THE BANE OF BARTLETT'S

It hasn't been that long since I left college and the echos of my professors' words are still ringing in my ears. Some of my teachers were truly inspired with lofty rhetoric that stuck in my gut like grits. Others were, to use my little nephew Moses' favorite word,  'lame'.

I went to an art school and if you ever want to meet a group of bitter failures just register for a painting class. Painters are the worst. They all pretend that they are so sublimely important and it was only the cruel mistress of fate that forced them into the indignity of a day job.

I guess not all the painting instructors. Only the male ones in their forties with tenure. 

You get the feeling that the only place they ever get to wield any authority is in front of a gaggle of tattooed undergraduates. You can always spot a busted and deflated painter because the first thing they do in class is show you their work. It's always so sad because after the third or fourth slide it becomes pretty obvious to everyone that the poor slob hasn't had a show in years. 

These guys always talk about the same thing, how true quality is ignored by the ignorant vicars of culture and you get the sense that they really believe they can correct these injustices by pontificating to teenagers. 

After about 3 or 4 weeks of class you begin to feel a distinct pattern emerging. You start to realize that your professor, in lieu of any discernible technical skills, has what seems like a bottomless reservoir of illuminating quotations from the great artists of yore.

"Art is the lie that reveals the truth!" they roar with what might appear to a visiting parent as something resembling conviction.

"Genius is nothing but childhood recovered at will," another warhorse that I think I even heard on an episode of the Simpsons.

If you're lucky enough to get a particularly insecure teacher you may hear this chestnut from Rimbaud delivered with stentorian mispronunciation:

 "Il s'agit d'arriver à l'inconnu par le dérèglement de tous les sens." 



 You won't, however, find out what it means unless you have one of those private school types in your class and they'll surely blurt it out in no time, corrections and all.

A lot people - I suppose the mediocre majority - have to have some outlet where that can pretend to a certain level of leadership. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as they can lord it over someone else.

It is the ecology of PTA activism, small town government, sewing circles, personal development coaching and the priesthood.

But as my dad used to say:

 "Those who can, write. Those who can't, quote."