Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Snort. Worse, I had to read a lot of the "great whatnots" in school, as 
> I am sure a lot of other people did. As near as I could tell, "great" 
> meant wordy, weak plotted and boring, mixed with a bit of, albeit 
> understandable, confusion, delusion, bigotry, and/or cluelessness. 

This is what I was talking about, in part. Some of these novels were the 
first to explore the themes they spoke of in a way that contemporaries could 
understand. But, being the first, they weren't always the best, nor were 
they particularly written to survive the ages.

But they're culture. If I say "Godot is expected shortly" or "We're not in 
Kansas any more" or "sour grapes", you have an entire cultural background of 
associations to draw on.

Video games will be art when I can refer to someone as a Paul Denton and you 
know what I'm saying about that person.  We're not there yet, but it will 
eventually happen. We've only had maybe one generation of people growing up 
with video games being common. I was in high school or so when Pong was 
cutting edge, in college when Pac-Man was cutting edge.

(Indeed, we're almost there. I think that if you saw some fat lady shopping 
for donuts and I made the "wacca-wacca-wacca" noise, you'd probably 
understand instantly what I'm saying.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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