At the Turn.

This weekend was both productive and enjoyable; at the same time it was completely not productive and somewhat frustrating. On Saturday, my mother helped me put together my brand new desk - which is huge and gorgeous. It's L-shaped and slots into the corner of the room (and forms the perfect space for a blanket-covered fort. I so wish I was ten again for just an hour to make one... maybe I will anyway), and it has drawers and compartments and desktop space galore for my various books, folders, and supplies.

In the evening, I went first with a friend from the first-years cohort and some of her friends to a big beer brewery festival. There was a plethora of eats and drinks to sample, and very good company in which to do so. We had a smashing good time. Afterward, I had sushi at a Japanese steakhouse with Mom and her good friend, R.

The dinner was enjoyable, as was the conversation, but in the Japanese steakhouse you often get seated next to strangers at the hibachi grill, and the strangers they sat us down next to were jerks. One man actually refused to pay for a salmon dinner on the basis of the complaint that it tasted fishy. I'm sorry, but if you don't want something that tastes fishy, DON'T FUCKING ORDER FISH, DOUCHEBAG! Ehem. Anyway, we felt it our obligation to console the waitress, who seemed a little disheartened by the turn of events (and to eat the cheesecake that douchebag was given as an apology, on top of the refund, but didn't even look at). She was so pleased by our well-wishes and commiseration that she brought us another cake - this one a sinfully delicious chocolate mousse.

On Sunday I woke up with a very bad cold, and was thus prevented from doing much. I watched the absolutely brilliant film, Sleuth (starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine), and loved it to distraction. Then I curled up on the couch and rested. Sometime later in the evening I felt my brain was up to a bit of Japanese, so I did the reading for today and that was about it. Not much to show for Sunday, sadly.

The cold is a serious bummer. The weather seems to have made the turn at last toward the growing chill of autumn (the current outside temperature is 43 degrees), and that just makes going outside that much less palatable to me in my present state. I have to venture out for Japanese class this afternoon, but otherwise I'm keeping mum. Tomorrow I'll do the same until the evening, when I must attend the first GSO meeting of the year (as the new department rep). Hopefully, I'll have made admirable strides against the illness by then and will feel up to both studying and outings - neither of which I feel like right now. Le sigh.

Clement Greenberg is an Elitist Git.

In his 1939 article, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," Clement Greenberg states the following:

"The masses have always remained more or less indifferent to culture in the process of development. But today such culture is being abandoned by those to whom it actually belongs - the ruling class. For it is to the later that avant-garde belongs. No culture can develop without a social basis, without a source of stable income. And in the case of the avant-garde, this was provided by an elite among the ruling class of society from which it assumed itself to be cut off, but to which it has always remained attached by an umbilical cord of gold. The paradox is real. And now this elite is rapidly shrinking. Since the avant-garde forms the only living culture we have, the survival in the near future of culture in general is thus threatened" (533) emphasis mine.

What?

I mean, seriously, what? The only living culture we have? You know, this pisses me the hell off. It's completely ridiculous to state that the only culture being produced is that of a ruling class. I don't care how you dice it; it's bull. The masses, as Greenberg offhandedly calls everyone who's not lucky enough to be in his little in-group, have been producing a vibrant and fascinating culture for centuries. Their omission from the history books (both art-related and general) is a great shame, but no great surprise.

You know, Panofsky found himself in this kind of hot water - by virtue of his ingrained belief in the unassailable work of art - but it was always involuntary. He made judgment calls almost in spite of himself, as he was always keen to stress the lack of critical judgment involved in his process of evaluation. And there was something very much in earnest about his work; something very much idealistic. I could admire his vision if nothing else.

But Greenberg... he's a stuck up self-satisfied prig. And he vexes me.

I'm terribly vexed.

I'm done with him, and I haven't even started really.