On My Mind VIII

Constructing

If I am constructing something in my scholarly work, the main task is to figure out a structure that will accommodate what I want to say and describe. That structure is not well denominated by an outline, unless that outline is seen as a structural skeleton, displaying an integrity that allows for attaching my examples and main points so that they have an apparently necessary and preordained place, and they contribute to the structure’s integrity and to the meaning of the other attached pieces. Yes, since the written text is linear, some parts come before others, but their meaning only becomes rich when in subsequent sentences and paragraphs they are seen to be precursors of what is being said then. Definitions or preliminaries only become powerful much later in the text, although they make good enough sense when they do appear.

            The aim is to make something whole, although it is presented linearly and in parts. Rereading that constructed something, knowing how the description turns out, makes the rereading a revelation. (Especially, if the author has not provided an overview or preview.) Surely you can write parts separately, but when they are attached at the right points, they will need to acknowledge their presence in the structure and their relationship to all the other parts, and so revision is needed so that the part is seen as a review and a prevision.

Looking, Again and Again

            In making photographs one is encouraged to compose on the ground glass or in the viewfinder, so cropping is taboo and, even more morally virtuous, your exposure is spot on. Yet we know that photographic printers, in their darkrooms and at their Photoshops, will crop and will do the full range of manipulations, doing whatever is necessary to make for a stunning print, whatever the subject. The fine print is charged with a moral theology about tonal range and exposure, a theology under the charge of experienced eyes, who might well dispense with some of the commandments if they get in the way.

            What matters is the experience of the reader and the viewer. Will they get it, are they moved in an appropriate way? The typography, the binding, and the paper matter; whether the photographs are printed on a xerography machine, an inkjet printer, or on sensitized photographic paper exposed through an enlarger or by a laser. A sensuous book, a fine paper and ink, or a silver halide/bromide emulsion matter, each in its own distinctive fashion. They cannot resuscitate awful work. Rather, they confirm that the experience of a work is authentic.

            Every second look allows for a second look of that looking. A re-reading might well provide a novel impression of what is going on. And in revision, quality and detail and experience might be dominated by a downward revision of the work itself.

            Editors and other readers and viewers provide canonical judgments from their knowledge of similar work. There is nothing arbitrary here, although revisions might be done differently. For revision is under the sway of the material itself, potential intentions, and the corpus of the tradition and the contemporary.

            There’s always the first ninety percent of the work and the second and third ninety percent, and then some more.

Quality/Sensibility

I do not possess what is called sensibility, a discourse focused on quality and distinction, usually about the arts. The specifics of that discourse do not much affect what I see and hear and read, and I have little to add to that discourse. I never learned to talk that way, and I do not seem to have taste or sensitivity. Perhaps if I had taken the right courses, I could so present myself as a connoisseur and scholarly critic.

            Surely I can make judgments of quality, and surely I have preferences. But most of the time, except for some scholarly research work, I cannot and do not insist that others might share my judgment and what little I have to say about a work. I am likely to be influenced by what museums and critics say, by their authority, but not by what they say.

            I do have enthusiasms. And once in while I take them as quality-based. So the Hasselblad SWC is a superb camera, but in large part I am as well influenced by its reputation among experts. In a smaller part, quite significantly, I love using that camera, and I like the photographs I make with it. Rereading my books, some are much better than others, deeper ideas, greater originality. But I am likely to revise my judgments in time.

            I might describe what is going on in a photograph or a suite of photographs, but I am not tempted to go on and elaborate. My life is a chronology rather than a novelistic narrative, although again I do try to give it a structure and flow, often schematically rather than its being a story with an arc. Such a summary may have scenes, but it is not much of a story.

            I do believe some of my photographs are quite good. But I have no reliable sense of their quality. I do not do fine art photography, nor really what is called documentary photography, nor photojournalism, as far as I can tell.

            I do my work. I can select articles, photographs, chapters, books that strike me as stronger than others. I do not seem interested in saying why, except the specifics for scholarly materials I am reviewing.

            Again, I take it on faith that in culture and criticism particular artists, writers, composers, are of the highest quality, and some of their works are outstanding. I do not believe my own judgments would be reliable. As for physics, I was brought up on outstanding work. In my books I have devoted careful detailed attention to some works, much as would an art historian or critic. Perhaps this is my form of criticism and sensibility. But I am not sure my choices are defensible claims against others’ choices of great work, although I am sure that the work I describe is amazing and terrific—and, of course, it has been widely recognized before I even encounter it, so likely I am trusting the opinions of others. The work I analyze is not idiosyncratic; it is widely recognized as being of high quality.

            While I do like many works, I am unsure of my taste in general. I have some confidence in my judgments of promotion dossiers, but not at the off-scale level. Some scholarly work is to my mind outstanding and terrific, although others and the experts have already made such judgments.

            Likely, fine distinctions escape me. If forced, I might make them, but not with much confidence.

            Still, I am in thrall of some stuff. An article, a book, a person, an object. I very much like my Eames furniture, my Hasselblad, the Blackwing pencils I used to write this draft. I have written in detail about the Polaroid SX-70 camera, and its construction, as well as the film it uses. I have written in detail, structurally and narratively (in passages) about some mathematical physics. I have written structurally about works of literature and the humanities, using them as models or examples, and so their classic status may give authority to what I say. I have written letters of reference, but I am not good at distinguishing scholars and ranking them. I write about strengths and concrete achievements. I like looking out my window, not so much the view as for the light and the familiarity.

            I do like some things, but I am unlikely to be able, as Kant would have it, to insist that others agree with me. Rather, I find among stuff that appeals to me, what is thought more generally to be excellent or outstanding.  And I find a few diamonds in the rough, works or artists or scholars that are not so recognized but I have been taken with them.

            Perhaps because thinking for me is analytical, a matter of analogy and analytic description and understanding, the fine points do not have a chance to engage me—unless I discover that the fine points are cruxal, they embody the Big Idea, and then I make those points into axial moments (at least in mathematical physics).

            I fall for some scholars or writers or even visual artists, who are usually but not always widely recognized, for I do think they are quite wonderful. So I do have some sensibility if not the analytic capacity to discern why I am so taken with them. Perhaps it is their intensity, perhaps it is their allowing me into their world, perhaps it is their insight. I may become a fan, a groupie, or even head-over-heels in a love that might endure--or it may eventually be seen to be an infatuation, for I have left my good sense behind me.

            I do trust my intuitions and judgments, and I have made them trustworthy by what I do with them. But rarely am I so sure of their universality (again, ala Kant of the The Critique of Judgment).  To have sensibility is to appeal to tradition and discourses I am not really a part of. This is much too harsh, since I am educated and have some culture. My teachers worked on me in secondary school and college, and I readily swallowed it all. I am an arriviste. Poetry and art and literature that addresses my emotional and personal being is close to me. But I am sure I miss the aesthetics for the intimacy and relevance and comfort.