Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

[Thumpalumpacus]

What that means in the context of this conversation is that sticking a fast technical run in a song can be useful to communicate a mood -- but it can too often turn the song into a vehicle for ego, and that seems to undermine its artistic value.

That's one of the peeves I and many have with many technical death metal bands (I assume that's not your cup of tea though).

Oh, I'm no huge fan of death metal -- the vocals tend to put me off -- but I sometimes love the over-the-top technicality of a genre or band. There are times when an exceptionally intricate passage is exactly what is needed to convey a feeling.

As a guitarist, the great debate of the last forty years has been "speed vs feel" which to me is nonsense, an excluded middle. Sometimes speed is perfect for expressing the feeling in play at the moment: exhilaration, or anger, or fear, are all very well expressed by playing your ass off. That is where taste comes in: deploying your technique in the right place to make the statement you wish.

But yeah, my favorite death-metaller bought the farm a few years ago -- Chuck Schuldiner of Death.

On the other hand, bands like Dream Theater leave me cold. The energy isn't visceral, which to me is the essence of good music, no matter the genre or era. As much as I admire their technical ability, math rock doesn't move me emotionally. And there's nothing wrong with that.

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In writing, plot and character are everything -- and sketching out a character with words is an art unto itself. I disagree that his delivery is pedestrian, as well -- there are moments when his writing is perfectly electric with energy.

I think he's considered pulp because he writes two or three books a year, and sells them by the boatload.

I can not copy or paste his work so I am going to have to type this directly from King's book, The Dark Tower. My contacts are bothering my eyes and I have poor eyesight so hopefully I didn't mess up in copying this from the book. Remember, this is a world that he invented for his fantasy series.

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing next to the sky for what looked like an eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devilgrass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.

I like King's writing style but I admit, he has improved drastically as he gets older. Anyone who can invent the monster in It or fashion the world in the Gunslinger series is very creative.

There's a scene in The Stand where one of the protagonists, Frannie, must tell her domineering mother that she is pregnant out of wedlock, that is perhaps the best three thousand words of fiction I've ever read in my life; the words simply tremble and leap off the page, completely alive in the moment.

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On a humorous note, I tried to paint a spiral universe and ended up with a monstrous looking spider creature. My attempt failed. Much to my shock, my daughter loved the painting and stopped me from throwing it away. She said it looked like the eye of Cthulhu and now has it hanging on her bedroom wall. That was not what I was aiming for at all. LOL

One reason I love playing improvisational music is that it leaves room for the Happy Accident.