The Journey Of An Aesthete is here!

photo by my producer Laurie Jill Strickland

This post is the official announcement of my new podcast: Journey Of An Aesthete. Since there is a lot of me talking on the first episode I will keep my comments brief.

The perspective of my podcast is of all the arts and letters, what can be called the humanities more generally and above all, what it is to make something and the nature of the creative act. I hope to cover a lot of disciplines and medium, but usually from the creator's perspective. I believe this perspective is lacking today since usually there is a suspicious, interrogative tone to much writing on the arts today and I hope in however small a way to counteract this. Not that there won't be critics on my show, (and, of course, writers of non-fiction more generally) but this will be to look at criticism itself as a form of creation.

Here is a link to the first episode. It is available on Breaker, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic, Spotify, and Stitcher


https://anchor.fm/mitch-hampton

I should give special thanks to the fine folks at Anchor.Fm since they have invented a simple way to create a podcast like this one and for a minimum of technological hurdles, perfect for a semi-luddite and digital immigrant like myself. Laurie Jill Strickland is the producer/show creator without whom none of this would be even possible.

The first episode is appropriately titled Because, After All, One Must Begin...

Journey of an Aesthete: New Project!

As much as I critique or flat our rail against many (though not all) contemporary things I am about to head into arguably that most contemporary medium of all: the world of podcasting. What is the podcast going to be about? In short it will be a comprehensive look at all that is artistic production and creativity, mainly from the point of view of those who make things: the authors of all of it, whether these be individuals, collectives, production companies and all the rest. My focus will be on my greatest love: aesthetics. An alternative to the psychological and political orientation of other programs I want to immerse the listener in the creative process as this is understood by those who make things.

I open my first show with a longish quote from Isaiah Berlin on the need for pluralism, if only because pluralism is a natural and/or cultural fact of life, whether this or that government, regime recognizes this fact or not. Thus I want to feature aesthetics that are different from one another and in all sorts of ways, Hopefully I will talk to people in various mediums as well.

One of the things that makes this all possible is Anchor.fm. Much like the thinking behind the original Apple company, it aims to make things "user friendly" for folks like myself who are as far from tech or computer mavens as you can imagine! Another big impetus behind the podcast will be my producer Laurie Jill Strickland http://www.grayceproductions.com/registry. Strickland has done so many things from acting to producing and writing and as such is an ideal person to produce what I hope will be an aesthetically diverse show.

I recently came across a quote from Hannah Arendt, another favorite thinker and writer of mine, alongside Isaiah Berlin (and in true Libra form, Berlin strongly disliked Arnedt - yet i love them both equally). It is one of the better statements i have read on this thing we call the arts:

"If one looks at objects in the world from the perspective of their durability, it is clear that artworks are superior to all other objects. Even after millennia they have the ability to shine for us, as they did on the day that brought them into the world." Hannah Arendt, Culture and Politics

Look for the debut of this June 24th.