Lucubratrix

Three Things

These three confessions may make me unpopular, but I feel that it's time to come clean:

1) I don't like books on tape,

2) I prefer instant coffee to real coffee, and

3) I despise modern art.

Books on tape are like talk radio. I change the station when the music stops and the talking starts, and yet I'm expected to sit still and listen to a recording of someone reading a book for hours and hours on end. Worst of all is being trapped in the car on a long road trip when others want to listen to one of these "diversions." Now, it may well be a book I would otherwise enjoy. The reader may well have a pleasant voice and proper intonation. Doesn't matter. It's like sitting at a party and having to listen to someone go on and on about himself, and not be able to escape the conversation or change the subject.

The coffee thing is a bit less clear-cut. I think Starbucks coffee is almost undrinkable, while Dunkin Donuts coffee is very good indeed. Overall, however, I'm just as happy with a cup of instant coffee. It's quick, it's not bitter, and it responds better to reheating than does real coffee. The thing is, I've always pretended to be a coffee snob. Not really true. The only thing I ask is that my coffee remain uncontaminated by milk and sugar.

Finally, modern "art." Honestly, I can't think of anything produced after 1950 that has any value whatsoever (and there's not a whole lot after 1900). I'm only referring to the visual arts; there's been plenty of good music and cinema. The problem is that the visual arts have suffered since the advent of photography. Apparently technical skill is no longer a requirement; verisimilitude has gone the way of the dodo, and artists are no longer concerned with the ability to reproduce a human face. I don't mean drawing something that looks like a human--I mean drawing a face that looks like a particular person. Instead, we have srt that's supposed to make a "statement" that no one's intelligent enough to understand. I shudder to think of the hours of my life spent in modern art museums, hours I will never reclaim. Honestly, it's worthless. If you're creating art for the art critics alone, art that no one else will understand, what's the point, other than self-importance and conceit?

posted by Just Me @ 21:10