From: seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor)
Newsgroups: alt.horror
Subject: Re: Jacob's Ladder (was Re: Flatliners
Date: 11 Apr 92 13:40:28 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <4119@ucsbcsl.ucsb.edu> 6500cws@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Christopher Wade Skinner) writes:
>You exceeded standards in your first posting.  You also attacked 
>literary criticism.  And YOU started this thread.

	Nope. I entered this thread some time after it started. Perhaps I
started posting strongly anti-JL messages first... But this thread was
already in action when I first subscribed to alt.horror.

>A good example of "I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and humm
>loudly" school of thought.  Don't ever try to work with a human
>editor, who might just think your attitude a trifle narrow and 
>immature.

	Hmm. Neither of the editors I've worked with so far have had any
problem with me at all. Maybe you just know really uptight editors

>any other interpretation.  Adrian Lynne could use your very argument
>above to say "well, piss off, then, with your criticism of JL, because
>it's my movie, and you have no right to criticize or interpret it."

	And he'd be perfectly right to say most of the above. If Adrian Lynne 
personally told me what it meant, I would not argue it (assuming AL had total
control over JL, and that the script wasn't redone). The person who
made the film knows what it means.

	Now, he'd be wrong to say that I have no right to criticize or
interpret it; free speech and all. But he WOULD be correct if he said
that if my interpretation or criticism contradicted his knowledge of the
film, I would be inarguably wrong.

>Well, then, having proved once and for all that you think 
>thinking =! entertaining, you've made it clear that, yes, you are
>anti-intellectual.  Good for you there still is some semblence of
>a _civitas_ for you to live in.  Pretty soon, it'll all be gone.

	Nope. Got it wrong again. Sometimes thinking IS entertaining.
But a piece of ENTERTAINMENT should be entertaining in BOTH modes. IN
other words, I should be able to walk into the movie with my brain
switched on OR off, and get entertainment from it either way. JL would
be entertaining in condition 1 but not condition 2; thus, at best, it
can only achieve a rating of 1/2 what is possible.


	Also, your calling me "anti-intellectual" shows a rather narrow
definition of intellectual. Intellectual, to me, is utilizing one's
intelligence. Since I'm a technophile, a writer, a reader of MANY
books, and an appreciator of some kinds of art, I can hardly qualify as
utterly anti-intellectual.

	Now, I *DO* have one strong tendency to dislike "art" which
has no direct apparent meaning; i.e., I prefer Da Vinci or Boris to
the various "painters" of abstract art because the abstracts are generally
paintings of nothing, except in the mind of the artist. I can't argue 
that the artist sees "roses and roast beef" in the picture, but I can't
really see this as an accomplishment; I can produce abstract-looking smears
myself and see no essential difference... while there is NO WAY I will
ever be able to produce something even on the level of a good cartoon,
let alone approach the technical expertise of a Da Vinci.

	Perhaps it's a basic philosophical conflict. I look at things as having
truth or falsehood, good or evil, right or wrong. I do not like endless
shades of gray. The world DOES have many shades of gray, but in FICTION
there is no need for it. We control the worlds we create.


                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;