tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post8279303297771632574..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: Andrew Over-Thinks A Joke: Part 94Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-69250364036909030102021-04-15T15:40:06.768+01:002021-04-15T15:40:06.768+01:00Is this like how politicians liked Yes, Minister b...Is this like how politicians liked <i>Yes, Minister</i> because they thought it was making fun of civil servants, and civil servants liked it because they thought it was making fun of politicians?<br /><br />(I'm pretty sure the two writers didn't agree on what they were making fun of, either).SKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09102522819364312684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-62480126350610434942021-04-08T21:23:22.900+01:002021-04-08T21:23:22.900+01:00At my college, every undergrad was forced to take ...At my college, every undergrad was forced to take a couple English courses. One was on technical writing and one only seemed to exist to rub a certain professor's ego. We all had to buy his wearisome, symbol-rich novel and do several assignments about it and then do a final test about it. <br /><br />The lectures had little to do with the book, and mostly consisted of him going on and on about how everything popular is worse than Shakespeare and whatever humourless James Joyce impersonators were popular that nanosecond. He gave his take on every new movie and TV show, 100% of which he dutifully watched and hated. They were, he assured us, a sign that society was intellectually collapsing. I think very few of the science/engineering/math people in his course had seen any of the things he was talking about because we were all starving students and very busy also doing first-year math prereqs. He was, by far, the most pompous person I have ever met. <br /><br />Nearly twenty years later, I still can't believe that not only did I have to pay for that course and that book, and pay interest on a loan to have done so, but I had to spend months of my life being obsequious to such a small and petty person. Other electives tried to be interesting and enlightening but the English department seemed to have no problem openly grifting students from other departments.<br /><br />Although sci-fi also has it's obnoxious snobs, I can't imagine math or biology students ever being forced to spend months listening to a failed science fiction writer go on and on about having read Asimov and having hating Ocean's 12.sananabhttps://sananab.ca/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-18054350957365778532021-04-06T23:38:08.621+01:002021-04-06T23:38:08.621+01:00I enjoyed this, but a bit of context you're mi...I enjoyed this, but a bit of context you're missing is Tom's literature cartoons are often more about the book trade than about the books or their readers. The selling of books is a fantastic clusterfark of high ideals and base commerce and it produces the most wonderful dissonance which Tom exploits often. As a library person and not a bookshop person you might not have experienced this as much. (I'm a Waterstone's veteran myself.)<br /><br />More generally, I'm of the opinion that a work of art (as distinct from a well crafted work, though it can be both) can be judged on how it encourages the audience to think and process, often coming to radically different interpretations than that which the artist intended. This can be frustrating for the artist, if they were aiming for an effective piece of craft, but getting the brain-cogs turning should always be a good thing. I'd say he's succeeded here. Pete Ashtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03850579036751770929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-44754612892733363182021-04-06T21:51:54.579+01:002021-04-06T21:51:54.579+01:00I think that there is a situation whereby people l...I think that there is a situation whereby people look down on a genre, and the people who like that genre then get defensive about it and come up with silly reasons why they might be being looked down on rather than admitting that sometimes the objections are valid, and that a sufficiently silly reason might make people who are frustrated by both sides stop taking the whole thing seriously for a moment and instead giggle to themselves.Andrew Duckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06566110014858668221noreply@blogger.com