21: Playing the Race Cards
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Deborah Jowitt: My sister taught me: response to Weinstein
If and when you ever get the great, good privilege to be a critic, for god sakes, know -- if you can -- the generation ahead of you. Critics are the thoroughbreds of the newsroom. But there ain't no newsroom no more, and so, with the advance of technology, we say good bye to Deborah Jowitt at the Village Voice, perhaps a victim of print journalisms' inability to comprehend the deep need within this Youth Generation to take stock, be real, see what's in front of their eyes and go to dance.
I am not talking platitudes. I am talking straight.
Once we leave the consumerist, mainstream stupid world that persists and persists in persisting (please let us get out of that as soon as we can, and I am not preaching Obama. I am just saying that we need to live a little and breathe and know our flesh, which is tantamount to preaching Obama and, forgive me, knowing dance), we find real human beings. Deborah Jowitt -- who was recently "fired" (I quote my colleague Jeff Weinstein, because, lord knows, has the press written about this since yesterday, though the blogs be blogging, and when oh when will bloggers be considered press? Yesterday, like yesterday?) -- Jowitt taught me that you never look at your pad.
She took minimal notes. And yet -- remark upon this -- she is the best descriptor of dance around. She let herself be absorbed, see what the choreographer (artist) wanted her to see at the time, in the moment, for you, now. If you want to find out what a dance actually looked like, I mean, what happened in it then, read Jowitt.
She is a historian's best friend. My gratitude, Ms. Jowitt.
Your departure means much.
I like dance, but did not go frequently, and yet I enjoyed reading Jowitt in the Voice very much. Her work seemed honest, perceptive, and intense, without being pretentious or strange in any way.
Her leave-taking has seemed to me to have gotten less attention than that of the movie critic firings that have occurred at the same time, a fact that has to do with the absolute centrality of movie-going in our culture.
Will the internet actually take the place of newspapers and magazines in terms not merely of presenting the news, but in terms of establishing or at least monitoring standards? Is it possible to establish authority in a medium that itself lacks centrality and moderation? How can critics and writers live if the work they do is presented for free to the public always? How is it possible to establish standards when snark replaces intelligent commentary; and people resist any assertion of value that is not corroborated by a clique (or mob)? Those are not new questions, but we keep coming back to them, as they haven't been answered, it seems, to anyone's satisfaction.
All good questions, and thanks for writing. I think magazines will become increasingly significant as the repository for thoughtful, incisive, well-written print journalism, and specifically arts criticism. Chris Anderson of WIRED magazine was interviewed by Charlie Rose maybe a month back, and he explained the virtues of magazines in this digital-media obsessed world. You can see it online on Rose's site. It's a good interview and addresses your issues.
Best,
Sasha