kelley wrote:
> experience of utopia 2. how it can be conveyed if
> in fact such a feeling is ineffable and that's why art and music seems to
> convey it better than words. yadda.
>
> kelley
Still one finger. won't know until wed. if i need surgery. and mastery of dragon software comes slowly. but i want to comment here. let's try a crude empiricism. what empirically is the most common outcome of any art? i think it's conversation. even at dances there are always as many people talking about the dancers as there are people dancing or just listening to the music. and the talk goes on when the music stops. yeats talks about the body swayed to music and we talk about his talk.
someone on this list waxed conteptuous over my praise of phatic use of language and comparison to grooming ritual, but he was asshole utilitarian what could conceivably be more crucial to human survival & delight than constant reaffirmation of our recognizing each other as human, affirming our solidarity.
when we read reactionary but beautifl 'to penshurst' by jonson dead these 500 yrs we assure each other that 500 yrs from now others will read us or look at our paintings -- after all, guernica is as much ours as picassos. he really would not have made it without his confidence that we would look at it and chat phatically about it.
if utopia enters in it is only in this confidence the artist has in us.
perhaps related, perhaps not. cosider guthries obsession with names, with being there
i was right there in boston the night that they died.
carrol