Category: art

The Critical Questions: What Is Art?

     This might prove to be the start of a series of essays. Beneath every argument about anything whatsoever, there will lie a question that must be answered for the argument to be soluble: “What the hell are we talking about?”      That question, of course, must become specific for it to be relevant and …

Continue reading

The Central Fear Of All Who Create

     After Melkor, the rebellious Vala who sought the power of Creation that he might rival Ilúvatar the Creator, destroyed Telperion and Laurelin, the Two Trees of Valinor that gave undying light to the Blessed Lands, the Valar held a council with the Eldar, to this effect:      After a time a great concourse gathered …

Continue reading

The Meat, The Potatoes, And Just A Drop Of Gravy

     You can read innumerable columnists’ fulminations about the atrocity in Afghanistan at hundreds of other sites. Perhaps thousands; I’m disinclined to count into the four digits. (Not enough jelly beans.) So here at Liberty’s Torch you’ll get…well, at least some material of other kinds. We like to think of ourselves as the Waldorf Salad …

Continue reading

Culture, Context, And Criticism

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader: I’ve lost the link, but a few days ago I read an article that sticks in my mind for reasons you will soon grasp without prompting. It was a critical article about The Who, the great British rock group that blew through pop music in the late Sixties and early …

Continue reading