Think about it: a brain surgeon can't be pretentious. His money is very, very much where his mouth is. His work is so on display, there is not another human being alive who can criticize it, except another brain surgeon. And a brain surgeon can't afford even one mistake, just as, say an airline pilot or an air traffic controller can.
But when you enter my world of experience, your eyes bug out at how pretentious it can be. See, I've been on both sides of pretentiousness; the pretender, and the critic of the pretender.
Let's start with art. Five years in a prestigious art school. I didn't know about anyone else, but many times, frankly, I just didn't get it. The teachers were in heavy competition with their students as to who could be more pretentious. If I could somehow win a prize in some "roll-your-eyes" competition, I'd be the winner, hands-down. The amount of pretentious bastards there were in the art world quite frankly blew me away.
These were people who relied on opinion alone; nothing else was needed. Maybe a B.A. in fine arts would qualify you (as it qualifies me) to babble about what is art and what is not art. Can you imagine a table of brain surgeons arguing about which artery to cut is the most efficient, or their opinion on which hemisphere is more aesthetically attractive, the left or the right?
But comparatively, the art world does require a tiny modicum of talent, that is, when you're not pulling the wool over someone's willing eyes. See, even there, I reread that sentence and said to myself "No, it doesn't require even a modicum of talent."
But let's get to my next area of "expertise" . . . the food world. In this world, everyone -- every single one -- is complicit in pretension. Pretending to be a good cook. Pretending to know how to run a restaurant. Pretending to possess the knowledge of what "good food" supposedly is.
A brain surgeon or an airline pilot cannot pretend. There is no judgment that can be rendered as to his "performance" other than "Did he do a good job?" The alternative is unthinkable.
But I, yes, I, have participated in some of the biggest shams of my short life. I've "pretended" to be an artist, pretended to criticize others' art of which I knew nothing, and pretended to others who knew nothing that I respected them while all the time knowing they knew nothing.
But it gets worse. In the food world there are several steps up, one of which is called "taste." And that is both literally and figuratively. No one eats a painting, or even smells it. So basically, the only "taste" involved is vision. But we sure know what good food is, don't we? It's salty, or not. It's sweet, or not. It's well presented, or not. You can't disguise food and say it's not salty when just one bite will confirm that it is.
So in that way, art and food are different. But not by much. People ask me "Oh, you're a food critic?" in the same reverence that one could say "Oh, you're a brain surgeon critic?" But I have to say "Yes," waiting for the request for official credentials that never come.
The truth is, I have no credentials, never went to a school which pretended to issue them, have no reason whatsoever to call myself a food critic any more than an art critic can call himself that; oh, okay, maybe he went to art school, but what can he actually DO other than open his mouth and opine, or pick up a pen and opine?
I'll tell you what this all means, if you're still reading. In the actual world, the one in which the brain surgeon performs a difficult 9-hour operation removing a dangerous tumour, I can go to a restaurant opening and munch a few things and drink as much as I can, for free, because I have put a sign over my door (business card, whatever) calling myself a "Restaurant reviewer," or whatever else I want to call myself, and then write a "review" of the place. Depending upon my level of collusion, I can trash the place or write it up as the next Daniel Boulud's.
Just depends on how much the restaurant wants to pay me.
Bottom line? One can go far with pretension. It requires almost no talent and no experience, and demands no proof of either. Too bad for you, and too bad for me, Michael Gwame, whose grandfather died unexpectedly, leaving a $45-million fortune, of which I'll give you 80% if only you will give me your bank account details.
No comments:
Post a Comment