Kyle Major wrote:

>I think we truly live in a superfluous culture, especially when seen
>through the lens of a consumer.  I think if you count the number of
>Coca-Cola ads you come across in a day you will realize this.  (Yes, coke
>paid me to mention their name).  The number of websites on banana peel
>sticker collections would be another example.  Or how about the number of
>shampoos on the market...it's ludicrous.

As a matter of fact, it's quite rational.  There are a large number of
shampoos on the market because enough people want to buy each brand.

>I wonder if there are works of art that represent this aspect of our
>lives, and are superfluous for a reason.  This is definitely a loaded
>question.  Andy Warhol's coke bottles come to mind.  Perhaps the minimalism
>of Glass and others fits this, I'm not sure.  I'm sure someone on this list
>can name some pieces that match the redundant nature of days blurring
>together in an uneventful month.

I'm sure there are works that seem superfluous to an individual, and no
work is immune, as recent discussions of Beethoven and Mozart demonstrate.
I'm sure that works go in and out and back in general favor - in short, an
element of fashion comes into play.  But neither question seems likely to
produce an interesting result about the ontological significance of a work
of art.  That is, if we identify such works, what do we actually learn
about them?

I further suspect this kind of slant as needlessly exclusionary.
Granted, we haven't lifetimes enough to listen to everything, but let's not
congratulate ourselves by trying to come up with criteria for Worthiness
that justify the exclusion.  Everything we keep out limits us in some way.
We are smaller for our unwillingness or inability to absorb.  I happen to
dislike country & western *a lot*, but my dislike is also a limitation on
my ability to see what's good about it.  It has some considerable power,
obviously, but I have no idea what that might be.  Furthermore, I can say
the same of many genres and periods of classical music and jazz.  I'm not
proud of this, and as a matter of fact, I try to keep my hand in (for me)
dull neighborhoods, in hopes that light will strike.

Steve Schwartz