Dancing About Architecture

I just listened to an older This American Life on my subway ride home from drinks with Stephanie in Hell's Kitchen. The episode, Numbers, was about trying to quantify things that are truly unquantifiable. Things like love, relationships, emotions... I thought the whole concept of the story was interesting, primarily because of how much emphasis we do put on numbers. As journalists, any story is better if it's backed with a stat. Sure, I can say 'macs are the computer of choice in Williamsburg' (and feel pretty confident about my statement) but I would have little grounds for a story just based on an inane observation. However, the second I find out that 76% of the electronics delivered to a 11211 zip code were Apples - suddenly I have the fundamentals of an interesting, albeit obvious, story. (Um, by the way: I made that up. But trust me, the hipsters love their Macbooks and I'm uniformly scorned for bringing my Toshiba into my local coffee shop.) I digress.

The piece was really interesting, because it looked at different people who had tried - via various methods - to use numbers or statistics to explain things much too vague for something so concrete. One story looked at a group of scientists who had used polling to try to create the most palatable song and piece of artwork. Another was about a man who, since the 1950s, had written down everything he had done each day of his life: Grocery store x2, talked on phone, etc. He did all this without ever examining the emotion of the day; he never discussed how he felt and what his feelings were. I think there are definitely a lot of things that over over-discussed and hyper-analyzed. Knowing that people like blue in paintings and like to see faces does not mean that you can create a piece of artwork that would stir the same emotions that I felt when I first saw a Van Gogh. Some things are not meant to be quantified. Although, honestly, while I feel much more security behind words, the same can be said for them. This may be why I never felt drawn to criticism; be it film, TV, books or food. While I have no problem holding a discussion about why I liked a movie or hated it, when I truly love something, sometimes I don't want to analyze that. When I go to an art museum - knowing very little about art history or critique - I can only go off what I feel. When I saw La Nuit Etoilee I didn't need to discuss what I was feeling, nor could I really put what I felt into words. I could qualify it by saying, 'I love how vivid the colors are,' or quantify it by saying I rate impressionism as a 10, in terms of styles. But really, all I wanted to say was 'wow' and keep staring.

Some things are really better left unquantified and some feelings can never be fully expressed with words.