HousekeepingSome Came Running by Glenn Kenny

You don't know what love is

By March 22, 2010January 12th, 20265 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.) 

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5 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)