In a message dated 1/1/13 7:16:51 AM, [email protected] writes:
> On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 8:21 AM, William Conger <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > ...I think the best art alerts consciousness to an > > invisible and supremely confident presence that we can suddenly imagine > as > > ourselves growing beyond ourselves. > > > > > If that means that art should sensitize us, I agree. > > But that is only one of the many things that art can do for its audience: > > - The job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers > to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their > tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the > purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a > second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's > reexamine it. > > DAVID MAMET, *Salon* interview, 1997 > Mamet, a very smart guy, is nevertheless often deeply full of it. And I've had evidence that he is loathe to reconsider anything he says once he's said it. He is not an expert on "Reexamining" his own pronouncements. Once he's said it, thou shalt be satisfied with it. Here are two mistakes in those few short lines: It is fatuous to assert what "THE" job of either the 'artist' or the 'mass entertainer' "IS". It is both careless and dim to assert that "EVERYTHING" we have thought -- no matter how narrow the subject -- is ever wrong.
