Sunday, February 02, 2003
Though it was 4 a.m. before I finally got to sleep, I've been up since eight, trying to get focused. Too much to do today, and me half asleep. Time for Sobe.
This morning, lying in bed, watching the sun through the blinds make golden stripes across the wall, I started thinking about the sheer hell of doing art for the masses. It didn't just come to me out of nowhere. I was listening to the new album by Hem, rabbitsongs, and being somewhat amazed that this band landed the record deal they did. I think we're all at least a little cynical about the chances of "popular" art also being good art. We have the likes of Britney Spears and Thomas Kinkade, Dean Koontz and River Dance and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to constantly remind us just how bad bad often is, and how much it's appreciated. As an author, as a working author whose sole source of income for these past seven years has been my writing, it's a thing I have to contend with day to day. I'm doing okay, as a friend reminded me Friday night when I was kvetching about the difficulty of winning over The Really Big Numbers, and I know that. I have very little to complain about. It will probably never stop astounding me that I can do what I do, with so few comprimises, and get paid for it, and have an audience. For that I am grateful. I certainly know far too many talented, accomplished artists, musicians, and writers whose work has been resigned to obscurity because they refuse to pander. But still, there's another part of me that will never cease to be outraged at the popularity of tripe and hackery and pabulum. That the "popular" in "popular arts" is determined by majority rule, not by merit. That there are people who will argue until they expire from lack of oxygen that popularity is the only means we have by which to distinguish between bad art and good art, that no objective criteria can exist. Hell, most people never even come close to giving the matter that much thought.
And I console myself with the exceptions. They're not uncommon and, in a society that's willing to spend so much of their money at Taco Bell and Wal-Mart , that's a remarkable thing. That the Lord of the Rings films have been so good and been so popular, for example. Or that films like Mulholland Drive, Moulin Rouge and Magnolia ever get made at all. That the Harry Potter books are actually wonderful books. That a band like Hem landed a contract on a major label. All these things are reason to hope, when faced with an industry that actively encourages me to "write down" in order to score better sales figures. One editor (I won't use her name, though she's not even an editor anymore) actually told me once, seriously, "Picture your average reader as a 14 year old, and then you'll know the level we need you to write at." I told her, quite frankly, that was one of the most cynical, idiotic statements I'd ever heard and I'd do no such thing. She sighed that long-suffering sigh that says, "Oh, I'd help you, if you'd only let me."
We all know that crap floats. The real alchemy of the matter is getting gold to float.
I did a respectable 1,314 words on "La Peau Verte" yesterday. It's now at just over 8,000 words, and I can see that I was right in predicting that it would go to nearly 10,000. I expect I'll finish it tomorrow. Then I think I'll write the Gemma Files introduction before returning to work on the novel formerly known as Murder of Angels.
I think we have warmish weather forecast for today.
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