This is one of the better written things I have read online in a long time. The quality of the prose almost makes the subject irrelevant.
I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
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Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#62> The Met Cloisters has these wooden altarpieces from the 1400s that draw your attention immediately, I think because the mind can subconsciously calculate the time it must have taken to carve them, and it sends a signal back to the eyes: important. You know that you are not just seeing a work of art, but the expenditure of a life. Reminds me of one part of Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky".
The lake?
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#63As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…
The point of school is to expose you briefly to many things in hopes that one catches your fancy.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#64I wonder whether people who use open source software in the way I do are merely providing the egg (in the context of tfa). Most people, that I know, rarely modify the code in any way and merely build and use. Do not even read it most times. But, it somehow conveys a sense of _doing_ something that the mere install of a binary does not.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#65In my understanding of literature, I went through the same arc as the poster, but then I made it to the next realization- "thickness" is just your willingness to give authors credit for things they didn't write, and it can be done just as well for works that are considered "schlock" as it can for the canon of works that are considered "great". You can read "Moby Dick" as a story about a fish, and you can read "50 sha…
I'm sure this aesthetic relativism holds up under argument, but this is an 'anti realization' that:
-Reduces explanatory power (if Moby-Dick and 50 Shades are the same, why has one been lauded for 100 years, minted the careers of countless academics, etc.?)
-Makes the world less interesting
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…
I have heard that Shakespeare is much easier and more enjoyable for non-English speakers, because they get modern translations and we do not Linguist John McWhorter says that Shakespeare is often an "the Emperor has no clothes" situation. No one wants to admit to themselves or others that they don't understand it, and the people who think they understand it are often misunderstanding a lot of it
Now, maybe I was convincing myself that I understood in high school when I’ve in fact it not, but I found that reading it aloud and trying to say the words, as if you were the character (acting, if you will), made it much more understandable.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#67As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…
I think the Joni Mitchell song Both Sides Now applies, life is a conversation with experience.. you are not the same person you were in your teens, in your twenties.. and once you go through life some more life you perspectives shift even more drastically. Doesn't mean younger perspectives are useless.. you were more engaged with the world when you younger and more innocent.. you really can't get back to that
I don't know any 50+ year who really looks as young people as anything other than filtered reflections of themselves who will learn on their own..
is innocence unwise and experience embittered? Perhaps but that is a Judgemental and cynical perspective - we need more perspective in this world..and we must expose our best art early so that conversation can begin...The young will get there.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#68"I know exactly the feeling that these slop-trepeneurs are preying on, because I feel it all the time: I’ve got these thoughts in my head, and boy oh boy they’re good ones, all-timers, really, and it’s so annoying that I have to spend all this time making the words sound good, when the ideas behind the words are already so good!
But this is an illusion. The ideas are not already good. They need to be thickened. I understand why it’s tempting to force a machine do the hard part for you, but it can’t, and the hard part is the only part worth doing anyway. Making something thick—that’s a lot of pressure! But remember: you were built to perform under pressure, and that’s just what you’ll do."
This is so true. I should re-read this weekly and not feel like some ultra-philosopher trapped by his own laziness... I can just... not feel guilty, the ideas are not that good... yet.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#69> But those works were much more like dark, winding caves with treasure stashed inside of them. My teachers were like, “Right, well, into the cave you go!” and I was like “But there’s nothing in there” and they were like “Entering the cave is 30% of your grade” and so I took a few steps into the darkness and I was like “Just as I suspected: an empty cave” and then I came trudging back out and pretended that I saw som…
That part made me feel seen. I took a handful of literature classes, all to satisfy some requirement. I don't think I ever once generated a genuine appreciation of any of it. Sometimes a resentment (particularly for Shakespeare) but most often just an indifference. Like maybe there's something there, but if so, it must be for other people who are just better at understanding this stuff. It's not for me. I just need to come up with some plausible ideas to get through this class with a passing grade.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#70In my understanding of literature, I went through the same arc as the poster, but then I made it to the next realization- "thickness" is just your willingness to give authors credit for things they didn't write, and it can be done just as well for works that are considered "schlock" as it can for the canon of works that are considered "great". You can read "Moby Dick" as a story about a fish, and you can read "50 sha…
I'm sure this aesthetic relativism holds up under argument, but this is an 'anti realization' that: -Reduces explanatory power (if Moby-Dick and 50 Shades are the same, why has one been lauded for 100 years, minted the careers of countless academics, etc.?) -Makes the world less interesting
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