# Can anybody easily understand Leo Bloom? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2018, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203 "2018-06-16T14:04:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/81 "2018-06-18T18:16:49Z")
Yeah, that was…nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/82 "2018-06-18T18:22:12Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Yeah, that was…nuts. Creative, though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/83 "2018-06-18T18:31:36Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > To continue the hijack: Your argument is fine as far as it goes, and no one is ever going to successfully come up with an objective definition of art, let alone good or bad art. But one can make approximations: it’s hard to meaningfully describe art without using words like “imagination”, “beauty”, and “emotion”, with the implication that the _ **skillful** _ deployment of the former is a prerequisite to producing the latter. The problem with your argument as a refutation of what I said is that I’m making the _a priori_ assumption that certain endeavors will have an overwhelming consensus judging them to be “bad”. When this happens, it’s generally attributable to failure to produce those desirable latter qualities due to lack of the necessary creative prerequisites. Good or bad can’t and don’t need to have objective definitions in art theory. A priori _assumptions_ of an ‘overwhelming consensus’ may very often have a detrimental effect on a discussion of art theory, because it overlooks a very important aspect of what constitutes a work of art: intention. So I think my problem with your argument is that you look for certain attributes in art, then decide if it is good or bad or _even_ art. In a sense it is completely arbitrary what you consider art. I let art show me what it is, then I decide if I like it or not and try to figure out why. If it is or isn’t art doesn’t even cross my mind, because it should be obvious that it is, since that’s what the creator calls it and chose to present it as. (Btw, I disagree with the notion that skill, beauty, emotion, or imagination for that sake, are necessary components to art. It really, really - one more time for emphasis - really! depends. Good art can be fucking ugly, it can be devoid of emotion, it can be dreadfully boring. And also stupid, annoying, juvenile, shitty.) > [@wolfpup](#): > > This is not the same as new art forms initially having difficulty getting accepted. Your example of rock music was not a good example of the putative arbitrariness of art, if that’s what the point was, because, whether one liked such music or not, it manifestly required creative skill and imagination to produce (you had to be able to play an instrument, you had to be able to write lyrics, you had to be able to sing) and sought to touch some aspect of our emotions. Yes it does, since the former difficulty of getting accepted has often been the result of it not being understood or brushed off as not art, simply rubbish, garbage. My example wasn’t really rock music, though, it was noise music. Which is considered a form of music that doesn’t necessarily need _skillful_ application of sound to still be considered music. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Something just rubs me the wrong way about applying the word “creative” to anything that is broadly judged to be worthless. My view is that this is only true in a very narrow technical sense; in broader, more practical terms, “creative” and “bad” are mutually exclusive, at least in the sense that if something fails as art, there are much more appropriate adjectives than “creative” to describe it. To cite your example, if someone thinks that setting fire to a pile of money is “art”, the word “creative” would not be my adjective of choice to describe it, even though it was indeed an act that was first imagined and then created. I would prefer to use the word “stupid”. And that’s how I regard the writing in question here, simply an affectation that deliberately obfuscates, and does so with no apparent skill and to no apparent purpose. The word “annoying” is much more appropriate than “creative”. This is just plain wrong. Plenty of ‘bad’ stuff is creative. There is no inherent ‘goodness’ about creativity. Trump is pretty creative, and is apparently reaching his audience effectively. I wouldn’t call his prose good by any standard. Annoying can be creative too, same with ‘stupid’, as the K foundation proved by burning that million – They even managed to avoid prosecution for it! Read their how-to cookbook (context, which reveals intention) on how they made that million and you’ll realize they’re not stupid and in fact pretty darn creative, if really annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/84 "2018-06-18T18:33:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Creative, though. 🙂 😃 That topic header really intrigued me! I’ve been really into bad, incoherent prose lately… ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/85 "2018-06-18T19:10:45Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > If this is your new “thing”, it will quickly become far more annoying than the quarry or “regards”. Once is funny, twice is driving the joke into the ground with a sledge hammer. Oofff. Don’t know about the quarry, but being compared to the “Regards” cuts to the bone. If that’s not a signal to dial it back, I don’t know what the hell is. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/86 "2018-06-18T21:56:24Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > Oofff. Don’t know about the quarry, but being compared to the “Regards” cuts to the bone. If that’s not a signal to dial it back, I don’t know what the hell is. See, Quarry/Regards/Leo-types, THIS is how a mature Denizen of the Dope reacts to constructive criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/87 "2018-07-12T17:02:46Z")
[Holy fuck, he’s a professional editor](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21080854&postcount=11). ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/88 "2018-07-12T17:17:03Z")
Is there a term for a sentence stapled together with so many commas it would make Strunk and White cry? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/89 "2018-07-12T18:40:04Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Is there a term for a sentence stapled together with so many commas it would make Strunk and White cry? Yeah, and if you take the trouble to gnaw on it, you notice that in that one sentence he starts out in past tense, moves to present tense, then moves to past tense again. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/90 "2018-07-12T19:02:12Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Holy fuck, he’s a professional editor](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21080854&postcount=11). Note: he didn’t say what he was a professional editor _of_. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/91 "2018-07-12T21:10:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Holy fuck, he’s a professional editor](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21080854&postcount=11). No doubt working for _Obfuscation Quarterly_. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203/92 "2018-07-12T21:31:39Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Holy fuck, he’s a professional editor](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21080854&postcount=11). Maybe he ingests so much bad writing in his job he has to purge here to get relief. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anybody-easily-understand-leo-bloom/816203.md?page=4)