The other day while walking to the train from work, I heard loud music, and couldn’t quite place where it was coming from. It wasn’t the loud music you normally hear from a car, but rather an experimental drone ambient-kind of music. I was walking towards the sound, looking around to see if anyone had a big speaker they were playing it from, or a car, until I noticed three people on the corner of the street, playing synths plugged into amps. It looked like a DIY show I’d go to see in someone’s apartment, except it was on the corner of Broadway and Canal.
Then yesterday, I saw them again, except this time a police vehicle with its siren lights was asking them to leave. I waited around to see what would happen, and then asked one of the guys in the band if he got issued a ticket by the police. This is how our conversation went:
Me: Excuse me, did you guys get a fine?
Him: No, no. These guys know us. They just asked us to move. We’re actually going to the corner of Broadway and Lafayette now.
Me: Oh, cool! I saw you perform last week, too. You sound great!
Him: Oh, thanks! Are you a musician?
(I paused for a second)
Me: No, I’m a critic!
Then, I proceeded to walk away, and wonder why I had said that.
I don’t really consider myself a critic, but it’s hard to define the art review writing I often do. It’s easy to define it as “criticism” but I don’t usually feel comfortable criticizing. I find myself writing more in the style of observations, notes, reflections.
Obviously, being a critic doesn’t always mean to criticize, but that’s how I see it. The vision of a critic that often comes to mind is the food critic in Ratatouille.
In a recent episode of the podcast Critics at Large called “The Case for Criticism,” (that I listened to thanks to my mom’s recommendation), the three hosts (who are staff critics at The New Yorker) reminded me of this beauty that criticism brings to the world of creative writing. They compared it to stand-up comedy, where the point is to notice something really obvious and just let the reader sit with it. Like when Seinfeld says something like “So, what’s the deal with airline food?”
It’s really unfortunate to read that there are only 10 full-time art critics at major newspapers in the United States. I think that full time arts writer is still my dream job, but it’s hard to imagine with less and less space for it.
I’ve also noticed that there is seemingly less and less space for criticism itself. Criticism gets criticized in a polarizing internet space that praises everything. PR becomes marketing, and only positive marketing is valued.
When someone wrote a negative review of Rachel Kushner’s new book, announcing “I couldn’t decide if the book was a smart person’s idea of a stupid book or a stupid person’s idea of a smart book,” the review received so much backlash that even Kushner’s husband chimed in on Twitter defending the book. As if we’re not allowed to have opinions anymore! I think it’s brave to write a bad review. I haven’t read the new Rachel Kushner book yet, as I am usually late to reading new books, but have been disappointed before by new books of favorite authors.
Not every work of art is going to please everyone, and a little criticism never hurt anybody.
