

I put that quote in the banner (for now) because I really, really believe in the sentiment, but the "she" referred to is not me. It's Tavi Gevinson — the "tiny 13-year-old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats" who is a big star in the fashion world. I'm a little suspicious of the quote, because I think someone who says that about a blogger may really be thinking: I hope she stays in her place and doesn't imagine she can enter the truly important world that is my domain. But for a blogger saying it about herself — I think it's exactly the best way to feel.

I'll leave it to you to extrapolate what that means in the lawprof blogger area of endeavor.