A Post I Can't Bring Myself To Illustrate With Pictures

Reviewing the arts, to me, entails a lot of things; both in the sense of the physical reviewing process and the mental needs of reviewing. Having just one aspect of a review whether it be technically perfect or strong in content, is not enough to make a good review; both pieces are necessary. Even if you follow the cake recipe perfectly the end result will taste terrible enough you use the right ingredients.

The physical needs of reviewing are critical in crafting a good review. A good reviewer is must seamlessly enter an artistic space and be able to blend in but be a fly on the wall at the same time. If a reviewer sticks out to much he may not be able to get a true sense of the space, but if you get to comfortable in your space then the review is at risk of losing its objectivity. If a reviewer loses their objectivity the review itself is in peril, although from a persona reviewing standpoint I feel I am always teetering on the edge of falling into a personal rant.

Reviewing requires the ability to walk into a space, performance, screening, or other artistic venue and be able to quickly pick up the sense of the space. While you can’t immediately draw conclusions after walking into a space, you need to be able to gleam a general feeling from the venue. After mapping your initial reactions a good reviewer needs to be able to take those veins and follow them to the heart of whatever is being reviewed. A good reviewer is able to both explain the space broadly then also delve deeper into what the space is about. Getting to the deeper meaning within the object, event, exhibition, or media that you are reviewing is the key to the piece altogether. A surface level reviewer will simply explain that base feeling they received upon a quick scan of the space and fail to go any deeper.

From going back and reading through my blogs from this class I feel like I have, for the most part, been able to fulfill both the physical and mental requirements of writing strong reviews. I have however fallen into multiple traps along the way, many of which I set for myself. I would often use too much “I” as I fail in my attempts at removing myself from the review, most of which intentionally. I feel like this class has solidified my writing style in which I am always the main character. While this may be cocky, or even just bad reviewing, I feel like no matter what I write I can never fully remove myself. I also feel like this isn’t always a bad thing.

In reviewing one should never remove themselves. Reviews are not, and should not, be written by robots. The point of reviews is to get someone’s (hopefully an educated someone) take on a certain thing. In the end we are looking for their response to it, what they thought about it, what it made them feel. All of these things go against the idea of removing oneself from said review.
Thanks for all of your support in guidance Doug! I think the assignments did a good job of covering a wide spectrum of the reviewing world and I had fun being able to read the actual assignment and then take it in whatever direction I wanted to. So thank you also for allowing me to that! Not all teachers are as accommodating when students take over the assignments; you’re definitely one of the best English teachers I’ve ever had (and that’s not just to raise my grade, I honestly mean it!). I also hope you enjoyed my random links, I wanted to give you a few good distractions from grading all those Review Essays.

P.S. Don’t count the Red Sox out yet! I’m feeling a strong post- All Star game surge.