The Great Stage
Unserialised Remarks on Art, Politics and The Social Comedy
Maladjusted July 16, 2010 at 11:01 AM The sad thing about Craven is that he seems less like a -naturally- bad writer and more like a mind that's been slowly converted into chocolate custard by a super-abundance of literary lunches... Is this the fate of everyone, I wonder, the price of success as a feuilleton? Also: shouldn't there be a word for this syndrome, i.e. for the moment in every critical career when all you can remember is what was on the menu the time that you and Clive and V.S. Naipaul and Julian Barnes and Edmund Wilson and Sir John Gielguld and God all ate that BLOODY FABULOUS curry while Christopher Hitchens did his hilarious, drunken, "corsucating" version of Ionescuo in the idiom of contemporary Brooklyn? Are we all destined (even you Dr. Shingleton) to have our criticism reduced to a surreal recitation of menus past, a series of marks above your bed that says 'ad lunch with 'im/'er": "...Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/but to order the foie gras was very heaven." As for Meyrick... his approving [kill me now] description of Godot as a 'f*ck you (addressed, presumably by Beckett...to...no-one? everyone?] 'from beyond the grave' is probably the most cringe-worthy, toe-curlingly awful statement I've ever read and I've seen the proceedings of undergraduate seminars with names like 'allowing the other to speak: dialogues with the silenced.' Meyrick's whole review is (apologies to Stefan Zweig) a bad pick-up line to an unknown woman: something designed to say 'I definitely like the play and find it bold, and compelling, even if I can't explain why, but I'd like, y'know, officially to note that unlike the easily shocked and confsued bourgeoeisie of past epochs, I'm like totally down with art and stuff even when it's like CRAAAAAZY man. Dig the craziness. Our age doesn't have ENOUGH of it." Dear Lord, please give me the shocked bourgeoisie of bygone epochs over this fawning ("but it's sooo inter-esting and Subverrrrr-sive....") poseur. I mean, Jesus: 'the modern world's banned waiting in the name of our being 'chronically overwhelmed' so a play about waiting is a way of sticking it to a world that cannot...wait. It's all so much worse than what mere vowels can convey: wrrghghhghhelkkllhwrhhgghghghgh! Best, Mal Reply Delete
The sad thing about Craven is that he seems less like a -naturally- bad writer and more like a mind that's been slowly converted into chocolate custard by a super-abundance of literary lunches... Is this the fate of everyone, I wonder, the price of success as a feuilleton? Also: shouldn't there be a word for this syndrome, i.e. for the moment in every critical career when all you can remember is what was on the menu the time that you and Clive and V.S. Naipaul and Julian Barnes and Edmund Wilson and Sir John Gielguld and God all ate that BLOODY FABULOUS curry while Christopher Hitchens did his hilarious, drunken, "corsucating" version of Ionescuo in the idiom of contemporary Brooklyn? Are we all destined (even you Dr. Shingleton) to have our criticism reduced to a surreal recitation of menus past, a series of marks above your bed that says 'ad lunch with 'im/'er": "...Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/but to order the foie gras was very heaven." As for Meyrick... his approving [kill me now] description of Godot as a 'f*ck you (addressed, presumably by Beckett...to...no-one? everyone?] 'from beyond the grave' is probably the most cringe-worthy, toe-curlingly awful statement I've ever read and I've seen the proceedings of undergraduate seminars with names like 'allowing the other to speak: dialogues with the silenced.' Meyrick's whole review is (apologies to Stefan Zweig) a bad pick-up line to an unknown woman: something designed to say 'I definitely like the play and find it bold, and compelling, even if I can't explain why, but I'd like, y'know, officially to note that unlike the easily shocked and confsued bourgeoeisie of past epochs, I'm like totally down with art and stuff even when it's like CRAAAAAZY man. Dig the craziness. Our age doesn't have ENOUGH of it." Dear Lord, please give me the shocked bourgeoisie of bygone epochs over this fawning ("but it's sooo inter-esting and Subverrrrr-sive....") poseur. I mean, Jesus: 'the modern world's banned waiting in the name of our being 'chronically overwhelmed' so a play about waiting is a way of sticking it to a world that cannot...wait. It's all so much worse than what mere vowels can convey: wrrghghhghhelkkllhwrhhgghghghgh! Best, Mal
Cameron Shingleton July 17, 2010 at 3:31 AM Mal, There are lots of critics for whom the world, writing and art remained an object of curiosity and thought - who didn't spend their 50's, 60's and 70's torturing their custard-like brains for something to say. AREN'T THERE? If it happens to me, just shoot me. If it happens to you. . . promise I won't want to shoot you, but I may have to. Best, CS Reply Delete
Mal, There are lots of critics for whom the world, writing and art remained an object of curiosity and thought - who didn't spend their 50's, 60's and 70's torturing their custard-like brains for something to say. AREN'T THERE? If it happens to me, just shoot me. If it happens to you. . . promise I won't want to shoot you, but I may have to. Best, CS
Maladjusted July 21, 2010 at 4:54 PM I think we're pretty safe, amigo. Not so much on the grounds of personal integrity (I don't know about you, but mine's a fairly flimsy thing at the best of times), but rather because I can't think of any members of the glitterati who'd invite either of us to lunch...? Hell, I'm thinking of having lunch and not inviting YOU even as I'm writing this...[repeats Bill Hicks's misanthrope's society joke...] Reply Delete
I think we're pretty safe, amigo. Not so much on the grounds of personal integrity (I don't know about you, but mine's a fairly flimsy thing at the best of times), but rather because I can't think of any members of the glitterati who'd invite either of us to lunch...? Hell, I'm thinking of having lunch and not inviting YOU even as I'm writing this...[repeats Bill Hicks's misanthrope's society joke...]
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Order of the Zombie Culture Warrior
Pseud's Corner: No. 4
Melbourne University in $85 mill plan to “grow in ...
Pseud's Corner: Part 5
More Neapolitan Proverbs
More Fun: Old Fun: Other People's Fun - With Photo...
Pseud's Corner Special: The Peter Craven Edition
Dicta and Contradicta: More Karl Kraus
Pseud's Corner Part 7
Harry Redner: Failings in the Social Sciences and ...
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George Monbiot
Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy