On Jan 30, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Charles A. Grimes wrote:
> Where's the problem?
Jed Perl is an old-fashioned high-culture snob. The crossover of art into the broader popular culture makes him visibly sick to his stomach. I ran into him on the subway as he was heading home from having just seen the Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum <http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_exhibition> back in 1997, and he had a look on his face like he was just forced to stare at a cauldron of rotting body parts floating in a marinade of feces. Jed wrote for The New Criterion in its early days (and may still do so - I haven't seen a copy in ages). He didn't share their politics - he's a liberal Dem - but he did share a problem they had, which is that they hate the cultural products of American capitalism but they don't really have a structural problem with capitalism itself. Jed finds my politics oddly extreme - but on the other hand, I have a lot fewer problems with the culture produced by American capitalism than he does. Oh the contradictions.
Doug