QOTD: 10 Feb 2008: craft vs. passion point/counterpoint
Algernon Moncrieff (from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest): “I don’t play accurately— anyone can play accurately. But I play with wonderful expression.”
John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats): “If I say a band is “dedicated to their craft,” that sounds boring and staid, right? Well, fuck you, then, Jack, with your antiquated half-recycled notions of how craft and intensity are somehow at odds. Craft is the path to the damn palace, and the palace’s windows are all ablaze with the fire that’s constantly raging in all the rooms, and it’s not even uncomfortable for the people who live there, because they have become accustomed to the heat.”
February 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Here’s my thinking… mutual exclusivity on this one is the worst. If you’re a great craftsman but don’t care at all, it shows. You can play something perfectly, but it’s soulless and dull. If you have a lot of passion, you can catch people’s attention and might even be able to do something interesting. If someone with passion but poor craftsmanship becomes better with their craft, that adds to what they can do–it adds to the ways they can express their passion, and it makes the whole thing much more interesting. It’s like a poet with a limited vocabulary… You can write good poetry without a big vocabulary, but you have fewer options for getting across what you want to say. That can be as frustrating a limitation for the creator as for the consumer.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Passion can diminish and wither. Craft grows and endures.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Ez, think of the Comic Strip. Early on? Craft is pretty good, but not great. Passion seems off the charts. Later… craft is better in some ways (not so much, maybe, in others), but passion seems lacking. And then… there’s some sort of mature marriage of the two in that last episode we saw.
Just for example.