…believe that art is truly in the eye of the beholder? That an objective standard is nothing but a farce?

…that good books are the books you enjoy, end of story? Is there a place for a canon?

…think that music can be created from almost any combination of sounds? That if someone calls it a song, it is?

…that actions are as potentially artful as visions, sounds, and words?

…that anyone with a desire to create is an artist of sorts?

The things of beauty in your life — how did you come to see them that way? What are your highest aesthetic values? Favourite painter? Favourite colour?

Tell me what lights up your world.

Try it. You’ll like it.

De nuestro amigo Ben.

Frickin’ Oprah.

There’s something about the power to arrange “exclusive gets” that really irritates me about Oprah. Am I jealous? Maybe. But mostly I just don’t like how much INFLUENCE she has. And why? Because she has better taste than anyone else? Because she is smarter than anyone else? Because she is kinder than anyone else? Because she cares more than anyone else?

No.She just has more money than anyone else.

With money comes power. And she has a lot of it. So she influences things and people and gains default cultural capital in the process.

She is obviously bright and well read and a vigorous learner, as well as an astute businesswoman — that’s where the money comes from. But if I had to put the cultural future of the world in someone’s hands, I’d rather it not be the O Brand.

The Oprahfication of America doesn’t appear to embrace anything but a particularly shallow view of charity, of art, of communication, of relationships… just enough content to put in an hour. And then everyone’s okay, right?

Life just isn’t that clean.

And Harper Lee — with her statements about our abundant culture and “plodding along with books” and stodgy southernism — giving her big exclusive to O Magazine is one of the most ironic acts in the world.

Capote would think it rather fabulous, I think.