so damn textual

i love hippie-yuppie weddings. by this i mean i love non-traditional, non-denominational weddings that have all the trappings of a white wedding (big dress, even bigger hair, beautiful but often tragically card-boardey cake). i was recently at such a wedding and, over a slice of cake that was surprisingly good, i fell into conversation with an old friend from the berkeley drama department.

said friend, a minor to somewhat unspeakably large genius of the stage, lamented that, in some ways, going to the theater has become a textual experience, more academic than artistic.

as i played with my cake frosting, i considered the accuracy of his claim. the rise of text isn't something only endemic to the theater -- the proliferation of the internet has resulted in a kind of global embrace of the idea that text is king. (albeit grammatically incorrect text -- at least in many cases). today, everyone with a blog or a web page really IS a critic. and text abounds.


but if text, not emotion is king, if the review of the art becomes culturally paramount to the art itself, what will happen to our artists? will expression as we know it irrevocably change? will criticism be elevated to an art form as old art forms go the way of the serialized novel? and if that happens, how will we know what criticism we want to read and what we want to eschew? will we need criticism of the criticism to help us navigate our post-emotional world?

i don't know. and i pretend to have any answers. i'm just here, asking questions, holding out for more coconut cake.