greil marcus on the job of the critic.Theo van ‘s poster for a Dada soirée, ca 1923.

If one can stop looking at the past and start listening to it, one might hear echoes of a new conversation; then the task of the critic would be to lead speakers and listeners unaware of each other’s existence to talk to one another. The job of the critic would be to maintain the ability to be surprised at how the conversation goes, and to communicate that sense of surprise to other people, because a life infused with surprise is better than a life that is not.

— Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century