I guess the National Book Foundation is giving Stephen King its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters… and I guess the choice for award candidate is a bit controversial. It’s the equivalent of a Dilbert cartoon in the Guggenheim. Just read an op-ed piece in Time Magazine (“Long Live the King” by Lev Grossman, 24 Nov 2003 issue, page 72) where he wonder why we have such a distinction between high and low forms of literature. He asks:

How did America’s reading habits become so radically polarized, so prissily puritanical, that at best a quarter of what people read (or at least what they buy) qualifies as legitimate literature?

He answers himself:

As much as Americans like to be democratic in our politics, we have become aristocratic in our aesthetics. This was something strange and new. Reading literature and having a damn good time had become quietly but decidedly uncoupled… We have a high tolerance for boredom and difficulty. We praise rich, complex, lyrical prose, but we don’t really appreciate the pleasures of a well-paced, gracefully structured plot. Or worse, we appreciate them, but we are embarrassed about it.

Hmm…. I suppose most of our “art” is divided this way, not just literature. I mean, think musically… most people would say that Bach was a great composer (we wouldn’t demean his work by calling him a song writer) and place his music above the work of Brittany Speared. And yet, you’d have to look in some dusty crevaces to find someone who can hum a few bars from “Air on a G String” (yeah, that title still invokes prepubescent snickers).

But often our “low” art becomes respected. I mean, Wynton Marsalis conducts all sorts of jazz in snooty Carnegie Hall… and it wasn’t that long ago that jazz was deemed inappropriate for concert halls. The songs played in smoke-filled holes amid booze is now performed on an orchestra stand amid furs and jewelry.

What’s also funny is that now that jazz is accepted in high society means that nobody listens to it anymore. Its acceptance is also its death… or near-death in the case of jazz. Of course, if jazz is defined by John Tess and other newage players, then I’ll nail the coffin shut. But I digress…

Music, literature and all art must be a living thing, and to live means to adapt… to new ears and eyes. Art must be pleasurable, or it just won’t be around. Granted, I don’t like Stephen King, Brittany Speared, John Tess, M&M and many other performers… but I wouldn’t want my opinion to invalidate their art-form. Yes, I’m afraid that a concert of Brittany Speared is indeed art. Her public relations is definitely an art form.

In a way, I wish that music performers and other artists could never achieve iconic status, for I want their muse to be their inspiration instead of their wallet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a romance novel to finish.