no i'm not trying to rescue "rockist vs anti-rockist" as a way to see the world -- i'm trying come up with terms that push the old conversation into better, more fruitful kinds of comparison and contrast (though partly by going back and trying to recapture what i felt i was chasing when i DID divide the world into rockists and anti-rockists)
"noise vs signal" seems to map some of the same impulses, but it maps them much more compellingly (and fairly), and -- as you say and i don't disagree -- we're all after both elements, just in different kinds of combination: i'm certainly not an advocate of noise-noise-all-the-time
and "surprise vs analysis" would also be a way to map them
my jab back at someone who was doing the defining-a-rockist-dance you pick up on there would be to say, well, WHAT KIND OF SURPRISE ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE? bcz a routine that always delivers surprises is kind of a contradiction, isn't it? so is it a creative contradiction (= possibly yes to start with) and when does it stop being one? when you walk into the avant-garde club and get exactly what you expected, and enjoy that for what it always is? IS THIS A BAD THING? (ans = sometimes yes and sometimes no: i'm interested in craft technique after all)
"creative types have less tolerance for noise than the average person does" <--- this for example seems to me an interesting point to pursue, bcz if true (and i think it arguably is) then it's a problem as well as a power, and i like that kind of tension
no subject
"noise vs signal" seems to map some of the same impulses, but it maps them much more compellingly (and fairly), and -- as you say and i don't disagree -- we're all after both elements, just in different kinds of combination: i'm certainly not an advocate of noise-noise-all-the-time
and "surprise vs analysis" would also be a way to map them
my jab back at someone who was doing the defining-a-rockist-dance you pick up on there would be to say, well, WHAT KIND OF SURPRISE ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE? bcz a routine that always delivers surprises is kind of a contradiction, isn't it? so is it a creative contradiction (= possibly yes to start with) and when does it stop being one? when you walk into the avant-garde club and get exactly what you expected, and enjoy that for what it always is? IS THIS A BAD THING? (ans = sometimes yes and sometimes no: i'm interested in craft technique after all)
"creative types have less tolerance for noise than the average person does" <--- this for example seems to me an interesting point to pursue, bcz if true (and i think it arguably is) then it's a problem as well as a power, and i like that kind of tension