CompuServe Messages

A major dissimilarity of Art and Invention is that there's no guessing about the _meaning_ of an invention. "Sheesh, it's a telephone, you talk into it and your voice comes out the other end." There's much less dispute about the _quality_ of an invention. "I said I want to buy a hundred shares of Ashland Oil, and your darn clerk bought two hundred shares of Standard Oil, and don't tell me there must've been a bad connection, because I have a meter on the line." There's little dispute about whether an invention is an improvement over its predecessor. "Lookit this, a phone that can be manufactured for five cents and runs by extracting carbon monoxide from the air!" People build careers, University Departments, to argue about the meaning and quality of Art. And if someone tried to "improve" Hamlet by issuing a more efficient version of the drama, he'd be Missing the Point. "See, in _my_ play, Hamlet's uncle and mother happen to walk in just as the ghost is finishing his story, and Hamlet kills them right then and there. Polonius rushes in and hears the dying king confess, so that puts Hamlet in the clear to marry Ophelia, and he and Laertes go out drinking every Tuesday ever after. Whole thing takes abou one-tenth the time and half the actors of the original! Oh, and we have the same actress play Ophelia and Hamlet's mom, so we have the psychological thing too, but subtle.")