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MULTI_LEGGED_KOSTELANETZ

                                              August 14, 2006


   Richard Kostelanetz is
   a guy whose name I've
   come across in a
   surprising varieties
   of contexts...

       For example, he's a frequent
       contributor to the libertarian        He's suceeded in placing
       magazine "Liberty", and also          the same article with both
       the author/editor of a number         "Liberty" and "Social
       of books about John Cage --           Anarchism".
       including the excellent
       "Conversations with Cage".               I should found an
                                                award celebrating
         There is no inherent                   that sort of
         reason that an interest                achievement, but
         in free market economics               I'm not sure what
         and avant garde art                    to call it.
         should not go together
         but in practice this is
         astoundingly rare.

                                   HONEST_JOHN


   It's one of my own conceits
   that I cover a lot of ground
   myself: I'm a multilegged
   creature with a foot in a
   number of different camps
   and I don't often encounter
   monsters of my own ilk.

   Kostelanetz appears to be           The New York Times
   of the same genus, if not           Magazine once ran a
   quite the same species...           photo of his home
   so I accord him some respect.       titled something like
                                       "Clutter as a Strategy".

                                           Great minds...


       I should add that
       Kostelnanetz is also
       a good example of
       the rare breed of
       the independant           LAST_INTELLECTUALS
       intellectual, and
       a professional one
       at that.              (Amateur class thinkin' fellers
                             like myself are getting pretty
                             common in the internet era.)



          But in spite of this -- or
          perhaps because of it? --
          I get the sense that
          Kostelanetz don't get no
          respect.

          For example, I encountered
          some folks -- professional
          academics, as I remember --      (This was on
          who were sneering at one of      "silence", a
          the Kostelenetz books about      mailing list
          Cage.  The charge: too           about Cage.)
          "self-promotional".

             I discussed this on the list some
             years later -- after I had read
             some of the book itself, and
             found it belonged in the Doesn't
             Suck category -- and got some               (I also discovered
             strange email in return,                    that Kostelanetz
             including some long missives from           himself had begun
             a fellow who didn't want to speak           lurking on the
             up in public, but complained                list, and received
             bitterly about the Kostelanetz              a note of thanks
             "M.O." in reviewing books.  The             from him...)
             charge: Kostelnetz puts down any
             book that doesn't reference
             Kostelnetz.

                And I've come across examples
                that might support that point.
                The Kostelanetz review of "The
                Last Intellectuals", for             The thing about this
                example, complains that the          is that I'm not sure
                problem Kostelanetz talks about      that I care.
                in "The End of Intelligent
                Writing" is not addressed.           Okay, so he hasn't
                                                     mastered the art of
                                                     false modesty.

                                                     To me, it just
                                                     seems like a funny
                                                     quirk.  Smile,
                                                     roll your eyes,
                                                     whatever.

                                                         Complaining about
                                                         this seems like
                                                         addressing style
                                                         over substance.


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