Month: February 2005

In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd writes:

Michael Moore and Mel Gibson aside, the purpose of art is not always to send messages. More often, it’s just to tell a story, move people and provoke ideas. Mr. Eastwood’s critics don’t even understand what art is. Politics – not art – is about finding consensus with the majority of the audience. Art is not about avoiding controversy or ensuring that everyone leaves feeling morally uplifted.

Warning: the full article contains spoilers for Million Dollar Baby. But otherwise, standard operating procedure: either a login of your own or one from BugMeNot.

I’m reminded of something Paul Auster once said: “Art is opposed to nothing but falsity.”

Medved and company seem to think falsity is just peachy if it doesn’t make people think too much.

I got spam earlier today for an online pharmacy of some sort. At the bottom, for reasons that are not quite clear to me, was this:

He worked for many years as an auto mechanic. In a brief interview conducted Wednesday via Don Blakeman, and earthquake analyst with the USGS, said large tidal waves frequently ago caused waves that killed people as far away as Japan. He told The Associated Press that

I realize that’s probably from at least two or three different stories, and that it’s only a couple of steps away from complete gibberish, but I’m amused by the idea of an auto mechanic predicting earthquakes and tidal waves for the US Geological Survey, as well as by the matter-of-fact, almost petulant tone of the last half-sentence.

He told the Associated Press that. Nuh uh! Shut up! He did so!

Maybe I am too easily amused.