Talent Hour
It may seem surprising in the age of multi-quadrillionaire celebrities having moons named after them because a film of theirs did quite well, but talent these days is as hard to come across as a dodo. And it's about as rewarded as a dodo, insofar that they are dead as...well, you know the rest.
In this, I am quite certain that evidence bears me out. Jack McDevitt, for instance, is a very talented author, creating excellent worlds out of nothing but his imagination, but who is generally ignored because the literary geeks of the world suddenly act like twelve year-olds because McDevitt writes science-fiction. Then it's a case of "LOL sci-fi isn't really literature LOL." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand, wrote possibly the most boring twaddle known to mankind, because it bills itself as factual-based fiction but is actually a socio-political rant about Stalinism, and yet critics have wet-dreams about Solzhenitsyn's and gleefully expound on its thought-provoking and emotionally-challenging themes. Look, I'm sure the guy had a tough time in the gulag, and I'm equally aware that this was an important issue. But just because Calvin Coolidge had important things to say, does not mean that his Gulag ArchipelagoHave Faith In Massachusetts is a literary oeuvre. I'd much rather read about Alex Benedict, Indiana Jones of the something-bazillionth-century, and his life on Rimway. Certainly more than a political polemic dressed up as fine fiction.
The same goes in music. Elvis Costello is a clever lyricist, but is better known for his dress sense than anything else. Aiming to be in a band and write the Great American/British/Australian Song is a surefire way to land yourself living out of your car, but then there are people like Britney Spears. Britney is rolling in cash, for the reason that her music makes sweaty, pockmarked nerds dream about her frolicking around in a too-tight leather skirt and not much else, and because average early teen girls want to know how they can get the popular boys to imagine them frolicking around in a too-tight leather skirt and not much else. Britney's famous (and fatuous) insistence that she would be a virgin until she got married inspired millions of young girls worldwide, many of whom didn't know what virginity was but liked the sound of the word, to lose it as quickly as they could. Brit could probably be put on trial at the Hague on charges of making Supre popular and knocking it into impressionable heads that the Australian Government's Baby Bonus could be collected at 14. Oops, they did it again. And yet she is rich beyond my wildest imagination.
And what is my point?
...I'm not too sure.
By the way, look up Zero Punctuation. Gold.
In this, I am quite certain that evidence bears me out. Jack McDevitt, for instance, is a very talented author, creating excellent worlds out of nothing but his imagination, but who is generally ignored because the literary geeks of the world suddenly act like twelve year-olds because McDevitt writes science-fiction. Then it's a case of "LOL sci-fi isn't really literature LOL." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand, wrote possibly the most boring twaddle known to mankind, because it bills itself as factual-based fiction but is actually a socio-political rant about Stalinism, and yet critics have wet-dreams about Solzhenitsyn's and gleefully expound on its thought-provoking and emotionally-challenging themes. Look, I'm sure the guy had a tough time in the gulag, and I'm equally aware that this was an important issue. But just because Calvin Coolidge had important things to say, does not mean that his Gulag ArchipelagoHave Faith In Massachusetts is a literary oeuvre. I'd much rather read about Alex Benedict, Indiana Jones of the something-bazillionth-century, and his life on Rimway. Certainly more than a political polemic dressed up as fine fiction.
The same goes in music. Elvis Costello is a clever lyricist, but is better known for his dress sense than anything else. Aiming to be in a band and write the Great American/British/Australian Song is a surefire way to land yourself living out of your car, but then there are people like Britney Spears. Britney is rolling in cash, for the reason that her music makes sweaty, pockmarked nerds dream about her frolicking around in a too-tight leather skirt and not much else, and because average early teen girls want to know how they can get the popular boys to imagine them frolicking around in a too-tight leather skirt and not much else. Britney's famous (and fatuous) insistence that she would be a virgin until she got married inspired millions of young girls worldwide, many of whom didn't know what virginity was but liked the sound of the word, to lose it as quickly as they could. Brit could probably be put on trial at the Hague on charges of making Supre popular and knocking it into impressionable heads that the Australian Government's Baby Bonus could be collected at 14. Oops, they did it again. And yet she is rich beyond my wildest imagination.
And what is my point?
...I'm not too sure.
By the way, look up Zero Punctuation. Gold.
posted by bodie at
16:55
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