[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

That's not what I'm talking about at all. Your book was created FOR an audience - it is intended to be a shared experience between you and the audience. That experience is the work, not the words on the page - and that experience is impossible without the audience. Now, maybe there are different philosophies than mine, but I don't think its possible for art to have meaning without an audience - and that's what I'm talking about.

An audience gives art a large portion of one aspect of its experience, but it is not the only -- and certainly not the most important -- aspect. That doesn't change the fact, though, that art relies on surprise and newness to generate a lot of that interest, and if the audience is arguing that they are owed a certain kind of experience from the artist, they're simply wrong.

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Shockingly enough this thread has become a replay of debates in the French Academy circa 1700.

I was thinking the same thing.

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

you paid for HBO, right? what you don't pay for in time (watching commercials) you paid for in actual money to watch the show. commercials or not, you paid something to see this show. it's a tv show all the same.

Right, I pay for the right to watch what HBO broadcasts. Sometimes they broadcast things that are designed solely to please as many people as possible -- Spiderman 2, for example -- and sometimes they broadcast things that are targeted for a narrower audience, such as The Sopranos. As an audience member, I have no more right to dictate the experience I receive than any other viewer -- I can write and complain or praise, but that doesn't change the fact that I have no real role in the process, and the creators can see fit to listen to my concerns or ignore them at their pleasure. Just because I paid to receive the channel doesn't mean they owe me anything other than whatever they choose to air, some of which is not going to be in line with my personal aesthetic.