Housekeeping

You don't know what love is

By March 22, 2010No Comments

I’ve only been work­ing with Laura Collins-Hughes, the edit­or of ARTicles, the blog of the National Arts Journalism Program, for a short time yet, and she already knows how to push my but­tons. This morn­ing she sent out an e‑mail dir­ect­ing me to a rather extraordin­ary piece in the Boston Globe entitled “Love Music, Hold The Criticism.” Okay, gran­ted, she sent the e‑mail to all of the blog­gers at ARTicles, but I have a very strong feel­ing that she knew I would be the quick­est to rise to the bait. And so I did. Yes, this is more writ­ing about writ­ing, so if that’s not your sort of thing, skip it. And look on the bright side: the more of that sort of thing I do there (where it is, in fact, actu­ally ger­mane to the blo­g’s over­all mission…I think), the less of it I’m likely to do here. (Oh, and also, if you feel like being a wiseass and mak­ing a smart remark about the piece on Twitter, please do me a favor and cc your “tweet” either here or in the com­ments thread of the piece itself, as I’ve still yet to find a genu­inely com­pel­ling reas­on to revive my account there, and I’m a trifle sens­it­ive about being talked about behind my vir­tu­al back. Thanks.) 

You May Also Like

Housekeeping Conundrum

Conundrum

I understand that I have no one but myself to blame for this predicament, but…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennyFebruary 5, 2009
Housekeeping Say hello to my lil friend...

Say hello to my lil friend...

My pal Tony Dayoub is hosting a Brian DePalma blog-a-thon over at his terrific site Cinema…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennySeptember 7, 2009
Housekeeping Reader poll

Reader poll

So...I'm working on two very different, and relatively ambitious posts. I intend to finish both…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennyJanuary 13, 2010

No Comments

  • bill says:
    March 22, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    There is one thing, and one thing only, about Almond’s piece that hit close to home, and that was his point about tak­ing pleas­ure, as an aspir­ing musi­cian, in tear­ing down the music of oth­ers. I some­times ques­tion the motives behind some of the nas­ti­er things I’ve writ­ten about books and short stor­ies, par­tic­u­larly in the hor­ror genre. Not the neg­at­iv­ity, mind you – just the nas­ti­ness. Not being a per­fect per­son, I don’t like to think of the pos­sib­il­ity that I might turn into one of THOSE blog­gers, who has ambi­tions as a writer of fic­tion, but who can­’t get my ass in gear, so I take it out on those who, at least, HAVE got­ten their ass in gear.
    At the same time, I know what I think is good, and what I think is bad, and when Joe Hill is allowed to coast by with a book like HORNS while most people have still nev­er heard of Robert Aickman…well, any­way. Forget I said anything.
    Besides all that, Almond suc­ceeds only in sound­ing unbear­ably pious through­out, and pro­jects his motives and atti­tude towards music cri­ti­cism onto every single music crit­ic who has ever lived. Which is, I don’t know, kind of pre­sump­tu­ous, I think. And his claim that all music is only try­ing to hit you square in the heart is so bor­ing and inac­cur­ate that it almost defeats any response. Not because there isn’t a good response, but because it seems hardly worth it.
    Also: Robert Christgau left you a comment!

  • Brandon says:
    March 23, 2010 at 12:13 am

    Some people, like myself, appre­ci­ate read­ing neg­at­ive reviews to ques­tion their own per­cep­tions. To assume upfront that the read­er will some­how lose pleas­ure in the sub­ject or be offen­ded by a neg­at­ive cri­ti­cism is a rather shal­low view of a poten­tial audience.
    I think the mis­take of the piece is in assum­ing there is sup­posed to be some sort of object­ive stand­ard in cri­ti­cism. Criticism is a dia­logue and, at best, a com­mu­nic­a­tion that helps inform (pop­u­lar) cul­ture for bet­ter or worse. There are snarky cri­ti­cisms and there are sub­stant­ive ones. The prob­lem isn’t in the text (or even the writer), it’s in the lack of crit­ic­al thought employed to be able to dis­tin­guish between them.
    I could also point out that any­one truly hav­ing an epi­phany at a MC Hammer con­cert SHOULD prob­ably ques­tion their own place in the world. (That might not be very con­struct­ive, though).

  • Griff says:
    March 23, 2010 at 8:59 am

    What Christgau said.

  • Cam Moneo says:
    March 23, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    What Brandon said, minus the Hammer snark.

  • S. Porath says:
    March 24, 2010 at 5:08 am

    Liked your reply, aside from your singling out of Mr. Scott. Yes, that was a harsh way of put­ting down ‘Shutter Island’ lov­ers, but I think that all crit­ics live in glass houses on this mat­ter. I know for a fact that I’ve read pieces by you, Glenn, where in the middle of being chal­lenged and fas­cin­ated by a con­trary opin­ion, I was also struck by an empir­ic­al phrase that inval­id­ates my own response. Scott’s only, and the crush­ing dis­s­a­point­ment he felt with ‘Shutter Island’ came out in a par­tic­u­larly harsh notice. We’re all human.
    (Thank god for Armond White- it’s impossible to be empir­ic­al about film when he’s around)