2005-06-21

art. who needs it?

I like to consider myself a relatively cultured person. I read a lot, I have a degree in literature, am working on another, I even had a subscription to the opera last year. But, there are some of The Arts that I will never ever appreciate. Such as the ballet. Di made me watch it on TV last night, and I was too lazy to get up and read a book. She claimed to like the man in the tightest of tights, which overly-defined the crack of his ass (I not even convinced she liked it, I think she just wanted to annoy me via The Arts); I found it vaguely obscene, unseemly at best. (Perhaps I am too cultured for the ballet? Well, I have to find my self-importance in something.) They flitter around, fawning over each other on their tiptoes. The dancers are all wierdly neutralized and unsexed. What is there to like? It is so boring... the interminable fluttering about.

I would like to say that it is just ballet, and that otherwise I am a well-cultured person. A lover of the Arts, even, with a finely tuned appreciation of the noblest crafts of humanity, which, naturally, reflects the delicate sensibilty of my inner being. But it would be lie. I also hate modern dance. I hate the harp and most singers on PBS. Summer pops concerts, I can't even bring myself to talk about them (the painful memories of being a third-chair high-school flutist). And I am ambivilent, at best, about the theater. I do like poetry (whoopee for me), but I think I have already been to my share of readings. They are usually like Chinese water torture for the soul; word by painful word at an open-mike cafe brings you a step closer to madness. I generally dislike most people that describe themselves as poets, novelists, actors, directors, dancers or artists of any type. Not all, but most (I'll give myself some credit). I guess I am just a one trick pony and have been fooling myself all these years. It seems that I am actually relatively surly about the whole thing, which is a pity, because didn't I have such potential?

xanthium at 9:59 a.m.

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