Attagirl!

It seems I've finally reached a tipping point on the thesis. After how many long months of complaining? Mind you, it's not the end or even the beginning of the end. Rather, it's the simple knowledge that all the disparate pieces of my research fit together, make something, and push forward with something new to say. For the longest time I've felt like I've been digging the biggest hole - honestly up until last Thursday, the whole thing seemed implausible - how did all the pieces fit together, what did they have to do with each other, why am I doing all this work when it doesn't relate? But I've found the missing links - which of course, means more reading, much more reading.

Here's a few of my favorite citations from this past week:

Critics judge the artwork and are not aware that the artwork judges them. – Jean Cocteau

…it [criticism] introduces space within the artwork, a distance between the show and the spectator, between our reception and our understanding. The critic analyzes the journey which begins with gut reaction (liking or not liking), and leads to greater insight into the work. He shows the way, establishes the connections. He registers the interval within the aesthetic experience. He asserts that all artistic work requires reflection, that it is not simply a product designed for immediate, inconsequential consumption, but part of a social and aesthetic ensemble and of the community at large...It is also an ‘art of dialogue,’ a dialogue with the artwork, with the artist, and with the public. It connects the individual to the collective. - Josette Féral

When reading we synthesize different aspects of the work – thematic, referential, historical, etc. – forming an intentional object which we take to be substantially indentical with the ‘real’ object, somehow defined (for present purposes, the nature of this object is unimportant). Our aesthetical response to a given work is, then, a response to our intentional object – or, less phenomenologically, to the work of art as we understand it. Our judgment is aimed at the object itself, but our responsive basis for the judgment is in the intentional object, which is to say our construal or understanding of the real object. - Patrick Hogan Colm

Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work of than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all...The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art – and, by analogy our own experience – more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means. - Susan Sontag

No artist needs criticism, he only needs appreciation. If he needs criticism he is no artist. - Gertrude Stein

The critic who is alive is the one who has already determined for himself what theatre could be and who dares to question this formula each time he takes part in an event. - Peter Brook.

Note to self: remember when you dropped your laptop last Thursday? What was that hideous sound? That was you realizing you hadn't back up your thesis, you bonehead.

Other good news.

1. My screenplay finally won a little contest. Which means a little validation and a little remuneration. Always nice to get the ticket punched.
   
2. I'm going away to Glen Ellen (home to M.F.K. Fisher & Jack London) this weekend. A friend has a house up there and has invited a few of us writer-types up for a weekend of writing, food, and drink (no wine for me, alas). I'm bringing the abused laptop and laying down some text. Three days of writing (not working on the thesis). I can hardly contain myself.

When I return I promise a blog entry on the following - my evening listening to Christiane Amanpour speak (I was four rows back from her!), my reaction to God of Hell and Gadget.