angels high and low

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

john m writes:

> hg writes on my comment:
> 
> >>john m re the Watts Towers
> >
> >> It's a wonderland, no foolin.  A place fit for archangels, and preterite too.
> >
> >Question: 
> >If smelly squishy yucky ('real') garbage is part of the preterite's daily 
> >slog, is gargabe-artistically-transformed still preterite? Or does preterite 
> >only _become_ 'preterite' once one mixes artistic vision (schmision) 
> >with junk, and then allows someone literate (enough) to look at it?
> >
> 
> With his usual perspicacity (just enough), hg misses the point.  I was talking exactly 
> about the fact that this is not high art (though those towers do manage to go up a 
> ways.)  Rodia was not creating the Taj Mahal, nor  trying to. Unlike too many 
> potsings, the lack of pretension might be the most striking thing about the towers.  
> and I wasn't putting quotation marks around the word preterite, hg, you were.  
> Truth to tell, I felt a little uneasy about the connotations of--archangels--but wanted 
> to  play  w/--Los Angeles.  I put in the closing thought precisely not to draw 
> invidious high/low distinctions.  Sorry if I seemed to do so anyway.

I don't usually use the high/low art distinction much, myself.  "So I 
was just, [not] a bit exasperatingly, and quite ephemerally in fact, asking 
an honest  question. [...] Not a rhetorical question or an insult. Just a query, 
really." I was honestly wondering about definitions of preterite, and 
was hoping for someone perspicacious enough to help me out a little.
I perspire at the thought, and certainly apologize, if my potsing wasn't 
perspicuous enough,

hg
hag at iafrica.com