When I joined the Kansas City art scene as The Star's art critic in 1991, I encountered a small, but serious community of artists, curators, collectors and patrons poised to realize some big plans for developing the city's art resources.
Heaven knows our cultural reputation declines when prominent former Missourians like John Ashcroft decide to cover a bare-breasted historical statue, or Calvin Trillin gasses on in The New Yorker about his nostalgic attachment to the American Hereford Association's landmark plastic bull.
But from the moment I arrived here it was clear to me that the rube stereotype outsiders were prone to apply was a misrepresentation.
In a nutshell: What is the function of newspaper literary criticism at the present time? To help readers decide how best to spend the time they have, reading well -- for pleasure, knowledge, inspiration, enlightenment. And personally, my favorite thing is probably finding a gem of a book that no one has noticed and sharing my enthusiasm for it with readers. The most important thing is to create a dialogue involving writers, poets, readers and critics. And the scope of that dialogue is huge. You know, there are tens of thousands of books published every year -- far more books in any given 12-month period than there are movies, or art shows, or classical concerts in a given city. So the book critic for any publication is in the unique position of helping shape the intellectual landscape. Even the task of choosing which books to review is a big responsibility, and I take it seriously. But I learn from readers, too. That's the dialogue. It's how we learn: We keep talking.
My beat has developed into covering the width and breadth of popular culture. What is that? It's a lot. I've written articles and reviews out of all these beats, reviewed hundreds of concerts, films and plays. And the thing is, these high arts all sprang from the pop culture of their day. Don't forget, Shakespeare was once Spielberg.
Oddly enough, this varied experience with the high and low arts has allowed me to synthesize and juxtapose a cavalcade of trends -- from the influence of Don Knotts on Western civilization (insecure nebbish as folk hero) to public fascination with reality TV dating shows (emotional brutality as post-modern entertainment) to the shaky future of comic books (underappreciated art form as fodder for Hollywood hits, including "Road to Perdition" and "Spider-Man").
As I peer into the world of arts and entertainment, I'm always looking for that piece of junk that could be a jewel in disguise. Who can say which of today's crowd-pleasing diversions fighting for exposure in the media slipstream is destined to become a classic? A Pokemon or an Elvis?
The search for significance can lead anywhere. And that's why I write about it.