why "i'm trying to get into that" is the most beautiful phrase in the english language

the reasons may not be what you think!!

How charming and embarrassing is being "open minded"? Is there any other term that is so necessary for our existence as human beings in society and culture that is simultaneously full of cheesy connotations?

That is on a general level. Specifically, is there anything more embarrassing than buying a Bob Marley album?

In one way, I think that being "open minded" (like so many other things in this blog) needs to be kept in quotation marks, because it really is a morally questionable value. I am not a fan (lightly put) of cultural relativism, of the pretense of tolerance, of an undifferentiated taste, etc.

On the other hand, we need to get into new things. We need to find out that certain things are not worth getting into. We need to abandon some things as we get older, and realize what is still cool about the things that will always matter.

I'd like to emphasize "trying" to get into something. Maybe it won't work. It's not even "I want to get into that" or "that's something I want to learn more about." It's already an experiment in taste as an effort, as something acquired.

Now, lest all this sound obvious--which is always the criticism I got from Jeanette-- let me say there is a certain value in these blanket statements which I don't think are *quite* platitudes. I think a platitude is like, "We need to learn to understand each other," or "you never know what is really important until you've lost it." Even worse, and very typical, are mere cliches to which can be produced an equally accurate truth--as is inevitably the case with the proverbial ("two heads are better than one" vs "too many cooks in the kitchen..."). What I think Jeanette was failing to understand, and that it requires a frank unembarrassment to overcome, is the value of a number of very basic propositions, just as a good amount of the supposedly Canonical goes ignored because it is shameful. Now, in this blog at least, I pose as a fairly UNembarrassed person, but I have to resist the tendency to be aloof and superior as regards statements or tastes that, while requiring some deconstruction and qualification, are necessary. Hence, open-mindedness. Open-mindedness to the idea of being open minded.

Now, place all this in the context of what you know about me and those prejudices of mine which I am *not* open to reconsidering, and you will get a fair idea of what I mean here. For example, I think post-Wes Anderson/indie-rock/hipster-lite/20-something/Pitchfork culture offers a great deal to INDUCE VOMITING, ditto the bourgeois and the midwest and LA, and I think that open-mindedness as a variation on pretension is so rampant as to obscure the good faith I am proposing.