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Have you ever wondered about my very personal and individual take on Engaging With (mostly written) Art? No? Uh.
...well I HAVE THOUGHTS ANYWAY so BUCKLE UP, BUTTERCUPS! (or ignore this thread, you know, that's also a fine option.)
...well I HAVE THOUGHTS ANYWAY so BUCKLE UP, BUTTERCUPS! (or ignore this thread, you know, that's also a fine option.)
So this set of thinkythinks came about because of this thread (which is good)... https://twitter.com/anne_theriault/status/1252076987214188544
And this specific reply (which is good)... https://twitter.com/queuelessness/status/1252186772387201030
And this thread expanding on it (which is good)... https://twitter.com/queuelessness/status/1252188693416165376
SO.
I think based on the amount of formal post-secondary education I've had (both before and after I went to college) that "learned the skills to critically analyze it" is a formal post-secondary education phrase.
I think based on the amount of formal post-secondary education I've had (both before and after I went to college) that "learned the skills to critically analyze it" is a formal post-secondary education phrase.
In my experience, it means, broadly, "gained familiarity with the other creative works it's in conversation with to allow that part of the conversation to become apparent."
This may or may not be accurate, but it feels better to me than talking about Critical Analysis.
This may or may not be accurate, but it feels better to me than talking about Critical Analysis.
Critical Analysis
always seems to me to be a thing done from a place of fear, as per this tweet, rather than a place of joy. ..I enjoy the hell out of a deep, geeky critical analysis of a piece! it's just that if it's *framed* as a critical analysis... https://twitter.com/Rohan_Naidu/status/1251535020763856896
always seems to me to be a thing done from a place of fear, as per this tweet, rather than a place of joy. ..I enjoy the hell out of a deep, geeky critical analysis of a piece! it's just that if it's *framed* as a critical analysis... https://twitter.com/Rohan_Naidu/status/1251535020763856896
...rather than something like "OK FUCKNUTS, BUCKLE UP", it comes across as someone being snooty and terrible and trying to regress to the mean, rather than someone EXPLODING IN SQUEE and saying "look I just spent FIVE DAYS obsessing over TWO SENTENCES in this novel!!!"
"they reminded me of something I read somewhere else & I went down a rabbit hole and found a MINGLED COLONY OF BURROWERS OF ALL SORTS & I took PHOTOGRAPHS & have GIFT SHOP SWAG & I WANT TO TAKE YOU ON A TOUR (please let me) I LOVE THESE SILLY WOMBATS AND BUNNIES AND ANTS SO MUCH"
And sometimes it's like "I went down this rabbit hole and found it's full of spiders and snakes and hellbeasts and brimstone and there's a literal demon at the bottom who tried to chew my liver out and SOME COMBINATION OF you should know this..."
"...so you don't accidentally reach down this rabbit hole expecting to find cute bunnies and find demons instead AND huh, wow, I didn't know spiders and brimstone and literal demons could be comorbid LET'S TALK ABOUT IT"
And sometimes it's *cough* interesting, I guess *cough* to do that kind of analysis on something that's SUPER lacking in ANY awareness of anything that came before or around it, and finding out how it's completely *not* in conversation with those other works!
...and why that turns out to be a problem because it's recreating all the issues that the rest of the genre worked out collectively twenty years ago, and isn't it fascinating how someone could be SO WRONG about SO MANY THINGS ALL AT ONCE and and and
anyway this all came about because I wanted to be like "oh hey this whole bit that I quoted at the beginning reminds me of this thing I read about food taste in Thai" https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1198646850556841990
and, like, compare it vaguely and in the most brief possible terms to the whole squick vs trigger thing briefly but then stop because that's a rabbit hole full of comorbid demons I don't want to go down right now
...YOU CAN UNBUCKLE NOW, BUTTERCUPS, I'M DONE
[fin]
...YOU CAN UNBUCKLE NOW, BUTTERCUPS, I'M DONE
[fin]
