professional jealousy

Last night somebody who works in the field of movies, who I don't think has any integrity, won an accolade for his work. I acknowledge that he's talented, but I think he's a hack.

Why does this make me feel bad?

I am very, very, very ungenerous in my feelings towards people sometimes.

Really, given he's an aquaintance, I should just feel pleased that someone I know has had some success. Instead, I felt vaguely as though a blow had been struck against (man, I'm such a blow-hard - the arbiter of taste) those with artistic integrity. What the person I know had created was basically a filmic equivalent of the Strip - sleazy, facile celluloid where the biggest laugh to be had was because a character ineptly used the word "pussy." No wit, no spin, no point, no creativity - just pandering.

It fucks me off, when, instead, I should just go "huh. So that's what these crazy kids are into these days." I am confused as to why I care.

BUT THEN AGAIN:

I am sitting here at work listening to "In An Airplane Over The Sea" and about three minutes ago when the fuzzy feedbacky guitars kicked in as Jeff Mangum warbled "I love you, Jesus Christ" during the track "King of Carrot Flowers, II" I got goosebumps, the same way I do every time that part of the song starts. And later when he starts singing "Oh Comely" I fully anticipate feeling my chest get all hot and heavy and funny because that song is Just So Moving and I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really grateful to people like Jeff Mangum and Wes Anderson and David Lynch and Tom Macrae and Gomez and even crazy old Amy Sherman-Pallidino for creating stuff to put into the world that is interesting and has integrity and depth and complexity and reflects their feelings.

Its really important to me that stuff like that exists, and many of the people I know and love feel the same way about different lists of people and IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT THIS STUFF EXISTS, much more so than crowd-pleasing comedy that trades on cheap and sleazy laughs because it helps make the world better for me.

So that is good. Good.

I am going to judge things less. Or rather, I'm not. Not at all, really. Sorry. But I am going to reflect upon the fallacy in my rationale. *reflection . . . over*

Huzzah!