A video clip has been making the rounds recently where Rick Rubin sits cross-legged in a t-shirt, with a Santa Claus paunch and wisps of grey hair levitating from his temples. The interviewer, a coiffed Anderson Cooper, looks at him aghast and asks if he knows how to play an instrument? Maybe work a soundboard? Anything that would indicate an propensity to guide musical acts of multitudinous genres to critical and commercial success, as Rubin has done for the past four decades? With Malibu blue eyes, frazzle hair wafting, Rubin states that no, he has zero technical abilities of any kind. Then he lays out for us the one skill on which his entire career in music has been based:
Really enjoyed your thoughts on taste as a ceiling, and the often invisible work that goes into developing it. Also, your writing on Nabokov--you've spent some time with him, and it shows. Cheers!
Really enjoyed your thoughts on taste as a ceiling, and the often invisible work that goes into developing it. Also, your writing on Nabokov--you've spent some time with him, and it shows. Cheers!
Made me think “De gustibus non est disputandem” isn’t a derogatory comment, it’s a statement of fact.
Nabokov's style is incredible! I recommend his books to everyone
Marvellous essay. Very interesting and captivating. The references alone are "worth the trip". :)