TS: casual listening/reading/viewing vs all critical analysis, all the time

if you're reading it to educate yourself that's a different matter - but education isn't quite the same thing as art, in my book. art should educate, but not purely be about education. otherwise, it isn't art, its just information.

personally, i try and enjoy it, and then if i like it, i come up with lots of reasons WHY its good - whether it actually is or not.

I don't think that's necesairly true...after all, there's tons of things that you can end up enjoying w/o loving them, or even liking them, the first them you experience 'em. Like I said with the Raekwon record - I just had to sit down and think "ok, what exactly is going on here, what is the artist trying to communicate?" and after I found that out on an intelectual level I was suddenly able to dig it intuitively too, if you will - like if I were to listen to it casually now, I'm sure I'd enjoy it w/o having to force myself at all. Refusing to work at liking stuff which doesn't grab you the first time you see it means closing a lot of doors to yourself, I think - after all, it could just be too new or alien to what you've previously experienced for it to work right away, that doesn't mean that you'll *never* get to *really* like it.

i'm perfectly willing to give something a second chance. often, i can come to understand something i didn't get to begin with. and i'll concede that you're right that an intellectual understanding of something can add a great deal to the enjoyment of a piece of art.

perhaps, on reflection, 'intuitive' was a bad word to use. it implies a first impression. the word i'd LIKE to use would be one similar, that can also imply a longer, more closely observed evaluation of something from a perspective of 'feeling' rather than 'thinking'. sadly, i don't know what that word is...

more later.

that information does not, of course, have to be understood anywhere other than the intellectual level. this understanding at the intellectual level often precedes some sort of shift in understanding at the emotional level. often when you 'feel' an issue to being with you have a different response to that produced by approaching it intellectually. intellectual involvement with an issue, a new mental understanding of it, can help later to shift the way we 'feel'. so, information can help to shift the way you relate to art, but it has to do so by shifting the emotional response too. (hmmm...maybe i'm coming round to your way of thinking a little...)

BUT to me, that's the difference between art and information. art should do something more powerful, and deeper, than merely engage the intellect. it should grab you somewhere more much personal - perhaps a little lower down, and should connect there. because those connections are the sort that are hardest to forget.

have i talked myself round in a circle? probably.

'when you feel an issue to begin with'...not 'to being with'...

i suppose a perfect individual has these two functions in constant interaction, perfect balance and utter harmony. but then, i don't know all that many perfect individuals, so maybe i'm not equipped to comment.

j/k

guess you win the argument..

of course, to my mind, the perfect individual would either be carrying/smothered in (depending on the individual) chocolate. but then, perhaps that just shows my own imperfections..

and i suppose that had better be guilt-free fair trade chocolate, even though it doesn't taste as nice.

I very much agree with this in theory, but I don't think too many of us actually strive for this balance *every time* that we listen to music/read a book/watch a movie; I don't think you can really experience *anything* w/o being influenced at least a bit by both of these functions, but at the same time there *is* many times a concious effort to let one take precedence over the other in a certain situation, even tho I concede that how successfull this effort usually turns out is debatable. Surely this most play at least some part in the way one ends up liking or disliking a piece of art? Like, even tho there is no such thing as "pure" casual listening or "pure" critical listening, we still prioritise, right?