In a message dated 1/15/13 1:28:12 PM, [email protected] writes:
> I want to object to Cheerskep's term "talentless bozo" for those he deems > inept > artists. I've never met an artist who had no desire to make an artwork > -- to > do something that qualifies as art by some standard, even an unknown > standard -- > because desire is the word taking the load here. > How much "desire"? In what I said, a load-carrying word is 'careless'. "I recoil from calling "art" every careless, botched rendering by talentless bozos." I recoil from carlessness even when the creator is (at other times) worthy. I once rejected an "essay" by Kurt Vonnegut. His assignment (which he was free to decline) was to write about the writing of one of his novels, the whole campaign, how he got the idea, how and why the idea changed, what problems he encountered, etc. Two of the authors I approached got so into the project they produced whole books on the topic. Others took it seriously; they produced essays averaging about 20 pages (one went to 40 pages). They were not sneer-worthy people -- Mailer, Renault, Capote, Auchincloss, Reynolds Price, Anthony Burgess, and eight others. I rejected the Vonnegut essay because it ran one-and-a-half quite careless and flippant pages. My gut told me not only that his piece had no interest at all, but that to publish it in the same volume would be an insult to the other writers. William is right when he says later in his post that, as an editor, I must have seen numerous careless, "quick-typed" novels and stories. And every time I did I felt it was affront to serious practitioners of the "art".
