The New York Times Arts section: Years ago I can remember sitting on the toilet and reading it (sometimes for absurd durations of unnecessary toilet time) and really enjoying it, and being inspired by it. For a few years I almost ritualistically would open up the paper and skip right to it. I would never bother with the Business section or the Foreign section, etcetc. It was only the Arts. These days things have changed but of course I still tend to hop to the Art section fairly regularly and...now I've noticed when I do, however, that I don't enjoy it nearly as much as I used to. How come?
Here's why: It's because it seems that the New York Times has this idea that the Arts section should not just be reserved for merely discussing art, and recent art, and theatre productions et cetera, or new music album or book announcements, but that it should also be reserved for, what else, the death announcements of famous artists, or even, for that matter, not so famous artists. In fact, the New York Times seems to me so obsessed with announcing the deaths of artists in their little Arts section that I'm almost beginning to wonder if they are trying to speak to me "in code' about - what else? - the death of art itself. Because I am really not kidding here: it has actually become a bit of a - what could we call it? - a running gag for me now: I will sit down and swing open the Times, and I'll run through all the other sections, and then it will come time for the Arts, and I'll start to open it up cautiously, very cautiously, because now I always know, before opening it: I have to be prepared, Jack, because it's more likely than not going to tell me that some other artist dropped dead yesterday. 9 times out of 10 of course it does just that. Essentially it does it all the itme. And you know what?? I am not going to lie: I have begun to find it maddening. Wanna know why New York Times??
Because I don't really care who died yesterday, thats why. Or, at the least, I should say, I don't really care who died *when I open up the Arts section*.
Of course I suppose some tough people will tell me that this is all a sign, deep down, that I'm terrified of death, because I am looking to avoid it in my news.Heres my take on these clowns: I'm not afraid of death, at least not a ny more than the average person is. I know death is real and I believe death is fine. Just fine. In the obituary section, for instance, death is fine. On the front page, if its someone incredibly important, death is fine.
I would never , for example, ask a newspaper to "shield me" from the gruesome and horrific death of some important public person on the front page of the nations premier newspaper. No I wouldn't ask that. But in the Arts section, however? In the arts section where,I believe, **living artists** could probably get spoken of in place of the now rotting soon to be skeletons? In the arts section I am not, as you can see, all too sure how I feel about death and obituaries , and for the most part I think it is pretty annoying, and that it has no real place. This is especialyl as a result of the fact that the Times quite literally seems to dedicate, as I said, an overwhelming amount of articles to it, in what is really a limited collection of articles as itis, already. They're essentially just writing obituaries in the Arts section -- as though there is not anything else they can think of to fill up this section.
In my opinion it's not just a waste of space and in the wrong place but it's also just annoying and disrespectful to the "heart of art". I cannot stand it and, in truth, it has made me no longer want to read the Arts section at all, because it tends to be just as miserable as reading all the other sections. It's like you're always heading into a cemetery, instead of into a beautiful breathing vibrant bright green land of the living.
I just don't think that an arts section ought to feel like that, but I suppose you fine educated collegiates at the Times will tell me I am a psychotic for this or something, I don't know. I suppose I just cannot help but feel, again, that the Arts are suffering enough as it already is in this strange violent world, and your glorious newspaper would be better off trying to help promote new up and coming LIVING and BREATHING artists, rather than shedding tears over the ones whom, it turns out, have just died last night , or yesterday morning, and so on.
Of course I suppose the Times thinks that the death of an artist is a seismic cultural event ...and naturally they are quite correct to think this...but the thing is that, you know, the death of an artist isn't , and never can be, all that much of a seismic event for the living world, even , in fact, if just yesterday the now dead artist was the biggest thing occurring in the living world. To me, and maybe some will say I'm wrong, but to me, the moment one is dead, one is immediately off the list of the living and relevant, and thrown into the list of the dead and the gone. This list is inspiring in its own way but it does not belong as a part of the livings "dire" news, because it says nothing to the living about next week, or what is to come, or what there is to be joyous about **right now**. I feel that young living artists need fresh news and inspiring news to keep them living, not obituaries. Obituaries can be very inspirign - but again, only in the right time and place. In the arts section of thel iving is not the right time.
Some people will naturally think I am perhaps making too big a deal out of this. They'll say "get over it". The big deal here, however, is that the New York Times Art section, as well as other art sections in other newspapers, are primary vehicles, and perhaps some of the most important vehicles of all, when it comes to spreading word of new and up coming art that everyone ought to know about. This means that every little article in the section is taking up very precious space -- space that, even if you only get it for one day, can literally make and break your entire living life as an artist operating not just in this country but even in the entirety of the world at large. Once the reader begins to glimpse it like that, the reader may start to comprehend and understand my perspective here, when I say that I think it is shameful to open up this section and always have to hear about someone who is gone (and who thus no longer needs to worry about the inherent struggle of being a living artist) rather than someone up and coming, who still needs to eat and ddrink and so on......
All of this of course speaks to an even greater problem that our newspapers and our magazines have always had, which is the problem of promotion and how they, in truth, do not really and never have done nearly enough of it, in terms of new artists, or new anything, due to how obsessed many of them often become with endlessly examining the past rather than trying to imagine or dream of the future. It's actually almost absurd just how many articles I can find -- articles that have been printed in the past year -- about artists that have been dead for over 50 years, versus articles about new artists. To me a newspaper is not supposed to feel like something that is obsessed with the past, but rather something that is obsessed with the moment... and with FIXING the moment, and BELIEVING in the moment. Let the past be eaten up by the books and the dusty libraries and, again, the obituary section. Do not let it take over even the rooms that are supposed to be about new plants and new flowers and new songs. That's just ashame....
If ever I was a famous artist (or even, in the case of this newspaper, just any random artist at all whose now deceased) I beg of you, when you find me dead, do not spoil the new, young artists bright and hopeful morning with the news of my passing, for there is no reason to do that. Let him, if he so wishes, find me in the obituary where my death belongs, but do not let him or her find me rotting in the Hallway of the living, my casket thrown in the middle of the floor left wide open for someone to trip over and of course to smell its wreak. If you insist on writing about dead artists in the Arts section, then my advice is do not write obituaries that sum up their entire tragic lives (every life is always tragic to these newspapers) and the precise manner in which the Gods have taken them down to die. Instead why not take us back in time, to a morning they once lived, when they too were still alive, and fresh, and getting ready to embark on a dream?
I cannot stress it enough: I quite simply do not care what soldiers fell in the battle last night, for today there is a new battle and we must stand ready at the Gates. The soldiers of art are sick enough, and wounded enough, as it is. They need all the hope they can get, all the passion, all the charisma, all the fire and rage and joy and intensity. Do not tell the art soldiers stories of the fallen, New York Times. Tell them stories of their brothers and sisters who are still alive, and who are just being born right now. Tell them the stories of those of us who are just now suiting up and putting on our armor and heading out to the gates, with sword and shield in hand.
--- LOGGING OFF,
EMANNUEL
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