Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

First of all, thanks Mellow and Olyve and others for your emails on my behalf. I never should have even written the first word.

Second, one of my earliest memories is a book of poems by Robert Service. We loved those in my family and often read them out loud. My father's favorite was "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and he always read it in a scary voice.

There's a song by Bob Dylan that always reminded me of a Robert Service story.

Isis

I've been thinking along those lines, too, Ardy. After all, there are very few real Americans. Maybe it's because the US is still in its childhood, compared to much of the rest of the world. We just haven't been around that long.

People tend to cling to their ethnicities for at least a couple/few generations. But their backgrounds and cultures, of necessity, commingle and interact daily. There won't be a solid and exclusively American base to evolve from for decades to come...if ever.

And that's okay. It is what it is. (As Numan has said, it's best to have no reaction at all.)

If one applies enough PoMo, one can find "sophisticated metaphor about Europe's rape of America and America's corruption of Europe" in a McDonald's menu. I think it was probably a rather straight forward story about a pedophilic sexual pervert who attempted to place the blame for his feelings and actions on a young girl -- you know, the whole blame-the-victim thing.

As to which nation is deficient artistically, relative to others, it should be with another nation -- not a geographic region (e.g., Europe). It's an apples and oranges thingie.

Also, I have found that, for me, art is to be enjoyed and appreciated for its own sake regardless of the nationality of the artist. It is such a time saver if one does not get overly distracted by the analysis and categorization of "Truth, Beauty, and Harmony", don't you think?:-)
Yours,
Issodhos

Yes.

EmmaG

Absolutely, and well put, Issodhos.

Yes
Me too.
Thanks

very nice, iss. very nice.

To regard anything written by Vladimir Nabokov as straight-forward is a very unsophisticated view of his artistic accomplishment.

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This is clearly untrue. There is not a single person alive today who is not abetting the destruction of life on Earth. In the words of Isaiah:

"We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteous acts are as filthy rags."

There is not the slightest possibility of changing this situation until we all clearly realize our own ecological sins, and the sins committed in our name.

Above all, we should be furiously angry with our rulers forcing us to be ecological sinners! (For example, by their willful inefficiency in urban planning, and by destroying almost all other means of transport than internal-combustion vehicles)

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Including you, Numan, I take it.