Now that's all very well and good of course for the visual arts, but for poetry and writing of any kind, concessions have to made for intelligibility. If no one can understand a word of what you've written you might as well have not wasted paper and ink. So the object for the poet is to be able to express the emotions he or she wants to convey by putting together words that may or may not have anything to do with the end result individually, but together generate or convey a feeling.

Of course, what I've written could also be a load of crap posing as an intellectual dissertation on the nature of art, or it could actually stem from an effort to communicate an idea to you. How did it make you feel? Did it piss you off? Did it make you feel like I was a jerk off? Or did it strike a chord of recognition?

You don't know if I'm sitting here typing this with a self-satisfied smirk on my face thinking, "Doesn't that sound great, aren't I brilliant, and nobody is going to understand a word of this so I'll sound even smarter." Or maybe I'm sincerely trying to communicate an idea that I find really important. Wouldn't it be nice if you could hear me saying the words so you had an idea of whether or not I'm sincere?

Which is the point I'm trying to make about Viggo Mortensen and listening to him read his poetry as opposed to just reading it on the pages of a book. If we go by the thesis proposed above about the reader or the viewer just reacting, then you can argue both for and against hearing him read as opposed to reading it yourself.

There are people who would make the argument that after an artist finishes with a creation, he/she surrenders it to the interpretation of others and they should have no say in the matter, let alone offer spoken renditions to cloud the observer's ability to form an impression.

I personally think the argument that listening to the writer read his work is erecting a barrier of interpretation between the audience and the work is a load of crap.

This That And The Other is a compilation of tracks assembled from four amazing discs that Viggo and Buckethead (the musical genius with the KFC headgear and mask preserving his secret identity, and the mind behind Bucketheadland) have produced over the years combining Viggo reading his poetry over musical compositions that their two minds, plus some friends, have come up with.