Response to Ornamentally Challenged: Will Success Spoil Contemporary Bunkshooter?
Ummm....no, sublime isn't the word I'm looking for, Bunky. But you do get 10 points for being right for the wrong reason. My scouring of the philosophy and art books suggest that sublime refers to an experience with the vastness, violence and terror of nature and that beauty is on the opposite end of the spectrum of sublimity. So in the sense that humans are natural beings, ok, I concede that sublimity is applicable. But, in my worldview formed by Burke and Kant, sublime doesn't apply.
But here's why you're wrong about sublime - it's because I absolutely loathe that word. Chiefly because of the requisite article in front of it. The Sublime. It makes it sound like it's a noun. It's cumbersome to use other forms of it. "Look at that volcano's ash covering that little Mayan village! I am feeling the sublime!" You can't use subliminal because that infers an absence of sensation and sublimate is to change physical states. The dictionary lists alternate forms as: sublimes, sublimed, and subliming. Quick! Use one of those in a sentence. "That ferocious tiger sublimed me," sounds like a line from Ghostbusters. I want a sesquipedalian word like chiarascuro or epiphany or serendipity or weltschmerz, and the king - schadenfreuede.
Nonetheless I doff my cap top you, Bunky. It never occured to me that I might get tired of seeing beautiful people everywhere. After I thought about what you said, I realized that people would get so tired of beauty that they would begin to dangerously seek out the supremely ugly and then, hell yeah, you couldn't throw a ball without hitting something sublime.
Here's my final thought on your response. I was surprised at the choleric nature of your post. And since, as you say, Christmas is fast approaching, I'm thinking if you penned a Christmas song, it might have a cathartic effect on you. I'm talking about an original. It was good for Elvis, why not you? Even your gods Lennon and Dylan dabbled in Xmas tunes.
Why, Bunky? Why will you not write a Christmas song? Are you afraid of success? Are you afraid you will accidentally write the next Rudolph or Jingle Bells and you will become so fabulously wealthy that your children will not learn the value of hard work?
Labels: beautiful people, Christmas, Dylan, Elvis, Lennon, songs, sublime
posted by St. Fiacre @ 5:29 PM,
