‘I got your hidden track right here, pal!’
The challenges are still coming in – several amazing ones, many equally satisfying small ones. Four-or-so days until the grand start. The ‘online community’ is being set up to power the project as we speak. I’m really looking forward to it; I think I might prefer it to the real community.
When I began this 10-year blog, a lifetime ago it seems, way back earlier in February, I sort of implied that I was going to do it every day for that decade. I daresay this will end up being impossible but I’m at least going to keep aiming for that lofty goal. If I can keep it daily in the midst of the newborn-chaos that engulfs my home and life at the moment, then anything’s possible. And since for the TYSIC I’m becoming an optimist, I have to believe anything is possible.
But as a concession to realism, I’m going to make Saturday and Sunday blogs short, and not advertise them on Twitter and so on the way I do in the week. This way, they’ll be a kind of ‘extra track’ for people who can bothered to read the blog on their own initiative rather than being directed there. And given the freedom of a much smaller readership I may as well make these short blogs more daring or controversial.
So here are a few sweeping statements. I’ve not thought them through and some of them might not really reflect my opinions at all. But we’ll see if any arouse comment and if they do, I’ll make them the basis of full-blown blogs in the future. If not, no harm done, we’ll get back to the serious business tomorrow.
Right:
- Although you might say it’s pointless to compare artforms, books are better than films; the novel is a more important medium than cinema. Cinema’s just more up itself.
- There are several Beatles songs which, had they not been recorded by the Beatles, would be widely regarded as rubbish.
- It’s fine to use private education or private medicine – although we didn’t, incidentally, for the baby’s birth – if you can afford it. You pay tax to sustain national hospitals and schools. If those hospitals and schools are a bit rubbish, so long as you keep paying the tax, there’s nothing immoral about buying into something better for your family. Society will never be entirely equal, nor will everyone, in practice, be equally deserving.
- Wikipedia is an amazing achievement which ought to be regarded as ranking alongside, say, the Gutenberg Press. People always take the piss out of it because it’s easy for anyone to edit it. But that’s like saying libraries are shit because they have chicklit as well as classics. Despite its flaws, Wikipedia enables humanity to inform itself on a scale never before seen.
- A lot of people think sport is pointless because there’s no intrinsic value to a man booting a ball into a net, or hitting a thing really hard. But in the modern world it’s almost impossible to prove anything has an intrinsic value. 20th century theory mostly taught us that the value of a thing is simply the value we attach to it. So a lot of the same intellectuals who rubbish sports and games should reflect that, by the standards of the thinkers they worship, they might as well rubbish opera, or, for that matter, anything.
- I was going to close with a really outrageous, bigoted remark as a joke, to capitalise on the ‘no-one’s reading’ thing, but in the cut-and-paste age we live in, that sort of joke is best avoided, even as a joke. If you see what I mean.
Posted by Andrew on June 2, 2010
Very late commenting here, catching up on this blog slowly. Have to disagree on the private health/education one. Yes society will never be equal, but surely there are some inalienable human rights to which everyone should have equal access, and I include healthcare and education within that group. We might not be able to stop the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but surely we can stop exacerbating it my making the rich get healthier and cleverer and the poor get iller and more ignorant?
Posted by Knox on March 2, 2010
aw – i didn’t see ben’s first comment before i made mine.
Posted by Knox on March 2, 2010
“ben folds is a freakin’ asshole!”
(actual comments on the blog later)
(by the way, if that actually *isn’t* where you got the name of this particular blog, this will seem like a highly random comment with unnecessary slagging of ben folds)
Posted by Steph on March 1, 2010
Hmm, not too controversial. But that’s probably because a lot of what you said was common sense.
Definitely agree that books are better than films. I love watching adaptations of books – it’s always interesting to see other ways a story can be told – but they never seem to suck you in compared to reading. Nothing better than to snuggle down under a mock-duck-down duvet and read for hours.
And yes to the Beatles thing.
Posted by Mark Watson on March 1, 2010
Hmm yes. The two points were totally contradictory. You’re right. Hmm.
Posted by Elizabeth on March 1, 2010
I’m a bit curious, if proving a thing’s intrinsic value is nearly impossible how is it possible to lead with the idea that books are better than films, not because generally speaking there is one artistic voice throughout the creation, or any other arguable reason, but simply because the book medium is more important–has a higher intrinsic value–than cinema.
I say a bit curious because this was more a passing thought than a burning issue and because you’d already said you hadn’t put a whole lot of thought into it so why nit pick like some jackass complaining that the whole of wikipedia is a failure because they could change an article for a few days before the article got corrected.
Posted by Sam on March 1, 2010
Not all books are better than films. Although I suppose this sloppy kind of rebutle is exactly why people avoid comparing art forms.
Posted by Gareth on March 1, 2010
I’m really pleased that someone has a good word to say about Wikipedia, and moreso that it comes from yourself Mark!
Without Wiki, I don’t think I’d know half the things I do, with recent questions answered such as the age old dilemma of Bill Bailey’s real age (although denied), “exactly who was Dionysus?”, and “where did Tim Key come from?” Don’t think I could survive without my browser’s Wiki search bar.
Posted by Rachael on March 1, 2010
Totally agree about the Beatles, I wish more people would acknowledge that too. Also, the people that moan about the non-importance of sports also moan about unemployment, what about all the people that would be unemployed without sports?
Posted by Laura on March 1, 2010
I definitely agree about The Beatles, but always feared ending up as some sort of cultural pariah for voicing this opinion outside the safety of my own home. Really, some of their songs were self-indulgent tripe.
Posted by Harwo on March 1, 2010
Agree wholeheartedly about books and Beatles.
I’m not sure about the healthcare thing – have just gone private for something but was fairly annoyed that I felt I had no other choice.
(options were – after 2 years of trying to get referred – continue to be in pain and eventually see consultant’s assistant in 5 months….or cough up and consultant himself becomes miraculously available tomorrow and says I need immediate surgery…)
Posted by Caitlin on March 1, 2010
I totally agree with the books are better than film thing, reading mostly always has been, and I’m hoping will continue to be, my favourite way of spending time, and it makes me sad that not many people can appreciate this. I’m 17, and I always find myself pleasantly (very) surprised when any of my peers tell me they actually really enjoy reading, because I so frequently get slated for it, or at the very least, get harsh disagreement from many. So, yeah… go novels…!
Posted by Laurs on February 28, 2010
I kinda agree with the whole ‘novel better than films’ idea. However, while I can appreciate a good film, and think that some films are just fabulous and would be difficult to translate to a novel, I think my issue comes with the younger generation’s point of view on fims vs books.
I work with teenagers and it is depressing to hear them view books with such hatred – for me, there is nothing more wonderful than spending time alone with words and your imagination. As I said, films have their place too, but when films, particularly with the kids I work with, are given a higher value in society, then my blood starts to boil. I don’t want to seem snobbish, nor elitist but I far prefer to be able to proclaim that I have read the classics and Shakespeare (and understood them!) than to say I sat in a cinema and let someone else’s imagination do the work for me.
This turned into a much longer comment than I intended, perhaps it’s with the thought that I have to teach a group of 11 year olds tomorrow about literature knowing the first thing they will ask is if there is a film of it they can watch. It breaks my heart…
Posted by Ben Herring on February 28, 2010
RE: Last comment, forget your 1st point, I don’t believe in comparing art forms or that any art form is intrinsically more or less valuable, just that not just every artform, but every piece of art has a value unique to the person who, for lack of a better word, consumes it.
Would you consider videogames, comics/graphic novels art?
Posted by Ben Herring on February 28, 2010
I really want to know what the bigoted joke was now. I agreed with everything you said, but am I still allowed to hate healthcare professionals who choose money over helping those who are often the most in need, at least a little bit? (Sentence needs defragmneting, but I’m too tired to write properly)
Posted by Lisa Brunders on February 28, 2010
wow, you certainly think about big stuff don’t you! I was surprised at the enormity of some of those. But I must say I agree with all of them.
I hadn’t looked at the healthcare issue like that, but have always felt like that about the beatles, and thought I was the only one.
And I’m pleased that Kit and an ill wife haven’t kept you from us.
Posted by Misha on February 28, 2010
secret hidden track
On CD’s these are the ones that make you absolutely shit yourself because you think the CD’s finished
Posted by Jamie0S on February 28, 2010
Fine with all of them, apart from the private healthcare bit.
I was going to explain why, but I lost the will to type halfway through. Surgeons in their spare time etc etc…
I’m still thinking about the challenge…
Posted by Heather Jones on February 28, 2010
Re bad songs by Beatles – have seen works by Picasso of which same could very much be said!
Posted by Heather Jones on February 28, 2010
(in the same way as your ’short’ w/e blog turned out to be quite long, this comment has grown far longer than intended – apologies, but I’d hate to waste the effort by deleting it, so here it is)
Re point 1 – you speak as a novelist of course… maybe you’ll change your mind when you become a successful film screenwriter or star or some such (only a matter of time I’m sure…) Now, don’t get me wrong, I love reading novels (like radio, the pictures are often better) But this sweeping generalisation is too sweeping for me: while the novel is one specific sort of written form, you’ve lumped all cinema together – do you just mean narrative films that are most like novels in content, or do you include documentaries, experimental films (which may be the up themselves ones?) etc etc. And of course (within the sweeping generalisation) there lurk AWFUL novels (do I really need to give examples??) Such books are to the artform of novel what doggerel is to poetry (and you must also allow that there are novels that are up themselves too!)
The novel is (historically speaking) a very young art form (of course cinema is even younger!) – their respective (or joint?) predecessors – Oral storytelling? Theatre? (inc Shakespeare?)
But music is surely the other BIG artform of 20th and 21st Century with a much longer heritage as an artform (and just as multifaceted in its claim to importance together with its potential to be dreadful and/or up itself).
Last question – does television qualify as an artform?
Posted by Julie on February 28, 2010
I always use the analogy that some people hit balls in nets and some people sell antiques as a means of making me feel OK about my own hobbies … which others may find entirely pointless. I don’t de-value football etc I just wish my hobbies got a fraction of the airtime it achieves.
Posted by Kat on February 28, 2010
I’m not sure I agree with the comment on books being better than films. I think they are both wonderful mediums but for different reasons. For example books are brilliantly portable and can be enjoyed alone anytime anywhere, where as films are useful when you only have a few hours and can be enjoyed at the same time as others – I for one really enjoy watching and hearing people react to films in the cinema.
What really bothers me though is it better to read the book first or watch the film? Having just seen The Lovely Bones I was really disappointed that they had left out some of my favourite parts of the book, but had I not have read it of course I wouldn never have known this. I mostly read the book after the films as I find they work as a kind of addition to the film where you can learn more about the characters – the down side being you know the end and you imagine the characters as the actors used in the film. alas this all makes my head hurt!
You are right though – Wikipedia is fantastic!
Posted by Tom Beasley on February 28, 2010
I concur with pretty much all of those points, especially the one about books being better than films. I may even develop some of them into fully-fledged blog posts myself.
Posted by Ben on February 28, 2010
Is that a Ben Folds Five reference in the title? I don’t know why I’m asking… I know it is.
I nodded to each of your points. Except the one about the bigoted joke one, because I didn’t see what you mean (and I miss out on a joke–unfair.)