What's Your "No Turning Back" Point?

[charlou]

In general, I'm very willing to stick it out to the end and give authors a chance. My old friend, composer Bernard Rands, expresses my general attitude very well here, in talking about listening to new or unfamiliar music:

Nice thoughts

On going into something with an open mind, I think that is most likely to be the approach when starting a new book for leisure reading, isn't it? I think I do, even if I have some pre-conceived idea about what to expect ...

Comments in a similar vein to yours and Audley's about Ulysses are what motivated me to give that book a go. I may try again at a future point. For now, though, I'm finding the discussion and analysis about it far more engaging than I found the book itself on my first attempt.

[orpheus]

*snip video*

Nice thoughts

On going into something with an open mind, I think that is most likely to be the approach when starting a new book for leisure reading, isn't it? I think I do, even if I have some pre-conceived idea about what to expect ...

Comments in a similar vein to yours and Audley's about Ulysses are what motivated me to give that book a go. I may try again at a future point. For now, though, I'm finding the discussion and analysis about it far more engaging than I found the book itself on my first attempt.

I think you're right, since the pleasure principle is at work; we do this for enjoyment. Some pleasures are difficult; they take some work, but the reward is (hopefully) that much greater. I think this applies to something like Ulysses. It's clearly not light reading. One thing is I try to keep in mind, though, is that part of the definition of a work of art is that it rewards repeated investigation. If I could enjoy everything there is to be enjoyed in that book first time through, it would be a pretty shallow experience, and almost certainly not worth the effort. But to look at it as the beginning of a journey with the work helps me - I'm a big re-reader. Joyce said of Finnegans Wake that it took him over fifteen years to write it, so he didn't see why it should take anyone less time to read it. I don't think he was being snide and looking down his nose at readers; I think he was acknowledging that this thing he had created would reward exploring into again and again.

Having said that, I can relate to what you said regarding Ulysses: that you're finding the discussion and analysis far more engaging than the book itself. That was the case for me too. To a certain extent, looking at some preliminary analysis is helpful, since it's an unusual book (in addition to it being big and complex). It doesn't play by the rules of other books. Stuart Gilbert's book James Joyce's 'Ulysses' was particularly helpful, as was a re-reading of the Odyssey. (Actually I read the old Butcher & Lang translation - not because it's particularly good - but because it was the translation Joyce himself used.) There's also a big book of Annotations to Ulysses and Harry Levin's book on Joyce. These were the most helpful to me... but at a certain point I just decided to jump in and read the book itself. And keeping in mind that it was my first time through - first of many - was reassuring. I had no responsibility to "get" everything first time round.



edit: hard to tell if this is a derail. It's a lot about Joyce, yes, but I think it's still about the OP. Anyway, mods, I'll abide by whatever you think.

edit again: by jumping in and reading the book itself, I was also trying to ensure that my responses would be my own. I was curious to see what I would pick up on, and then compare it to what others thought. But I don't think there's any wrong way to go about this.

[hadespussercats]

part of the definition of a work of art is that it rewards repeated investigation.

That's interesting. Is that part of your personal definition, or is it a quote you agree with so strongly you made it your own?


I wonder about the nature of these repeat investigations, because most of the art I've worked on in my life is ephemeral. If you weren't there when it happened, you missed it. So how do you come back to it?

(There are possibilities that come to mind-- curious what you or others would say.)

(Also, pretty clearly derail. But I think it's ok-- we're pretty friendly to winding conversations in these parts!)

[orpheus]

part of the definition of a work of art is that it rewards repeated investigation.

That's interesting. Is that part of your personal definition, or is it a quote you agree with so strongly you made it your own?


I wonder about the nature of these repeat investigations, because most of the art I've worked on in my life is ephemeral. If you weren't there when it happened, you missed it. So how do you come back to it?

(There are possibilities that come to mind-- curious what you or others would say.)

(Also, pretty clearly derail. But I think it's ok-- we're pretty friendly to winding conversations in these parts!)

I think I first heard it from my mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas. It struck me so strongly that I've repeated it a lot. I think it's especially valuable in differentiating art from entertainment. These are not mutually exclusive by any means. But to the extent that they are, this is, I think, a valid difference.

I'm curious about the ephemeral art you've worked on. The art I mean is - I suppose - not ephemeral: the written word, composed notes, painting, sculpture, photography, film. Now, you could say that performed art is ephemeral: if you're not there for a performance of a Beethoven symphony, then you've missed it. That's true, but performances are instantiations of the work; any performance of a complex work is like one reading of a book: it will reveal some facets and not others. Another performance will be different. No one performance will reveal all there is. So performing works repeatedly is in itself one way of coming back to it. Each time I conduct a piece I learn new things about it.

It's harder for those who don't perform to do this exploration. It's even harder if you don't read music, since you have no way of examining the work itself and must always rely on listening to different performances by others (which, admittedly, is gloriously enjoyable; and music is meant to be performed and listened to). On the other hand, there's a lot to be gained by comparing different performances. This is something surprisingly few people do. They get one recording of Beethoven 7, or whatever, and think that's the piece itself. They're depriving themselves of riches.

I think this was something better understood by people in the days before recordings (we know this from letters and other documents), or in the very early days of recordings, when records were not widely disseminated and travel was harder. Musicians couldn't hear their colleagues around the world so easily, and were forced to gold-mine the works themselves. This is why I find early recordings of classical pieces so fascinating - the interpretive range is much, much wider than in modern performances. I mean radically wider. Modern performances sound pretty homogenous by comparison - everybody hears everybody else, and a kind of sameness sets in, a largely unconscious consensus about how certain things go. But listen to recordings from the great musicians of the 30s and 40s and you'll hear such a wide range of interpretive choices, revealing so many truly different aspects of the same music - it can sometimes sound almost like you're hearing a different piece entirely. If you can listen past the sound problems of early recording technology, this stuff is very exciting.

[hadespussercats]

part of the definition of a work of art is that it rewards repeated investigation.

That's interesting. Is that part of your personal definition, or is it a quote you agree with so strongly you made it your own?


I wonder about the nature of these repeat investigations, because most of the art I've worked on in my life is ephemeral. If you weren't there when it happened, you missed it. So how do you come back to it?

(There are possibilities that come to mind-- curious what you or others would say.)

(Also, pretty clearly derail. But I think it's ok-- we're pretty friendly to winding conversations in these parts!)

I think I first heard it from my mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas. It struck me so strongly that I've repeated it a lot. I think it's especially valuable in differentiating art from entertainment. These are not mutually exclusive by any means. But to the extent that they are, this is, I think, a valid difference.

I'm curious about the ephemeral art you've worked on. The art I mean is - I suppose - not ephemeral: the written word, composed notes, painting, sculpture, photography, film. Now, you could say that performed art is ephemeral: if you're not there for a performance of a Beethoven symphony, then you've missed it. That's true, but performances are instantiations of the work; any performance of a complex work is like one reading of a book: it will reveal some facets and not others. Another performance will be different. No one performance will reveal all there is. So performing works repeatedly is in itself one way of coming back to it. Each time I conduct a piece I learn new things about it.

It's harder for those who don't perform to do this exploration. It's even harder if you don't read music, since you have no way of examining the work itself and must always rely on listening to different performances by others (which, admittedly, is gloriously enjoyable; and music is meant to be performed and listened to). On the other hand, there's a lot to be gained by comparing different performances. This is something surprisingly few people do. They get one recording of Beethoven 7, or whatever, and think that's the piece itself. They're depriving themselves of riches.

I think this was something better understood by people in the days before recordings (we know this from letters and other documents), or in the very early days of recordings, when records were not widely disseminated and travel was harder. Musicians couldn't hear their colleagues around the world so easily, and were forced to gold-mine the works themselves. This is why I find early recordings of classical pieces so fascinating - the interpretive range is much, much wider than in modern performances. I mean radically wider. Modern performances sound pretty homogenous by comparison - everybody hears everybody else, and a kind of sameness sets in, a largely unconscious consensus about how certain things go. But listen to recordings from the great musicians of the 30s and 40s and you'll hear such a wide range of interpretive choices, revealing so many truly different aspects of the same music - it can sometimes sound almost like you're hearing a different piece entirely. If you can listen past the sound problems of early recording technology, this stuff is very exciting.

I work in theatre (also opera, film, television, ice shows, etc., but theatre is/was at the heart of it.)

The designs I made, or the items I painted or constructed, were always one part of a larger organism, of designers and directors and actors, and the theatre space itself, and the audience... None of it was ever made to stand alone-- though I've made many things I display as objects now. And that show-- maybe it's a new piece, maybe it's a remount, maybe it's a restaging-- whatever it is, it is that particular organism, made of those many parts. And when the show closes, the organism is dead. All those arguments, all that money, all that time and heartache and passion and lost sleep-- gone. Hopefully to live on in the minds of the people who saw and the people who participated, but... I've worked on shows that almost nobody saw. And I know many people eat up their theatre experience after dinner and before drinks, and don't think much about it ever again. So, there are no guarantees of an afterlife.

And that dead organism-- even if you tried to make that exact organism live again, you couldn't. Not only because it likely would wind up feeling at best zombified, but because there's simply too many parts, too many people coming together to make a true resurrection possible.

Though, if you're looking at scripts like scores, you can easily see a connection between a conductor/orchestra's revisit/reinterpretation and a director/cast/crew's process of same.

There's more I could say, but it's getting late. Thank you for your thoughtful response.

[orpheus]

Likewise!

[charlou]

On the other hand, there's a lot to be gained by comparing different performances. This is something surprisingly few people do. They get one recording of Beethoven 7, or whatever, and think that's the piece itself. They're depriving themselves of riches.

Yes! Seraph pointed this out to me about classical music .. and I was already aware that the same can be said for cover versions of any good music today.

I work in theatre (also opera, film, television, ice shows, etc., but theatre is/was at the heart of it.)

The designs I made, or the items I painted or constructed, were always one part of a larger organism, of designers and directors and actors, and the theatre space itself, and the audience... None of it was ever made to stand alone-- though I've made many things I display as objects now. And that show-- maybe it's a new piece, maybe it's a remount, maybe it's a restaging-- whatever it is, it is that particular organism, made of those many parts. And when the show closes, the organism is dead. All those arguments, all that money, all that time and heartache and passion and lost sleep-- gone. Hopefully to live on in the minds of the people who saw and the people who participated, but... I've worked on shows that almost nobody saw. And I know many people eat up their theatre experience after dinner and before drinks, and don't think much about it ever again. So, there are no guarantees of an afterlife.

And that dead organism-- even if you tried to make that exact organism live again, you couldn't. Not only because it likely would wind up feeling at best zombified, but because there's simply too many parts, too many people coming together to make a true resurrection possible.

I have in mind a marionette without a puppeteer .. in lifeless limbo .. the potential is still there ..



I've enjoyed reading both your thoughts on this.

[Audley Strange]

part of the definition of a work of art is that it rewards repeated investigation.

That's interesting. Is that part of your personal definition, or is it a quote you agree with so strongly you made it your own?


I wonder about the nature of these repeat investigations, because most of the art I've worked on in my life is ephemeral. If you weren't there when it happened, you missed it. So how do you come back to it?

(There are possibilities that come to mind-- curious what you or others would say.)

(Also, pretty clearly derail. But I think it's ok-- we're pretty friendly to winding conversations in these parts!)

I think I first heard it from my mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas. It struck me so strongly that I've repeated it a lot. I think it's especially valuable in differentiating art from entertainment. These are not mutually exclusive by any means. But to the extent that they are, this is, I think, a valid difference.

I'm curious about the ephemeral art you've worked on. The art I mean is - I suppose - not ephemeral: the written word, composed notes, painting, sculpture, photography, film. Now, you could say that performed art is ephemeral: if you're not there for a performance of a Beethoven symphony, then you've missed it. That's true, but performances are instantiations of the work; any performance of a complex work is like one reading of a book: it will reveal some facets and not others. Another performance will be different. No one performance will reveal all there is. So performing works repeatedly is in itself one way of coming back to it. Each time I conduct a piece I learn new things about it.

It's harder for those who don't perform to do this exploration. It's even harder if you don't read music, since you have no way of examining the work itself and must always rely on listening to different performances by others (which, admittedly, is gloriously enjoyable; and music is meant to be performed and listened to). On the other hand, there's a lot to be gained by comparing different performances. This is something surprisingly few people do. They get one recording of Beethoven 7, or whatever, and think that's the piece itself. They're depriving themselves of riches.

I think this was something better understood by people in the days before recordings (we know this from letters and other documents), or in the very early days of recordings, when records were not widely disseminated and travel was harder. Musicians couldn't hear their colleagues around the world so easily, and were forced to gold-mine the works themselves. This is why I find early recordings of classical pieces so fascinating - the interpretive range is much, much wider than in modern performances. I mean radically wider. Modern performances sound pretty homogenous by comparison - everybody hears everybody else, and a kind of sameness sets in, a largely unconscious consensus about how certain things go. But listen to recordings from the great musicians of the 30s and 40s and you'll hear such a wide range of interpretive choices, revealing so many truly different aspects of the same music - it can sometimes sound almost like you're hearing a different piece entirely. If you can listen past the sound problems of early recording technology, this stuff is very exciting.

I work in theatre (also opera, film, television, ice shows, etc., but theatre is/was at the heart of it.)

The designs I made, or the items I painted or constructed, were always one part of a larger organism, of designers and directors and actors, and the theatre space itself, and the audience... None of it was ever made to stand alone-- though I've made many things I display as objects now. And that show-- maybe it's a new piece, maybe it's a remount, maybe it's a restaging-- whatever it is, it is that particular organism, made of those many parts. And when the show closes, the organism is dead. All those arguments, all that money, all that time and heartache and passion and lost sleep-- gone. Hopefully to live on in the minds of the people who saw and the people who participated, but... I've worked on shows that almost nobody saw. And I know many people eat up their theatre experience after dinner and before drinks, and don't think much about it ever again. So, there are no guarantees of an afterlife.

And that dead organism-- even if you tried to make that exact organism live again, you couldn't. Not only because it likely would wind up feeling at best zombified, but because there's simply too many parts, too many people coming together to make a true resurrection possible.

Though, if you're looking at scripts like scores, you can easily see a connection between a conductor/orchestra's revisit/reinterpretation and a director/cast/crew's process of same.

There's more I could say, but it's getting late. Thank you for your thoughtful response.

Art as emergence of a higher form of communication through Ritual. Interesting you refer to it as an organism, don't you think? Now what if such constructed ritual performances were repeated to bring an "organism" to life not for an audience, but for the performers themselves. That's what I suspect the whole "Church" thing is about, a form of once incredibly potent art ritual seemingly magical somehow.

Art is a fusion of directed imagination and heavy toil. We recognise the difference even if we dislike the art. There is no low brow art, as I said about things like 50 Shades, prolefeed is as difficult a craft as any other in the field. Art is artifice, part of our domination over natural chaos and order. The pyramids, the X-Factor, Gangham Style, Motorways, Communism, all arts.

Anyone who is a part of anything like that, from watching a football game to slogging through the Ring Cycle onstage, to lighting a Miley Cyrus Concert is defying entropy by creating events that are unique in space and time, even if the techniques are learned and performed by rote.

Which is why I always try and give things a fair chance.

[devogue]

On the other hand, there's a lot to be gained by comparing different performances. This is something surprisingly few people do. They get one recording of Beethoven 7, or whatever, and think that's the piece itself. They're depriving themselves of riches.

Utterly this.

I adore Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto - the definitive version for me is Ashkhenazy's incredible performance with the Chicago Symphony in its pomp wih George Solti holding the tiller. His angular Russian style is just so "classical" (in my opinion too many interpretations of Beethoven, eg Rubenstein, are too self consciously romantic). Who needs new music? - give me endless versions of great masterpieces and see the particular flavour of humanity in the performer revealed in its entirety. That for me is the genius of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and my favourite composers - their music is a key to the soul of the performer, a deeply intimate portrait of the mind of a fellow creature.

[pErvinalia]

When you're reading a book, and after going at it for awhile you realise you're just not into it, what's the point where you can simply put it down without guilt, and when do you feel that you've committed yourself to the thing and you have to see it through to its miserable, droning end?

I've gotten into one now that has taken me all week to slog through 26 pages, and it is just doing nothing for me - but part of me thinks I should trudge on. I think 26 pages is still in the acceptable "walk away" window, however...

I have walked away at the 90-100 page mark. But that's books at the 500+ size. I think i've twice walked away from "Foucalts Pendulum" at half way through. That's the most impenetrable book I have ever read (attempted).

[devogue]

I think i've twice walked away from "Foucalts Pendulum" at half way through. That's the most impenetrable book I have ever read (attempted).

I walked away at the second syllable.

[pErvinalia]

Haha! I wish I had of.

(oops, not sure if you're serious or if it's a jab at my mispelling)...

[devogue]

Haha! I wish I had of.

(oops, not sure if you're serious or if it's a jab at my mispelling)...

No, it's a jab at the title of the book. It's not that catchy.

[pErvinalia]

Are you living in NZ these days? I love NZ. I'm drunk.

[devogue]

Are you living in NZ these days? I love NZ. I'm drunk.

I am. It's great. I tried to get drunk but I had a poo and it broke my rhythm.