Conjuring Vulnerability
This morning's reading:
"Adjectival styles often succeed in nonfiction descriptions of firsthand experience. A cellist calls on adjectives…to answer the question, "How do the members of a string quartet play together and tour together year in and year out, without killing each other?" Below, the adjectives are italicized...
Conversely, there is a danger that individual criticisms can become destructively hurtful and bitter. If they are voiced too harshly and personally, no one ends up in a fit state to play. After all, the deep feelings conjured up when we play great music already make us feel vulnerable. In addition, nearly all playing requires maximum self-confidence and complete physical ease and relaxation, even (or especially) in music of great intensity and ardour, or that is rapturous or celebratory…
David Waterman, "Four's a Crowd"
From Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style Virginia Tufte 2006