redeeming qualities

Days since Ativan use: 0

Previous days since Ativan use: 5. (I think.)

Sensitivity meter: 10/5 (meaning I’m super sensitive right now.)

A long time ago I read an article about an issue with film preservation: how do you determine which films to preserve? The article discussed how some films with little to no artistic merit may be very much worth saving because that film was the first time a later-famous actor or actress appeared on screen or it had a technological innovation or something else noteworthy. And that’s setting aside the issue of how you determine artistic merit, an issue the Oscars deal with annually. I’ve heard it suggested that the film that did the best at the box office that year should win an Oscar, because it’s “clearly” the one people liked the best. (I believe if you have to say something is clear, it usually isn’t, by the way.) But of course the Oscars—setting aside racial and similar issues—are an opportunity to showcase quieter, smaller films that would get buried without a spotlight. And some of those are gems that have stayed with me for a long time. I’m thinking of Call Me By Your Name, which somehow manages to get under my skin more with each viewing. Rather than get tired of it, I feel the opposite. I watch it again and again and each time notice more how nuanced and thoughtful and beautiful the movie really is. Even though I know some people find it boring. Or get queasy with it. I just happen to think it’s utterly gorgeous.

That leads me to the question of artistic value. My favorite movies (and books) are usually not critically acclaimed or universally liked. I just happen to like them. A lot. Sometimes I can tell that I’ll love a movie that doesn’t have the highest star rating if the criticism is something like, “gorgeous visuals and costumes, no plot.” Sold. In fact, I’ll frequently be able to see flaws within my favorites and love them anyway. Or love them because of the flaws. Because they’re imperfect. Because they are funky and weird and somehow true. Because something within it speaks to me or captures my imagination. And I don’t need the whole world to agree with me. I can just quietly re-watch or reread my favorites.

But that’s me.

Still, as I’m a highly sensitive person, I often adopt my favorites under my wing, needing to protect them. Wanting to shield them from criticism. While in one breath I can acknowledge we don’t all agree (and that’s a good thing), I also feel we all universally want to be liked. Loved. And if I love [book/movie/song] and you don’t, what does that say about our relationship? If something that matters to me so much doesn’t register with you, can we even be friends? Do you “get” me?

I’ll find myself in the posture of defending the “redeeming” qualities of something while at the same time wondering if art even needs to have redeeming qualities and if those need to be defended.

I’ll explain.

It’s hard to create. It just is. It’s also very easy.

While sometimes words flow through me, or I’ll paint or draw and what comes out makes me happy, that doesn’t mean it’s art that’s going to go anywhere on the public market. I wrote a short story this week about a guy who works in a flower shop. It’s unpolished and unfinished and it made me really happy, even though I can see its holes and where it needs to be further developed. It’s a half-formed idea without the ending yet. (Fuck it: here’s the completely unedited and barely reread draft. It’s not finished. Should I flesh this thing out?) But I did that for me. Just because I felt like it. Because it made me happy to write something down. It has nothing to do with the six-plus novels I’m working on.

Can I put that up on Amazon? No.

Should it not exist? I don’t know. You tell me. I just followed my instincts. I also followed my instincts in sharing it here.

All I know is I had to write those ideas down. (Obviously Reed and the unnamed narrator need to get together and fall in love. I just liked the idea of trying to send pansies as a flower. Seriously, that was all I was thinking about.)

Perhaps my point is that I truly believe art/creative projects need to exist and just be allowed to exist. Without criticism. Although that’s not quite what I believe, because critiquing the story I just posted will undoubtedly make it better. Where should it go from there? What should I name my narrator? What should they do? I have ideas, but I’m open to new ones. Still, by the very fact that it is now 1600 or so words, it has a gravitational pull. It didn’t use to exist. Now it does.

I think that’s a sort of magic.

I guess I’m very open in what I believe is art and what I believe should exist. All of it. Even the ugly stuff. The stuff I don’t personally like or want to look at. If it’s expression or entertainment, yeah. I think it should exist.

Even if that’s an unpopular opinion.

PS I will note that completely unrelatedly, I started reading Alexis Hall’s Pansies this week. It too is about a guy who works in a flower shop. I don’t think it had an effect on what I wrote, because I wrote my story first and then realized that another book exists in the same vein. But it’s clearly the same wavelength. I suggest you pick it up, because it’s gorgeous.