For the past three weeks, I have been extremely busy with deadlines for work, a contract job, a column, and a photo shoot (on Saturday, which was successful, thanks to my talented brother-in-law and friend M. Stewart and my skilled --and wonderful-- wife J).
Guilt. I've been absent here too frequently. I know what that means, image wise. Oblivion is the next town on the road I've been traveling. So I wanted to write something, anything. Here is the first thing that came to mind. A quote. Simple enough.
This passage from the wise and gifted Edward O. Wilson (from his work Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, pages 210-1) is always at the forefront of my mind when I interpret or analyze art, film, or the written word. If it helps you in any way, excellent. If it bores you, please keep it to yourself:
The arts are sometimes taken to mean all the humanities, which include not only the creative arts but also...the Humanities, the core subjects of history, philosophy, languages, and comparitive literature, jurisprudence, the comparitive study of religions, and "those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods."
....Interpretation is itself an art, since it expresses not just factual expertise of the critic but also his character and aesthetic judgement. When of high quality, criticism can be inspired and idiosyncratic as the work it addresses.... Interpretation will be more powerful when braided together from history, biography, personal confession--and science.
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