Out Of Touch
Jun. 13th, 2022 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloA friend writes to say she watched The Tonys in order to get a handle on what's going on in the New York theatre. Her verdict? It was "okay". From where she is now the New York theatre- once of consuming interest to her- seems a long way away.
I'm older than she is- by about twenty years- and I've only the patchiest interest in the contemporary arts. Once I cared, now I only light up at the arts news if it involves someone whose reputation was made in my youth. I see Paula Rego has died (she was very old), that the Rolling Stones are touring (they're very old too and there are fewer of them than there used to be) and that Kate Bush has a song in the charts because of its use in a TV show I'm unlikely to watch (she's not as old as Rego and the Stones but still clocking on a bit). I watch ancient TV plays on Mick's Nostalgia Channel but haven't glanced at the BBC or Netflix or Amazon Prime for months.
Once in a while I tell myself to snap to it and get with the groove- and I'll watch a new or newish movie or listen to a new or newish piece of music or read a new or newish book, but the impulse doesn't last long. I've just finished a novel by Ruth Rendell (Portobello: I recommend it if anyone is interested) which was published as recently as 2008- but she was very old when she wrote it- and of course she's dead now.
Art is mostly made by the young- and deals with the things that concern the young- and I'm in another zone now. Not that I want to engage with art about old people (God help us!) unless (of course) it's King Lear or the Tempest....
I'm older than she is- by about twenty years- and I've only the patchiest interest in the contemporary arts. Once I cared, now I only light up at the arts news if it involves someone whose reputation was made in my youth. I see Paula Rego has died (she was very old), that the Rolling Stones are touring (they're very old too and there are fewer of them than there used to be) and that Kate Bush has a song in the charts because of its use in a TV show I'm unlikely to watch (she's not as old as Rego and the Stones but still clocking on a bit). I watch ancient TV plays on Mick's Nostalgia Channel but haven't glanced at the BBC or Netflix or Amazon Prime for months.
Once in a while I tell myself to snap to it and get with the groove- and I'll watch a new or newish movie or listen to a new or newish piece of music or read a new or newish book, but the impulse doesn't last long. I've just finished a novel by Ruth Rendell (Portobello: I recommend it if anyone is interested) which was published as recently as 2008- but she was very old when she wrote it- and of course she's dead now.
Art is mostly made by the young- and deals with the things that concern the young- and I'm in another zone now. Not that I want to engage with art about old people (God help us!) unless (of course) it's King Lear or the Tempest....
