Emperor Augusta's wife, Livia, gives pep talk to the gladiators. Pretty sure you've seen this bit from I Claudius by Robert Graves, based on Suetonius, et al.

Claudius got to be a god, apparently. I haven't read Robert Graves's sequel to I Claudius, Claudius the God, and there hasn't been a BBC / PBS production of it. unfortunately. Given the straitened circumstances of public broadcasting, there probably won't be.

Why not give both men a new heart? — pfirefry

I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that there was no competition for the pig heart. After all, fresh pigs can be conveniently provided -- pigs grow a lot faster than we do.

The risk the xenotransplant patient is taking is that his immune system will react the pig heart. True enough, he was going to die fairly soon without the transplant, but waiting to discover whether the transplant will fail has to be very stressful. Second, organ rejection is probably not a pleasant experience.

He deserves credit for his willingness to receive the xenotransplant. There is only so much one can learn in an experimentation lab. Eventually, new techniques need to be tried in vivo -- real life.

In one article, the New York Times reported on the risky transplant procedure (xenotransplant). The patient was not eligible for a heart transplant, which status was a medical -- not reputational -- issue. So far, so good.

In a separate article the New York Times revealed that the xenotransplant patient had a record of assault (stabbing the victim multiple times).

Ethical Question: What moral justification did the editors of the New York Times have for revealing this highly prejudicial (but irrelevant) information? What public good did the NYT article serve? In my opinion it didn't serve any public good.

On any given day, the number of organs available for transplant fails to meet the need by a very wide margin. It is hoped that xenotransplant from pigs (which are genetically modified to reduce the likelihood of organ rejection) would solve the problem. People could help solve the problem by making organs available for transplant in the event of their timely/untimely demises, but they don't do so often enough.

The implantation of a properly obtained organ poses no ethical issue with respect to the history of the recipient.

We could, of course, require transplant donors and recipients to be of unblemished sterling character. Fortunately for everyone concerned, we don't.

Indeed. I have no idea, really, of how to end poverty in the world. The main difficulty is not the poor; it's the rich. So much of the world's wealth is hyper-concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people -- something like the richest 1%. Below the richest 1% is another layer, maybe 5% to 10%. that are only relatively rich--rich compared to to most of the world's people, but not rich compared to the top 1%.

The richest 10%, all together, control a very large share of the world's wealth. They, being Homo sapiens, are predictably NOT going to give it up. And even if they were willing, it would be difficult to convert that much wealth, much of it in kind of abstract paper instruments, into wealth the rest of the world could use productively. [the 1% and 10% mostly apply to the developed world. Wealth outside the developed world is even more concentrated.]

The world economy is a horrendously complex machine and who knows where to begin pushing buttons, pulling levers, turning wheels, opening and closing valves -- etc? Not I.

The poor are screwed because once they are poor they are generally going to stay that way, unless their economic environment changes--which it might, or might not. In general the same is true with people who are have reasonably stable, if barely adequate income. Barring some change, they will probably stay that way. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. So do most people, wherever they are at on the economic ladder.

Of course [it costs so little each year to end severe poverty] but the problem is much more complex than money. — Tom Storm

If it's so easy to end poverty, then why is it more complex than money?

Order of experience, setting, context -- all important,

In my youth, ending in let's say, 1968 at 22. I had not seen much in the way of serious films or serious dramatic or cinema art. I grew up in a very small town in rural Minnesota and attended a state college in a relatively small college town. "Art films" were few and far between. But about this time a boyfriend in Madison, Wisconsin introduced me to Bergman. Madison was then a much more radical left bohemian place than in recent years. Leonard was trying to educate me into being a more sophisticated boyfriend. I appreciated it.

The upper midwest, places like Minnesota and Wisconsin, are kind of Bergman territory -- chilly Scandinavian influence all over the place. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Fanny and Alexander and Secenth Seal are my favorites. But since the early 70s I've seen hundreds of film, most of which were not particularly Bergmanesque, and my tastes aren't the same now. Bergman got at a kind of gloomy religiosity which feels very familiar to me. Winter Light, as one theologian said, is the perfect depiction of a church so dead that not even God showed up.

Pretty much the case.

music is just sound frequencies of particular dynamics and duration; and so on. — baker

'Too many notes, dear Mozart, too many notes' is what Emperor Joseph II supposedly said after the first performance of the Entfuhrung aus dem Serail [Escape from the Seraglio--harem] in Vienna's old Burgtheater. Mozart's reply was: 'Just as many as necessary, Your Majesty. Or, as in Amadeus,

"Just cut a few!"
"Which ones did you have in mind, your majesty?"

After all, Kinkade was an alcoholic and died as a consequence of it — baker

The gods of art criticism are just!

Yes, I agree that "classical music" appealed to many more people than the elite who could hire a composer to produce work for them. Bach wrote music that was performed for the rank and file in Lutheran churches (and elsewhere). The music swerves back and forth between clear statement of text (recitative) and the often thrilling chorales, with added instrumental interludes. A performance of a Bach passion, in English; excellent choir and soloists; a baroque orchestra, preacher -- et al, is still a pretty good show (if one is in the right mood, the setting is ecclesiastical, etc.)

I don't know how much access the larger part of the population of Europe had access to Mozart's or Haydn's, Handel's or Beethoven's music, and in what form they heard it when they did have access. Later on, opera composers sometimes kept selected parts of a new opera under wraps until shortly before the premiere, in order to prevent musicians and opera house workers from taking the piece into the streets, spoiling the surprise for the paying audience. I don't know how fast Haydn's Piano sonata #35 (one of my favorites) published in 1780 diffused into the parlors of Europe and America.

18th and early 19th century Americans were eager to hear 'new music' from Europe. Benjamin Franklin recommended attending Moravian church services because the Moravians used small orchestras and choirs in their services (no organs) and regularly used fresh music from their homeland, composed in the latter 1700s. "The first known public performance in the US of an instrumental work by Mozart took place on December 14, 1786, in one of the Twelve City Concerts at the City Tavern in Philadelphia."

One way classical music diffused was through small amateur groups, cheaper sheet music, and later, cheaper pianos which "middle class" people could afford.

So we cannot rightfully compare a piece from the classical canon and just any piece that is now played a lot on the radio or YT. The latter hasn't yet stood the test of time, while the former has. — baker

No, there is no comparing The Magic Flute and rap. There's no comparing a Bergman film and a porno, even if we may prefer a porno to The Seventh Seal or Winter Light on a given occasion. There's no such thing as 24 hour Bergman coin operated video parlors--perish the thought!

As previously said, excellence in posting.

Competitive, body contact sport (football, boxing, wrestling, etc.) operates under an overlay of "character building". My guess is that if you want to build character, try something else.

The nonsense that justifies body contact sport disguises the action in which a lot of people find pleasure. I don't know whether bloody sports are good or bad, but a lot of people clearly get a charge out of them. The Romans seemed to have been quite open about their blood-sport pleasure. If the gladiatorial games were governed by rules and regs, that would reflect the costs incurred in putting the games on. An expensive dead gladiator wouldn't fight again.

My guess is that the number of programs featuring track and field meets (high school on up) attract paltry audiences--non-existent in comparison to football/basketball. The competitiveness of track and field doesn't (normally) involve aggressive body contact.

Art, deface →Acid Attack — Agent Smith

That's a very sick pun.

And why is that, actually? — ssu

The primary reason is that a large percentage of younger people (under 50) have not had much exposure to music for orchestras and/or string/wind/brass ensembles, or choral music. They have not been exposed in school, or from public media. Many adults do not have experience with classical music to share with their children.

As a result, when they are out on their own, the cultural milieu of orchestra concerts doesn't appeal to them. The cost of orchestra concerts tends to be fairly high, and while there are less expensive but quality concerts by small ensembles and semiprofessional groups available, one has to actively seek them out.

There are efforts, here and there, to connect school students with classical music, by bringing it into the schools on an occasional basis. Some public radio groups are programming music with some sort of tie in for younger children and older teenagers. These efforts are all good, but there needs to be much more, IF we are going to interest American youth in formal music.

In the 1950s CBS Radio carried the New York Philharmonic concerts on Sunday afternoon on its A.M. network. Either NBC or CBS carried the Metropolitan Opera broadcast on Saturday afternoon. There was some "upmarket" religious music broadcast too, featuring trained choirs and professional musicians--not a lot, but some.

PBS carries a small amount of classical concert music; there is a loose network of classical music stations across the country -- lots of areas are out of their reach -- and the number of classical music stations is declining.

The majority of my age cohort and younger of parents have done a poor job of transmitting national / western cultural traditions to their children / grandchildren. I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with them. Maybe it has to do with everything that happened in the 1960s and 1970s, and then the slow decline of the working class. A lot of thinking back then was just sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

That it's something "old" that we can disregard, that is politically incorrect? Pop music or some other "not-western" music is profoundly better? — ssu

Obviously pop music is not "better than" the store of Western Orchestral music. Pop music and classical music serve different needs. I spend much more time listening to classical music than any other kind, but I would feel a great loss if all popular music disappeared. (Well, rap could disappear without any suffering on my part).

Well, if people are so critical of their own Western culture, what do you think will happen? — ssu

I hear people nattering about the defects of western culture, using their recently acquired moral superiority to weigh the sins of the west, while (usually) overlooking the sins of the rest of the world.

I don't know what will happen to the nattering nabobs of negativity, or what influence they will have on future events.

Let's get one thing straight: Classical music (and classical Western art) aren't goddam capitalist, it isn't something for only the rich for starters, so don't be against it! Why wouldn't we like the music of our own heritage? — ssu

My sentiments exactly.

art forms are born, they live, and they die. Poetry is dead. The novel is dying. Music is dying, actually. — Noble Dust

I don't buy this. You say poetry is dead but that, if it's true, just means that there is a shortage of good new poetry. — T Clark

I don't know whether to buy it, either; maybe I'll just rent it for. a while.

When did novels get sick enough to say they were dying? Maybe... by 1975? When I perused the shelves of The Hungry Mind in St. Paul, I starting finding new 'novels' bu authors who didn't seem to feel it was necessary to tell a coherent story with interesting characters. The sickness didn't spread to older novels, of course, but it did persuade me to look elsewhere in the store. There were science fiction titles that were better literature. Hell, Phil Andros' soft core gay books were better. (Phil Andros, aka Samuel Steward, was an English professor at Loyola in Chicago who was fired when the university discovered he was running a thriving tattoo business--way before tattoos went mainstream.) The Hungry Mind is long gone, by the way, avant garde novels and all.

The poetry section of bookstores aren't very big, usually. When I page through the collections on offer, I find very little of interest. I wasn't reading it in the 1960s, but the Beat poets are interesting to me now. There are some poets who claim "working class" status who write very down-to-earth poetry.

Too much poetry strikes me as just so much fancy word processing, but some of it is down to earth

Poetry has ran this gamut before. (gamma ut = Medieval Latin). John Skelton (1460–1529) wrote stuff that was "by turn lyric, passionate, vitriolic, learned, allusive, bewildering, scriptural, satiric, grotesque, and even obscene". In the Tunning of Eleanor Running, Skelton tells the story of an inn keeper whose barrel of ale was under a chicken roost, giving it a special flavor. Chaucer, of course. But then there is the epic Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer (1590), and I can't tell you how glad I am I don't have to read it again.

Why did Spencer bother?

Chaucer, Skelton, Spencer, Ferlinghetti, Ogden Nash, and Allen Ginsberg (long list of others) wrote for interested audiences. If poetry is dying now, it's probably because the audience is dying--maybe literally, maybe not. Art needs a lively audience. Dead audience, dead art.

A great artist (any form?) can probably enliven a dead audience. maybe.

Joshua Bell, a very fine, famous violinist of our time tried playing in a Washington DC subway station. The response? Total indifference. The PBS (Pile of Boring Stuff) News Hour interviewed Bell about it (below).

If you go to orchestra concerts, choral performances, etc., you'll notice a lot of older people there, and not too many young. The writing on the wall is not hard to understand.

@Tom Storm @T Clark @pile of bricks

This work is clearly MUCH better than Pile of Bricks.



The lighted sign on the wall is apt: You have nothing.

is that all there is to your being — Leghorn

Yes. That's all, folks! According to The Church Without Christ, the dead stay dead, the lame don't walk, and the the blind don't see.

So... make the most of being alive.

It's past your bedtime. Go to sleep.

Shakespeare said, "To sleep, perchance to dream."

I'm old; I don't fear dying while I'm asleep. Seems like that would be the most convenient time to die. Children have all sorts of ideas about death, dying, the here after, the before here, up there, down there, etc. My fears about death were shaped by horror films. Maybe they still are?

Art is.

Some people like to make art things so they make art things.
Some people like to look at art things, so they look at art things.
The art things have to be in the right place, usually where other art things are..
Some of the people like some of the art things, and some don't.
People have been buying and selling art things ever since there was some extra money laying around.

One of the earliest art things was a white sea shell with a hole and some ochre coloring added. Found object, modified. Sorry, Marcel Duchamp: somebody beat you to the idea by 40,000 years.

There may be a consensus among 5% of the population about what the best art thing is, on down to art garbage. 50% of the population will follow the lead of the 5%. 45% don't give a rat's ass one way or the other.

When it comes to buying art, one either has to like it, or one has to think it will be worth more money in the future. Both schemes (art I like is good / art that will appreciate is good) are in operation.

My partner bought a painting of Hereford cows standing in snow on the prairie; there are a couple of dead cottonwood trunks in the foreground. So there is blue sky, white snow, a few mostly brown cows, and grey tree trunks. He liked it a lot; the artist was a neighbor in Worthington MN. I like it because he liked it. It doesn't matter what it is worth, or who who thinks it is good. It isn't highly realistic, but it manages to communicate the feel of the cold open space of SW Minnesota in winter.

In addition to thinking of God as 1 person (no trinity), Unitarians also believe in universal salvation. I'm not quite sure how that works out, but it sounds like a generous approach. My guess is that they do not buy the idea of original sin, and a batch of other ideas found in Christianity (virgin birth resurrection, etc).

I was under the (false) impression that Chrstianity owed much of what it is, doctrinally speaking, to sound, well-crafted argumentation. — Agent Smith

An uninformed person might think that. Christianity came together out of a melange of wildly varying beliefs. There were periodic efforts to rationalize the whole shooting match, and some of the efforts were, maybe, well-crafted argumentation.

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made" said Kant.

Unitarians believe there is 1 god, 1 person, period. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Michael Servetus, b. 1509, was an early proponent of unitarianism. He was condemned by the Catholic Church as a heretic in France. He fled to Switzerland and was burned at the stake by the Calvinists, another bunch of heretics.

These days it is quite safe to be a unitarian, and eminently sensible.

I'm in favor of the examined life. What is difficult about it is doing it in time for it to make a difference. I have examined my life, and yes, it made a difference. It's just too bad I didn't have the insight at 25 that I have at 75. Shucks.

I find dog behavior interesting. Dogs share a repertoire of behaviors. For instance, most dogs will signal you to keep scratching them if you stop. "More!" they signal. Dogs will signal a need for assistance. "Hey you, the ball is under the couch -- don't just sit there, go get it." Dogs can follow our gaze, and they can follow a point. They all make use of couches in the same way (if they are big enough)--laying at one end with their head on the arm. They show eagerness in the same way: Eyes wide open, mouth half open, tail wagging vigorously.

They don't have much free will. We don't want them to have much free will -- they can cause enough trouble just by following certain determined behaviors, like their need to chew. Like their ability to win at "Catch me if you can", as one chases them when they have gotten off the leash.

What is true of dogs is true for cats, chickens, cows. crows, et al. Not too much invented behavior.

The BIG question is "How much of this characterization of animals applies to us, as well?"

Some, for sure. We do have at least a substantial range of behavior autonomy and invention. But we also have more determined behaviors (like the cartoon). The many truisms or adages about human behavior that we say, like "Be careful how you talk to yourself when you are dealing with a big problem. You can make things better or worse by feeding yourself the right or wrong messages."
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Leo Tolstoy). Social workers see the same bad results from bad habits, bad behaviors, bad choices, etc. all the time.

In my opinion, people are more alike than they are different. That's not about free will; it's about how we predictably respond to certain stimuli, even if we do have free will.

Our job here is to transcend the gravitational pull of enculturation and group mores. — Tom Storm

Why should we do that? Is that really our job, or is that just one option among several others?

There is something more than personal opinion and public acclaim that makes good art. — T Clark

Personal opinion and public acclaim do not make any art at all, any more than a stadium full of cheering fans make plays on the field.

There's artistic vision, truth, technical mastery, surprise, emotional insight, playfulness, complexity, narrative, simplicity, clarity, depth, history, humor, community.... and on and on. I don't know how to put all that together. — T Clark

The artist puts all that together. IF he or she is successful in putting it all together really well, there will be individual and public acclaim for 'a great work of art'. Probably -- it might take quite some time to appear, but it usually does, eventually.

People like good art. That good art is better than bad art, just like good food is better than bad food, is just my personal opinion. You can prefer bad art and bad food if you like.

BTW, I do not feel inadequate, or that I am shirking my responsibilities by not posting THE definition of art, or a list of the elements of great art (or bad art). A) IF I were to post those things, there would still be disagreement. B) The question of what makes good art good has not been finally answered by many others.

Culture is changeable, and so does the definition of cultural products. Opinions are personal because we each experience the world (and art) individually. What meets the criteria of greatness today may not be on the list tomorrow. Johan Sebastian Bach was the IT composer, then he wasn't. A century later, he was revived. .

My view that, "The quality of porn is easy to measure", was more of a joke than a major plank in art theory. It either does it or it doesn't. From what I can tell, the porn industry has solved the problem of matching content to customer.

I don't really care what others think. — Tom Storm

Really? Not at all?

Or are you suggesting with your term 'collective process' that there is an intersubjective agreement about what art can be considered good? — Tom Storm

Some important 'decisions' are made socially, collectively. For instance, how does a worker in a plant know he is working "hard enough"? The workers collectively define what "working hard enough" is, and discourage fellow workers from not working hard enough, or working too hard. Workers define what "good performance" is. Collectively, they define quality performance, and sub par performance, too.

We observe each other; observe many cues; look for positive and negative responses; adjust our behavior to fit what others are doing. The effort to fit is made more or less automatically -- because we are social animals.

Within our social milieus we determine what a proper cocktail party is; we determine what kind of public religious activity (including speech) is acceptable, and not. We determine what attractive landscaping is; what a nice house looks like; what 'well dressed' means; what kind of car is acceptable, and not.

We determine what music is popular among us (our milieu) and what is not; what novelists are 'good;, which are not. [Ayn Rand has been judged bad by many of the TPF milieu.]. We learn what kind of art is acceptable and what kind is not. There are certain films that won't be discussed at a proper dinner party. Certain jokes can be told, others can not.

There is nothing mysterious about how this process works: we are social animals and we do look for clues among our people, our milieu, about what is considered good and not good.

We may be inclined to consider WHY what our crowd, our milieu likes what we do, and why it is defined as good or not good. We'll remember that in a college class we used a text on criticism; [that class is now 55 years in the past. Sorry, don't remember.] some of the authors had ideas about what constituted "high quality art". We might do google searches, look for criticism books on Amazon. We might find exactly what we were looking for: a cookbook for thinking about art.

In the cookbook we would find chapters on the history of art forms and the value they were given. We would learn how to look at the structure of a painting, a piece of music, or a novel. We would be directed to evaluate the content, the symbols, the sources, the interplay of characters, and so on. Through reading the book, and applying it to paintings we look at, music we listen to, novels we read, and so forth we would find ways of supporting our preferences. Preference (personal opinion) might stay the same, but we would be better grounded.

I'm going to start with the fair, I think, if somewhat sycophantic assumption that the average IQ of posters here is noticeably higher than the general population. — Reformed Nihilist

What on earth would make you think that?

The quality of porn is not easy to measure. Not by a long shot. — john27

That hasn't been my experience.

@Tom Storm Fortunately we do not have to come up with criteria for good art, bad art, art at all. Culture, I hear, is a collective process, a cooperative product.

Culture, tradition, elites, — baker

and others. What constitutes good art, good music, good literature, good landscaping, good architecture, good sculpture, good... whatever is determined by the votes of everyone interested in the matter. If you stand and look at a Pollard for 75 seconds, you are voting yes, even if you don't get it. It was significant enough to keep you looking for longer than 5 seconds. Some votes count for more than others, of course. If the Guggenheim or MOMA or Alabama State Museum of Spittoons includes a piece, then it has been deemed important, excellent (or influential). Same for music. Orchestras record and perform music they consider excellent. Museums and orchestras are gate keepers; arbiters; mavens; taste makers. What are the standards they use? Read the notes under the picture and in the concert program.

By participating in cultural events we absorb the collective idea of "what is worthy" and why. It isn't necessary that you like everything that is considered 'worthy'; it is enough to recognize that it has been so rated, and to have some idea of why.

The cash nexus also enters in to the picture. How many people will buy a ticket? How much can I get when I unload this thing at Sotheby's? Christies? (Somebody mentioned 'cartel'...)

There are market results. How many records were purchased, streamed, swiped, played on air, etc.? Who's in the top 10? Top 100? top 100,000? I would imagine that Godsmacked best recording may make it all the way up to solid lead.

And we are yet to arrive at any foundation for what 'good art' might be. Just calling it good only does half the job. — Tom Storm

So, what are you going to do about this deficiency?

including porn — Tom Storm

The quality of porn is easy to measure.

Art is anything that is presented by someone for aesthetic judgement. It's similar to saying that it's art if I say it is, but not exactly. It's a rule that's easy to apply. — T Clark

I do not know why some people think it is an upgrade to put a beautiful seashell in a case and hail it as art. Or, for that matter, to give the display case treatment to a dehydrated dog turd. Maybe because it's just easy to do that.

The entire visible universe is available for one's aesthetic judgement (see Van Gogh, Starry Night). The world is a beautiful place (often enough). It doesn't have to be art to be worthy of contemplation. There are many other things beautiful, awesome, ugly, horrifying... interesting objects can be. Folded, uplifted rock isn't made more amazing by being called "art". "Uplifted folded rock" is really amazing enough.

Aesthetic judgement doesn't kick in just because we are in a museum displaying art. It also kicks in when we see an interesting, almost cadmium yellow fungus. Beautiful! What's its name? What is the coloring composed of? Interesting how the yellow fades to brown over a week's time. How many shelf fungi start out as bright yellow? Et cetera.

Yes, but throughout this thread we have been discussing more than personal taste - potential objective criteria (you suggested effort and quality) by which to assess a work. It's even been suggested that bad art isn't worth calling 'art'. — Tom Storm

Getting back to Mozart. Genius though he was, he still had to do the work, which he had to do under much more difficult circumstances than Haydn worked under. Professional musicians have commented that Mozart's scores are not polished in the way Haydn's are. Of course not: Mozart was a free agent working in the rough, open market; Haydn was a residential employee of the Esterhazy family.

Mozart's Don Giovanni and Adams' Dr. Atomic both demonstrate what effort and quality look like. So do many rock albums. So do great short stories and novels, movies, New Yorker covers, etc. Levendis, the main character in Harlan Ellison's short story, "The Man Who rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore", is a demon--an unlimited being in a sadly limited world. He is timeless. Anyway, great story. Levendis makes the observation that "it is not surprising that there is a lot of bad art. "What is surprising is that there is so much good art -- everywhere"

On what basis are you saying it is not art - personal opinion? — Tom Storm

Let's say, "personal judgement". How else would anyone decide?

The starting point for von Hagens' corpus (so to speak) are dead bodies, for which he can claim no credit. The rest is taxidermy for which he can claim credit. As such it is, as I said, interesting. It isn't art for the same reason that a seashell isn't art, even if it is mounted in a nice display case. The clam did the work, not the finder. That doesn't mean seashells shouldn't be collected and displayed; it just means they aren't a "work of art" in themselves.

had von Hagens started with clay and made a sculpture in the form of a skinless body, it would not be in the not-art zone. It would be art, period, like Alberto Giacometti's sculptures: "He didn't sculpt heroes on horseback; he depicted everyday humans — and animals — struggling to get through the day. below, his 1951 bronze sculpture Dog (Le chien)

There are many people who think Norman Rockwell is a better artist than Picasso - how do we establish if they are right or wrong? — Tom Storm

They are not right or wrong about what they like, and what they like is probably what they judge to be better, more artistic. That's altogether understandable. Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post illustrations are part of my childhood, certainly; Picasso was not. Picasso and Rockwell aren't equivalent artists -- different times, different places, different environments, different sources of income, etc.

Picasso's imagination seems to have been much wider than Rockwell's, and he worked in several different forms. His "Mask" sculpture in Chicago is an example:



On the other hand, Grant Wood is underrated as a result of over-exposure and caricature. If this image were seen only in a museum, instead of a thousand cartoons...

What do you say to the music academic who says that all pop music is junk — Tom Storm

I would say that the music academic probably doesn't like pop music and is a musical snob besides. I can relate to his dislike. Once upon a youthful time, I was something of a musical snob and looked down on the popular music of the 1950s and early '60s. There was a lot of popular music I missed out on, because I was paying attention to archive folk music and classical stuff, or gamelan music, or whatever.

As I got older, I payed more attention to the pop music I had formerly shunned and found it had a lot more merit than I had previously credited it with.

tell the difference between art and non-art — Agent Smith

I am content thinking that shoveling the snow off the sidewalk is not art and that Swan Lake is art. Granted, there is a fringy region between art and not art. Example: in 1968 I found a 90mm brass shell casing in the surf at Marconi Beach on Cape Cod. The shell had exploded, ripping the casing into a ragged 'V'. (The shell would date back to WWII.) The surf had smoothed the edges and given it a matte finish.

This found object could be mounted on a nice hunk of wood and be called a sculpture. I'm pretty sure it would pass muster as art for a fairly large number of people. I really like it, but I don't think it is art, any more than an interesting mollusk shell is art, beautiful though it may be. It's in that border zone where objects seem "artful" and are not.

From the other direction there are things that seem more like not-art objects, though they are claimed as art. Take Gunther von Hagens, known for his displays of preserved human corpses stripped of skin and dissected. They are 'plasticized' for preservation. Hey, very interesting! Not0-art, though.