shelv.

I understand the need for diversity and that not every kind of art has a definitive style that works within it. Look at the many genres and artists within the medium of music that i have fallen deeply in love with. Common to Fairweather to Misery Signals to Tim Hecker.

There's a level, though, that has just been illustrated to me in a solo train ride out to Manhattan. You can find the same sort of lesson in any brick wall in almost any urban area, though. To see masterful, quality pieces of graffiti dominating a wall or bridge only to be surrounded by juvenile go-hards is almost insulting to the artist. Are we even having the same conversation?

And i feel this way about a lot of writing that i see out there. It's not that i expect anyone or everyone to stop putting words to paper or out into the internet. But some of the pieces that get published in the world of journalism and reporting seem to act as punishment for all of the words that never will. You can see the lazy and sensational dominating the landscape, the same as the quick and rushed lines of the all-but-anonymous initials hacked up as if in a dare or in a fit of bravado.

We can't all be Hunter S. Thompson and reinvent the game, but we can all at least write to an audience we'd love to respect us. And an audience that we'd like to respect, alike. The less quality that's become demanded of the writing community, the less i want that to be my audience. And for just how long can you whittle down the interested and interesting until it's all become chain-gangs of gossip and gasplines that are accentuated with exclamation points?