Sport VS Art | Episode # 42 | Elliott Earls

Powerful lessons for the artist from the Breakfast Club and the NFL.

Links, Institutions and References from this Episode

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Regarding The Films of John Hughes

Information on the filmmaker John Hughes from IMDB. John Hughes was born on February 18, 1950 in Lansing, Michigan, USA as John Wilden Hughes Jr. He was a writer and producer, known for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), The Breakfast Club (1985) and Home Alone (1990):
Information on the seminal 1980’s coming of age drama, The Breakfast Club. “Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.” More from IMDB:

From A.O. Scott’s New York Times Appraisal of the films of John Hughes:

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Regarding Honorific and Classificatory disputes on the nature of Art

A starting point on classificatory disputes about art from wikipedia: ”Art historians and philosophers of art have long had classificatory disputes about art regarding whether a particular cultural form or piece of work should be classified as art. Disputes about what does and does not count as art continue to occur today.” More here:

An Amazon link to Nina Felshin’s “But is It Art? the spirit of Art as Activisim”:

Amazon Link to Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art?”

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Regarding the Tyranny of the Adolescent Social Pyramid

On Adolescent Social Groups and Cliques from PBS.org:

On Adolescent Cliques from Wikipedia:

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Regarding Meritocracy & Sports

“Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century (American Institutions and Society) 1st Edition”

“The idea that citizens' advancement should depend exclusively on merit, on qualities that deserve reward rather than on bloodlines or wire-pulling, was among the Founding ideals of the American republic...

On Sports and Politics from ESPNW (“EspnW a digital presence for Women”)

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Regarding the Art as leg-pulling and Elaborate Practical Joke (from 1967)

Onward and Upward with the Arts
THE PUT-ON. From The New Yorker June 24, 1967 Issue By Jacob R. Brackman

“About the "put-on", which occupies a fuzzy territory between simple leg-pulling and elaborate practical joke, between pointed lampoon and free-floating spoof. It is a new mode of communication based on a refined form of "kidding". Some serious art today, even seemingly outlandish art, is doubtless undertaken by artists who care deeply about liberating themselves from exhausted conventions. But many art consumers and critics have come to envisage contemporary art as a giant con game The put-on is a fundamentally commercial form, finding its purest expression in television, Hollywood cinema, formula radio, fashion, Top Forty sound, advertising & the most salable of popular art. The put-on elevates the fraudulent and debases the true, rendering the entire proceedings questionable. Fascination with the possibly fraudulent has precedents in American culture, as, for example, the feats of P.T. Barnum. Writers who employ the put-on include Terry Southern Calder Willingham, Bruce Jay Friedman, Thomas Pynchon, Joseph Heller. "Insult" comedians are another example; some of these are Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce.”

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A Translation Tool for (some of my) Viewers, Urban Dictionary:

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“Adventure Time” The (partial) Inspiration for developing an animated avatar for my rants and irritations:

— Holla Atcha’ Boy! —
— Contact Me Here —

[tothejazz]

I recently wrote this movie off for whatever reason. I sometimes feel paralyzed by how much there really is to learn.

[davidwattshere]

I've been thinking about this a lot as of late. I used to be in the CONCEPT IS KING camp, merit of the work be damned. I now believe it's akin to a guitarist that can play stairway to heaven but can't read music i.e. you can't master until you have foundations, by definition. The comparison to sports drew a specific link for me. It took me years to learn how to throw a slider over the plate with force, but art was always the everlasting idea that anyone can express themselves through a medium. But even kids in little league have to learn how to throw the ball through the strike zone. What I'm getting at is the rarity of the meritocracy outside of sports has left a vacuum and it is now up to those who care to fill, and evidently to benefit from. Great video dude.

[THEHRLEMSHKERS]

what a great video and by such a handsome man!

do you have an opinion on print on demand or similar services? from a quality standpoint and an ideological one im sayin'. i'm sure there's a quality argument to be made, but to me it feels anti elitist by eliminating "rare" shit like batches of 5 or 1 offs and ensuring there is never scarcity

[wifiretina]

maybe art needs more stats? more drama and battles in arenas. art teams competing and fantasy art.

[makeitsoproductions]

I've noticed two transitions in the social hierarchy between artists, so I think there's perhaps a little more nuance to this discussion. The first is what you described. A transfer from the bottom to a new bottom, which I think is what most artists experience. However, the second dialectical which is far more interesting to discuss is the artist that transfers from the bottom to being immediately at the top of a given social hierarchy. I live in a small town in Kansas so I've seen both. The rise to the top has been incredibly slow and arduous for me as a writer but I know a few visual artists who've found themselves at the top of the pyramid almost immediately out of high-school/college purely through personal connections, luck and a few lucky breaks. The lifestyle changes I've seen them go through are rapid. They went from that weirdo in school who nobody but fellow artists could connect with to that hot commodity who's sold some pieces and is going to make something of themselves nearly overnight. It's very difficult not to resent these people as an artist making the slow climb to worthiness. As Maya Angelou said, "the artist is born damned, and struggles through his (or her) life to achieve an ever-elusive redemption, by way of art”. However, I think this second paradigm of an artistic shift in social class presents a unique set of challenges and one that is not perhaps enviable. Do you have any comments or thoughts on this second class of artist?

Yours,
Reagan Cox

[BalthasarCarduelis]

When I first moved to Vancouver, I got a job at a certain commercial art gallery here. All the work was exhibited as a result of nepotistic glad-handing. Unsolicited artist-packages were simply laughed-at rather than considered. Less than half the work was actually good, and of the good work all of it was above the couch. Below the couch was obfuscated with mediocrity. When I voiced my concerns, I was replaced by a fresh young art student who made greenware pots that would have exploded in the kiln if they were fired.

[rorke]

Meritocracy is cool and all, but it's not anyone's fault that it isn't the MO. What would be considered corruption in government has obvious evolutionary advantages in many businesses and almost all social settings. Anyway, artists aren't the only ones that create culture--they certainly aren't the big players when it comes to reordering social heirarchies.