Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 17:27:29 -0800
From: metin aktay <maktay-AT-superonline.com>
Subject: Re: PLC: A poem to critique


Dear Person,

Whoever you are please stop posting under the name of George Trail. It
is very obvious the post below and similar previous ones are not by
George Trail. All have reactive thought well balanced by  original
thought. None manifest five star generals chips on shoulders. All
evidence a healthy respect towards the person responded to and a total
lack of vitriol. I am not tricked at all.

Please join under your own name. I used to delete George Trail without
reading, but now your hidden presence is forcing me to read the George
Trail posts to find out if it is actually you or George Trail. And I
look forward to reading more of you.

Respectfully,


Metin Aktay

Businessman from Istanbul, Turkey
Home : Ihsan Aksoy sok, EVA apt. No:7/2, Camlik Etiler
       Istanbul 80600, Turkey
e-mail     : maktay-AT-superonline.com
Home Phone : +90 212 265 10 16
Home Fax   : +90 212 257 73 74
Work Phone : +90 212 212 60 30
Work Fax   : +90 212 212 60 32
Mobile     : +90 532 274 17 71







George Trail wrote:
> 
> >> call psychological aesthetics: the school
> >> >of "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
> >> >
> >> >There is such a thing as "formal" aesthetics, one
> >> >that deals with proportion, balance, texture,
> >> >etc..
> >>
> >> [There are forumulae for say flower arranging in particular schools of
> >> ikebana, but there are no formulae for judgment. That's why there are
> >> judges.]
> >
> >Formal aesthetics, George, have been pondered and
> >discussed (formulated, if you prefer) by those
> >who devote much of their lives  to the subject.
> >Shall we give some trust to their "judgement" or
> >taste, or shall we take anything that wanders in
> >from that community college mentality you seem to
> >denigrate out of hand. And the floral arrangement
> >bit, my friend, is a reductio ad absurdum.
> >The "judges" of art are, or should be, those with
> >a refined aesthetic sense. Read a book called,
> >"The Triumph of Vulgarity." Forget the author.
> >
> >Best wishes,
> >
> >Bill
> >WILLIAM BALL, Professor of Humanities
> 
> Herr Professor Doktor Ball,
> "Formal aesthetics," as you put it, have indeed been pondered and
> discussed. When they have been formulated ("The curve of beauty," "the rule
> of thirds,") they have typically been taken as describing the
> characteristics of a "school."
> 
> I take ikebana (you call it "floral arrangement") completely seriously, as
> do a great many people. I meant no irony nor denigration of the area, the
> "study," as it were, of "beauty." It does not follow, however from my
> observations that I support taking "anything that wanders in from that
> community college mentality you [I] seem to denigrate out of hand." That
> either/or was neither offered nor intended.
> 
> I study Ikebana, and Bonsai. I believe that both are fully viable art
> forms. But I say again, there are no formulae which transcend "schools" of
> the art.
> 
> Name me the aesthetician whose opinion, the result of a life given to the
> study of "beauty" per se, whom I should trust? Does she deal with the
> aesthetics of poetry written in English. Can she define poetry? Can she
> tolete Shelley's statement that the distinction between poetry and prose is
> "a vulgar error"?
> 
> But no, I do not believe that the universe is a work of art, nor in the
> master painter in the sky gendered or otherwise.
> g
> 
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