Dear Kilby, a weblog in letters signed Nat Foster

2 October 2008

To all you old school typists who still hit the space bar twice after a sentence-ending period:

One is all you need. I promise.

Same message goes for polygamists, owners of multiple calculator wristwatches, and Jimmy Page:

One is all you need.

To everyone remaining:

I need your help getting this important message out. Who else can you think of that needs to hear it?

Thanks,

Nat Foster

4 comments

23 September 2008

Dear Friends,

I have worked CSS magic and added a column for links way, way down at the foot of the page. If you’d like a strip of that prime real estate, leave a comment and I’ll hook you up.

Just don’t peek at the source. It’s ug.

-Nat

P.S. How does one indent in Wordpress’s Theme Editor anyway? Tab is useless.

4 comments

20 September 2008

Dear Roger Ebert,

I just finished reading your latest journal entry, “Critic” is a four-letter word, in which you dedicate not just the first paragraph, but the first two (plus the epigraph!) to compiling the Internet’s most exhaustive collection of anti-critic sentiments:

A critic at a performance is like a eunuch at a harem. He sees it done nightly, but is unable to perform it himself.
–Brendan Behan

A lot of people don’t know what “critic” means. They think it means, “a person who criticizes.” They don’t like people who do that. It seems an impotent profession. Critics are nasty, jealous, jaded and bitter. They think it’s all about them. They’re know-it-alls. They want to appear superior to everyone else. They’re impossible to please. They don’t understand the tastes of ordinary people. They love to tear down other people’s hard work. Those who can do it, do it. Those who can’t do it, criticize. What gives them the right to have an opinion? We’d be better off without them.

Criticism is a destructive activity. If I like something and the critics didn’t, they can’t see what’s right there before their eyes because they’re in love with some theory. They don’t have feelings; they have systems. They think they know better than creators. They praise what they would have done, instead of what an artist has done. They use foreign words to show off. They’re terrified of being exposed as the empty poseurs they are. They are leeches on the skin of art.

You then launch your defense of critics using a quotation from Anton Ego, the archetypal pompous critic in Ratatouille:

As I read I’m thinking is this guy applying for a position as his enemies’ hero? Leeches on the skin of art? Dang, I’ll have to remember that one the next time some hack disses my favorite band, book, movie, or sports team. (Do book critics even write negative reviews?) But–you crafty writer you–once you’ve finished loading the rifles of your firing squad, you tie each of the barrels in a knot by pointing out three important roles of the critic:

1. to write, as Anton puts it, “in the discovery and defense of the new.” You cite the first films by Scorsese, Leigh and Nava as examples of the new. You write, “A critic can defend it, publicize it, encourage it. Those are worth doing.”
2. To encourage readers to spend their money and time on better things. “We are all allotted an unknown but finite number of hours of consciousness. Maybe a critic can help you spend them more meaningfully.”
3. To teach critical thinking by example. “Too many simply absorb,” you write. A critic can teach audiences of art how to explain their reactions to it, how to have opinions and back them up.

Role #1 is a gimme. Who wouldn’t appreciate a critic for championing innovative, worthy art? As for #2, Renee and I would be twenty dollars richer and forty net IQ points smarter had we listened to you about National Treasure: Book of Secrets. so I’ll grant you that one as well, but #3, while perhaps the most crucial role of the critic, also presents a danger. You publish reviews with the risk that moviegoers will use your criticism–not evidence from the art itself–to explain why they didn’t like it. I’ve encountered that tendency in myself. When Renee and I exit the theater with opposite reactions to a movie, after arguing the whole drive home, I’ll go straight to my computer, log on to rottentomatoes, and shout something juvenile like: “Hah! 64% of critics and 79% of Top Critics agree with me!” But she’ll stick to her initial opinion, and the professional reviews do nothing to sway her confidence in it. She’s a natural critic. The rest of us, while we need the guidance, can’t go relying on your ideas. Or worse: passing them off as our own.

Sincerely,

Nat Foster

2 comments