Re: That elusive "new" dog turd

>I do not think that "great artists" begin with ...."oh i am going to save the
>world with this composition or this painting"~ that to me is over-romantic
>hoo-hah, nor do i personally want to benefit anything except my unmanifested
>ideas into reality by doing "art"

Art can and does make our lives better. Just because this is a side effect
of its original intention doesn't make that fact unimportant.

>many people feel the
>urge to scale a large mountain not just 'because it's there'
>*nor* just for personal glory, but rather, because climbing to
>the top of high a snow-capped mountain can be an extraordinarily
>spiritual experience.
>I know that sounds off-topic, but often, a great work of art
>deserves faithful study and interpretation precisely because
>it can similarly nourish one's soul.

A spirtual experience at the top of Everest may be as much a result of
exhaustion and oxygen deprivation as anything else. In any case, such an
experience doesn't have the potential to benefit anyone other than the climber.

Dale!
I would rather explore the deepest hidden valleys than to scale the humorless
peaks where nothing grows!

Dale Scott wrote:

> A spirtual experience at the top of Everest may be as much a result of
> exhaustion and oxygen deprivation as anything else. In any case, such an
> experience doesn't have the potential to benefit anyone other than the climber.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com

some relevant quotes in response to the elusive new
microtonality search vs. "dog turd"y-ness going on
in this list:

excess is excrement. excrement retained in the body
is poison.

be wary of elegant systems & cosmic paradigms - they
can be a lethal limit.

don't believe what you read until it goes well past the page.
print makes suckers out of most of us.

gain insight through your own resistances.

wait patiently until an idea proves musical for you, & have the
courage to test its truth through the conscious experience of
sounding music.

Invest in weird modes [& scales].

.... durian fruit looks truly menacing & alien,
smells like shit, but tastes like heaven...
& to some it's medicine in a fruit package.

zHANg

>A spirtual experience at the top of Everest may be as much a result of
>exhaustion and oxygen deprivation as anything else. In any case, such an
>experience doesn't have the potential to benefit anyone other than the
>climber.

Why not? Did only the Astronauts benefit from the moon landing?

-C.

> [Dale Scott, TD 306.10]
>
> A spirtual experience at the top of Everest may be as much a
> result of exhaustion and oxygen deprivation as anything else.

OK, I have to admit that this is true, BUT...

> In any case, such an experience doesn't have the potential to
> benefit anyone other than the climber.

And that was exactly my point: that when an individual engages
himself *deeply* with a great work of art, he generally
experiences a spiritual reward that is different from, and
far more powerful than, the feelings experienced by those who
engage themselves with it in a more casual way.

Sort of like the difference between climbing to the top of
the mountain, and simply looking at it from the base.

Just because a great work of art is generally recognized to
be a masterpiece, doesn't necessarily mean that society is
going to benefit from it in a general way. One can only
benefit from it by listening to/looking at it, studying it,
analyzing it, etc. Its mere existence does nothing on its own.

In addition, the retort about the spiritual experience resulting
from oxygen deprivation has a parallel in great art: at least
with music, theater, and cinema, the 'magic spell' that keeps an
audience entranced during a great *performance*.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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