So this Game of Thrones rigmarole is finished, right?
Two observations:
- The simplest and most penetrating answer I can give to why I had/have no interest in this thing is: I don’t care about dragons. I know, I know, GOT aficionados are gonna argue that there’s so much more to it. To that I respond there are literally millions of works of fiction that investigate and illuminate human relations, political chicanery, familial and regional ententes and detentes, power dynamics, etc. But hundreds of millions of people around the world have chosen this work of fiction to become addicted to. That’s many, many, many more people than have screamed their fealty to Gordimer or Rushdie or Walker or Wollstonecraft Shelley or any of the countless imagineers who’ve mused over those same human concerns. It’s the dragons.
- I’ve been reading that scads of people are mad about this last season, how the plot and relationships turned out, and how the scriptwriters cheated viewers. In fact, there’s even a petition demanding the producers have the last season re-written! Okay, if you’re among those aggrieved fans, listen closely: You aren’t the artist behind this work of art. Someone else is. You don’t get to demand artists redo their art because you don’t like it. That’s why it’s art: it’s the vision of a single creator or group of them. They are sharing with you their insights and capabilities as expressed in this painting, this song, this TV show, or this novel. Art is not a democracy.
There. These are the only public comments I’ve made on this most sweeping cultural phenomenon since the Beatles. And they are the last.
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What’s your art?
Metal-working? Do you juggle the burl? Bake cookies? Are gemstones your thing? How about comedy?
The Muses would dig Bloomington. This sprawling megalopolis is home to Artisan Alley, a support and education resource, social center and tool repository, and all-around one-stop shop (as in work– ) for the creative among us. This town is chock full of folks who noodle, manipulate, gesticulate, bark, howl, jeté, smear and daub and the center of the universe for many of them is Artisan Alley.
Originally a glorified clubhouse for a bunch of Indiana University grads who majored in the arts or at least had major interest in same, AA has evolved into a school/day camp/industrial park/advocacy center/marketplace for the more ethereal among us.
A tall fireplug of a fellow named Adam Nahas is the founder and executive director of the newly-certified nonprofit. Himself a practitioner of scads of different creative pursuits, he was last week’s guest on Big Talk.
Here the podcast to the May 16th program. And tune in today during the WFHB Daily Local News at 5pm for an eight-minute spot featuring extended conversation between him and me.
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News Boss In Town
Hearty congratulations to both Kyrie Greenberg and WFHB. She for getting the News Director gig soon to be vacated by the heroic and mightily talented Wes Martin and it for making an impeccable choice.
Greenberg
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