Will this week never end? (plus, Art)

This week's gone on for-bloody-ever. Mostly it's been work. I keep trying to get out of the office at lunch or before 5 to post packages at the post office. If you're expecting a package from me and you're reading this, I got it in the mail today. Finally.

Work this week has been a goddamn doldrum as well. Today was a lot better, but it's a constant struggle to find a reason to try these days. Every decision is countermanded or belayed and morale is low. We'll fight through it, but good lord.

In related news, I think I'm going to start posting theories (I'll start with a management theory I got distracted by something shiny and went with my theory on art). I'd love anyone reading this to do either or both of the following:

1. Tell me what you think of the theories I post
2. Send me your theories to post as well (to here). [my rules are that 1) you have to back your theory up with some observations/facts, 2) it's got to be interesting, 3) it's got to be insightful (none of this, I think water is wet or doing heroin is a bad idea), 4) if it's about God it better be fucking outstanding because I don't believe God exists.
   

Here's the idea: As you grow up you build a model of the world in your head. You start with a pretty crappy one, but as you experiment and observe, your model gains refinement, qualifications, and/or elegance. At some point you start to feel that in certain areas, you have insights. Those are the insights I want to hear.

So, here's my first one (some of you may have heard it):

What is good art?

Stupid War. Now we can't enjoy art (but can we still profit?)

Although it may be impossible to measure, I think there's a simple formula for deciding if one piece of art is better than another. Art quality = (transmitted information)/(amount of signal).

So, if you can increase the information you transmit while keeping the effort of doing so the same, or reduce the effort while keeping the meaning, you've produced better art. An example:

Say I write 300 words trying to describe a flower. If I do a good job, you'll get a solid understanding of that flower. Now, if I can do the same in 150 words, it's a better piece of writing. What if I write a haiku that evokes a picture of the same flower along with the same emotions conjured in my 150 words? Better yet right? Even if I lose some of the ideas, that's a hell of a haiku.

So far, we're talking about fairly prosaic communication. The better you communicate, the better the art. But I didn't study Comparative Literature in college for naught (I don't want to hear it Mom). Let's take a look at post-modern deconstructionalist literary theory and phenomenology (like one does).

I reread Catcher in the Rye recently, and like most people who do that, I found the second reading to be a wholly different experience from the first. First time through it's about a hip guy who said goddamn and sonovabtich a lot. Awesome!

Second time, it's about the anguish of a kind of pathetic kid who's largely unable to reconcile the way he's been lead to believe the world should operate with the facts he's coming face to face with. Also, if you've taken a lit class in between you start to notice literary structures where none were before. You appreciate that his epiphany in the museum (where he's face to face with the ancient artifacts of a people who were obsessed with age) represents a coming-to-grips with growing up.

Look, up in the sky, an overt reference to Jesus!

This is where art becomes interesting. With good art, there's plenty hiding under the surface to add meaning if the audience knows to look for it and catches the allusions.

For instance, if you've never heard of Christ, you're going to miss a lot of what's going on in Children of Men, Return of Superman, Hamlet, and on and on. So, the strength of the art isn't realized until the artist creates it and the audience opens it up and receives the meaning from it.

I don't like a lot of modern art because someone pooping in a box in the middle of an austere room doesn't do much for me. Some avenues of art are only accessible to people who are able to appreciate that art as a piece in an ongoing conversation. Drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, for instance (as the Dadaists did) only has meaning if you know the Mona Lisa is a cherished and vaunted work of art from the old academy and can appreciate the nihilism hiding behind the absurd mask of that pomp. I don't like it, precisely because it only really works at the rarefied conceptual level (i.e. it's smart, but it sacrifices message by adding signal - as you're encouraged not to appreciate the beauty of the original).

So, to restate: Good art works at a lot of different levels of meaning without spelling each message out for you separately. And one piece of art is better than another if the same amount of signal (lines, words, notes, etc.) connects with you (intellectually, emotionally, viscerally) in more ways and with more effect.

Thoughts? Theories? Please do tell.