Always consume your friends’ favorite art. It might be good, and if it isn’t, you can absorb yourself endlessly in wondering why they like it.
Dec 052022
Seeming
Religion, art, taste, and other delusions.
Nov 102022
Children’s literature posits a compact between author and reader: though the reader may look like a frog to all the uncaring world, the author knows he is a handsome prince, and it can be their little secret. Harry Potter is children’s literature. So is Confederacy of Dunces.
Nov 082022
Almost anything can be put into a work of art, which is the artist’s problem, and almost anything can be got out of it, which is the critic’s.
Oct 182022
To portray competence in detail requires a genius; to portray genius in detail requires a god.
Oct 072022
A story of only exciting parts is like a wardrobe of only exciting garments.
Oct 052022
Criticism, even good criticism, helps you see what the critic describes and hinders you from seeing anything else.
Oct 032022
Even public relations suffers from science-envy: it is no accident that Relativity came between Barnum and Bernays.
Sep 202022
Only in the movies does it pour when it rains.
Sep 142022
Critics prefer drama to comedy because drama can be chewed over endlessly, and who wants to talk about why something’s funny?
Aug 302022
Public opinion is not what everyone believes, but what everyone believes everyone else believes.