Vik Rubenfeld's Author Blog - Latest Comments

Re: 50 Rudyard Kipling Poems Discovered!

Vik Rubenfeld — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:36:12 -0000

Thanks for the like, MSFowle! And congrats on your successful Share the Love campaigns. link: http://msfowle.wordpress.co...

Hmm.... I need a plugin that lets comments include rich text, like proper web links underneath text. Must research...

Re: Amazon’s Advice about How to Sell Books on Amazon

PatriotsOfMars — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:56:06 -0000

RT @VikRubenfeld: Amazon's advice about how to sell books on Amazon: http://t.co/IdYyeTHX

Re: Social E-Reading - the Ability to Be In Touch With Other People Reading the Same Book You Are

AutismMumEire — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:11:24 -0000

RT @VikRubenfeld: Social E-Reading - the Ability to Be In Touch With Other People Reading the Same Book You Are: http://t.co/lq5exJbG

Re: What Paper Books Can Do that e-Books Still Can’t

AutismMumEire — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:10:52 -0000

RT @VikRubenfeld: What Paper Books Can Do that e-Books Still Can't: http://t.co/mEhzjSYd

Re: Amazon’s Advice about How to Sell Books on Amazon

ChrisMawbey — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:46:07 -0000

RT @VikRubenfeld: Amazon's advice about how to sell books on Amazon: http://t.co/IdYyeTHX

Re: Here Comes the Twitter Fiction Festival

PattiMcGhee — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 02:14:49 -0000

RT @VikRubenfeld: Here Comes the Twitter Fiction Festival: http://t.co/dVhIIVOP

Re: Site Launch Post

VikRubenfeld — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:32:38 -0000

Thanks for your comment, Lowell. You make a very important point. There is an undeniable lack of ability to measure art. At the same time, as I try to show in the examples on this site, there is such a thing as achievement in art that can be appreciated and felt, even thought it can't be intellectually measured as you point out. This is why the work of Shakespeare, Verdi, Henry Fielding, Van Gogh, and so many others, is appreciated and loved to this day.

Re: Site Launch Post

lowellthomson — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 03:13:04 -0000

Very worthy sentiments. I figure art is an attempt to express a wide variety of emotional and personal sentiments in a singular medium or joint media; however, due to humanity's inherent tendency to group for the security of numbers, art often informs and underlies a group's overall identity, as any jointly appreciated activity can.

Thus the undeniable lack of ability to measure art in any qualitative terms; it truly is in the eye of the beholder, as opposed to popular reception, a commercial yardstick.

Re: It’s Played at Every Wedding – But Did You Know Where it Comes From?

Lesssnowplease — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:53:46 -0000

Having been married in the catholic church we were not allowed to use the wedding march. however, you hear the music and all those starting a new life feelings are invoked

Re: Bet You Didn’t Know They Talked About Sex Like This in the 1800′s (Emotional Insight from Walt Whitman)

Vik Rubenfeld — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:22:35 -0000

Yes. I was actually surprised to see this.

Re: Emotional Insight from Earnest Hemingway

Vik Rubenfeld — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:20:47 -0000

I hear you.

Re: Emotional Insight from Earnest Hemingway

Lesssnowplease — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:31:28 -0000

love hemmingway. not so much a fan of this one

Re: Bet You Didn’t Know They Talked About Sex Like This in the 1800′s (Emotional Insight from Walt Whitman)

Lesssnowplease — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:26:30 -0000

funny how the perception is that in the "good old days" these things were not discussed.

Re: The Appreciation of Art is a Use of Emotional Ability (with an Example from F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Vik Rubenfeld — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:55:55 -0000

I found that part of Gatsby I was talking about. It's fine - there's no logical anomaly to it at all. It's in Chapter 4, where Nick drives to NY to have lunch with Gatsby and meets Wolfsheim. I just reread it and it's all perfectly logical. :)

Re: The Appreciation of Art is a Use of Emotional Ability (with an Example from F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Vik Rubenfeld — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:55:49 -0000

IIRC, there's even a big logical anomaly in the middle of it. At the end of one chapter he's in a car, and at the beginning of the next he's in a restaurant, and it doesn't really seem to make sense. I'm dashing out now but I'll try to look it up later.

OTOH, emotionally the novel is fantastic. :)

Re: Interview with Yours Truly Today on the Great Site, “I’m a Book Shark”

Vik Rubenfeld — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:53:11 -0000

You're very welcome, Mickey!

Re: Interview with Yours Truly Today on the Great Site, “I’m a Book Shark”

Mickey@imabookshark — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:24:00 -0000

Thanks so much for being on the blog! :o)

Re: The Appreciation of Art is a Use of Emotional Ability (with an Example from F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Geaaronson — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:58:55 -0000

Yes, his prose is poetic, but his novel is flawed,has a very one-sided cynical view of the upper crust and a bit shallow in its understanding of humanity. Like Hemingway said, "Yeah, they have more money"

Re: The Appreciation of Art is a Use of Emotional Ability (with an Example from F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Vik Rubenfeld — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:26:11 -0000

@Gent258, you are right. Fitzgerald is poetic. Mark Twain is too I think.

Re: The Appreciation of Art is a Use of Emotional Ability (with an Example from F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Gent258 — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:58:18 -0000

Fitzgerald's writing has a beauty, an elegance that borders on poetry although it is prose. I don't know how many times I have read and enjoyed this book, and now it is one of my daughter's favorite books, too.

Re: Book-A-Licious Features an Interview with Yours Truly Today

Vik Rubenfeld — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:27 -0000

Glad to do it!

Re: Book-A-Licious Features an Interview with Yours Truly Today

CYP @ A Bookalicious Story — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:39:10 -0000

Welcome! And thanks for agreeing to the interview and doing the giveaway on my blog! And posting about it.:D

Re: An Example of Emotional Insight (from Renoir)

VikRubenfeld — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:45:46 -0000

Thanks very much, Ken. It is fascinating to look into what makes a work of art. I have several more posts coming up soon featuring great paintings, and would be interested in any thoughts you may have about them.

Re: An Example of Emotional Insight (from Renoir)

Ken Preston — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:56:47 -0000

Interesting post, Vik. As someone who studied Fine Art at university (many moons ago) I often get asked my opinion on works of art which are featured in the news (eg, in the Turner Prize, or controversial works, such as Tracy Emin's Unmade Bed) and I struggle to articulate why a piece of work might, or might not, have value.
What you posted here made me look at the Renoir painting again, and appreciate it a little more.
Ultimately I always try to impress on people that I enjoy a work of art if I can find something in it that interests me, or that resonates with me.
But as your post here illustrates, a little context always helps.

Re: Site Launch Post

VikRubenfeld — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:45:48 -0000

Testing site comment system.