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From: ry@brunix.UUCP (Rich Yampell)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Jethro Tull, Kate Bush, and jcp losingness
Message-ID: <10590@brunix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-May-85 18:48:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: brunix.10590
Posted: Thu May  9 18:48:48 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 12-May-85 00:35:16 EDT
References: <268@osiris.UUCP> <4148@mit-eddie.UUCP> <10517@brunix.UUCP> <4197@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Reply-To: ry@nancy.UUCP (Rich Yampell)
Distribution: net
Organization: Brown University Computer Science
Lines: 35


Doug Alan recently posted a response to my criticism of his logic in a
previous article.  I'm too lazy to figure out just which quotes to include,
so I'll trust everyone to remember what we were talking about.

I just wanted to say that I found his response much more lucid than his
original posting, and consequently, his position much more reasonable.
In the response he explains some things that were assumed and implied in the
original.

So, Doug, thank you; and now I'd like to ask you a question.  This is *the*
question for me.  It is *the* question that I want an answer for myself, so
I want to see if your answer makes sense to me.  It is *the* reason I
brought this whole mess up:

You make a very interesting analogy between food and music.  With food,
however, we can judge between broccoli and cardboard based on extremely
obvious, objective, and universal agreed concepts of nutrition and health
and so forth.  Just what are you going to use as criterion for doing so in
music?  You mention various things, such as complexity, emotion, etc. but
that is a long, varied, and in some cases contradictory list?  Exactly what
is on it, and moreover, how do you claim that these things are objectively
and obviously proper criterion?

You see, the thing is, I *AGREE* with you about *ALL* of it, but am
constantly chagrinned by the fact that I have no valid retort to anyone who
disputes a given criterion, one which I feel is obvious.

What it all boils down to is that unless some way is found to define
objective proper musical criteria, we are forced to accept the position that
cardboard is, in fact, just as good as broccoli, and, moreover, just as good
as Hunan Crispy Whole Fish [or substitute your favourite food here].

			Rich Yampell