Fractionals

you and all your snooking big words.

You win the internet for today.

WOO! what's my prize?

The internet, obviously. It is both competition and prize!

that's a sucky prize! I want a cookie!

Fine, a cookie. But the internet is sad now.

Oh man, if you hadn't won already that would have clinched it right there.

so I sort of won the internet twice today?

Yes. But it doesn't carry over to Wednesday.

so I have to win it all over again today?

Yep. We have to give other people a chance.

I DEMAND A RECOUNT

Houston ain't Florida.

you're right. it's new orleans. though it might as well be florida.

Excellent article. Thanks for linking to it.

I'm admittedly new to the business of reviewing, but I'm completely onboard with Yagoda. Even on 'lugubrious', but especially when he pans the 'thumbs-up, thumbs-down' approach. I can't stand being told that movies, shows, music, etc. that I enjoy and take in for enjoyment are bad. It's insulting. Explain what works about something, what doesn't, leave it at that and I'll be happy.

Here's my question though: Is there a difference between art criticism and journalistic reviews of art? I ask because of the post title. Not that I think the journalistic reviews should be 'buyer's guides', but because it seems the function they serve should be to help people decide whether they want to read a book (or whatever).

I wanted to wait until I was sober again to deal with this one.

Question first: If there is a thing (called "journalistic reviews of art") which has as a purpose, as an end, helping people decide whether they should read that book, watch that movie, etc, then it is indeed separate from (and, I would argue, inferior to) criticism.

Criticism is simply writing (a form of art) with another form of art as its object. Good criticism does, the vast majority of the time, help people decide whether or not they would be interested in the art in question. But it's a category mistake to act as if this side effect of criticism were its raison d'etre. Any writing attempting to be criticism that takes as its end not good writing but the recommendation/warning of consumers is like Christian rock; it has mistaken a means/effect for the end and suffers. If you're a Christian or just looking to find a movie to watch you may still find a use for those things, but if you're looking for good criticism/rock music you have to look elsewhere.

The only function writing can or should serve is to be good writing. If it does this, the effects you mention will follow naturally; if it focuses primarily on anything else, including trying to be helpful to readers, 99 times out of 100 it will be worse at that than it would have been in the former case.

That being said, "Explain what works about something, what doesn't, leave it at that and I'll be happy" isn't exactly a bad model for criticism, though of course a little simple (not that I think you intended it to be some sort of manifesto!). The only area I might amplify is that a good critic still needs wrong to express their own opinion, but as you allude to there is plenty of room between doing this and belittling the reader for liking things the critic doesn't.

Put another way; I may not like Wolf Parade, but I'm not about to suggest that liking them is somehow invalid. Because that is ridiculous.

I don't entirely disagree.

That is, I seem to be in agreement with your larger point (that criticism is art). I don't agree with some of your smaller ones.

For example -

"The only function writing can or should serve is to be good writing. If it does this, the effects you mention will follow naturally; if it focuses primarily on anything else, including trying to be helpful to readers, 99 times out of 100 it will be worse at that than it would have been in the former case."

This I disagree with, unless you're actually talking about writing as art and not simply writing in general (using text to communicate ideas, facts, etc.).

Newspapers use writing (in the second sense) to help their readers. That is their raison d'etre. If their only function was to be good writing, they wouldn't help their readers in the way that newspapers are supposed to. That's not to say that newspapers don't put a high priority on writing being good; they do. Just that it's neither the highest nor the only priority.

But, as you pointed out in conversation yesterday, newspapers aren't art, so I think this is only a counterargument if you're using 'writing' in the second sense.

But all that this line of thought does is raise more questions in my mind. Where's the line? When does simple writing become art? Can it become art in spite of the author's primary intentions? Or is art more a state of mind, where one work could be 'superior' to an 'actual' work of art in terms of aesthetic value, but still not be art because it wasn't done with the appropriate intentions?

These may be incredibly basic questions. I don't know. I've never really thought about them and am genuinely curious.