A pact with Pooorverty
You want to be what? A critic…? (Being an extended version of a ‘mentoring letter’ that I was asked by me friend Ita for her magazine, Muse’) Dear Comrade-to-be, Shall I humour you with a lie? I was really silently bemused albeit rankled by your expressed desire to work as an art critic after your graduation. If you had observed closely, there was this bold improbability sitting at the corner of my mouth in response to your statement. Oh, you saw it? You thought it was a sign of approval? Wrong, friend! And there goes your first lesson in arts criticisms… always seek the inner (hideous, if you like) meanings of statements and actions; except if such was made by an angel! Left to me anyway, even the angel should be probed further. … Well as I was saying; being an arts writer (or arts critic as you have called it) is like signing a pact with poverty… please, do not be scared. All I mean is: it is pretty difficult to get a job anywhere to operate optimally, efficacious or even p...