In a message dated 8/18/01 12:41:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< 
 Let's say I walk down the street and shoot someone dead.  This is, I should
 point out, about as unlikely an event as you could possibly imagine, but,
 you know, hey, we all have bad moods, I guess somehow it could happen (this
 would involve finding a gun and being interested in knowing how to use it,
 but let's not get bogged down in pedantry).  By your definition this is Art.
 Serial killers may sympathise with the perspective, but I doubt you'd get
 too many others on board.
  >>
  It would, by my definition, only be art if someone, who saw you accomplish 
the shooting (hopefully of an Amy Lowell scholar), were in some way changed 
by it on a fundamental level.  Thus, the shooting of a Vietnamese soldier on 
T.V. was art, and so was the act of Buddhist immolation.  I can live (forgive 
the poor taste of that word) with that as a definition.  What we are really 
after, I believe, is what the hell makes GOOD art.

Fiat Pax Et Lux,
Michael