Okay, time for me to make good on my threats. I'm basically in the same boat as Jesse on this, yes. My thinking about high art and low art has been influenced by reading Nabokov's "Good Readers and Good Writers" at exactly the right age (20, which is basically like reading Prufrock at 15). If you've never read it, it's here in HTML and here as an easier-to-read PDF. This passage in particular is on point, I think (not sure I can blockquote here):

"There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines these three—storyteller, teacher, enchanter—but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer."

"To the storyteller we turn for entertainment, for mental excitement of the simplest kind, for emotional participation, for the pleasure of traveling in some remote region in space or time. A slightly different though not necessarily higher mind looks for the teacher in the writer. Propagandist, moralist, prophet—this is the rising sequence. We may go to the teacher not only for moral education but also for direct knowledge, for simple facts. Alas, I have known people whose purpose in reading the French and Russian novelists was to learn something about life in gay Paree or in sad Russia. Finally, and above all, a great writer is always a great enchanter, and it is here that we come to the really exciting part when we try to grasp the individual magic of his genius and to study the style, the imagery, the pattern of his novels or poems."

I'm not going to say anything that Nabokov didn't put better, but my contention is simply that some artists are enchanters, most are not, the difference isn't entirely subjective, and the difference matters. Genre fiction, plot-driven fiction, whatever you want to call it, are written by writer-as-storyteller, content to "try to squeeze the best they can out of a given order of things, out of traditional patterns of fiction." Collins, I believe, is a storyteller. Crichton was always writer-as-teacher; at his best, in Jurrassic Park he managed to be teacher and storyteller. He was never an enchanter. (Mark Twain was.)

Nabokov's ideas about how to approach a work of art are similar to what you turned away from at SFMOMA--there's a right way to do it--but I don't think they're arrogant or condescending. Everyone has works of art or kitsch that they respond to strongly for personal reasons. We all have weak points, raw nerves that respond to even the crudest pokes and prods. (And because everyone has these things, I agree that the Talking Heads video is arrogant and condescending.) I believe that the woman you saw at the art museum would have responded similarly to any photo of the buildings she remembered, no matter how poorly composed it was, don't you? Because it wasn't about the photos, for her, it was about her life. By the same token, when a greeting card makes Jesse tear up, I think it's fair to say that almost any expression of the same sentiment would provoke the same reaction; it hits a nerve. That's the author's intent: mission accomplished.

But there is a difference between that reaction and the spine-tingle Nabokov talks about, and surely you know the difference when you feel it. If you make the effort to remain "a little aloof" (and note that it's just a little aloof) from a greeting card, the writer will lose his grasp on you completely. With great art, becoming a little detached only deepens your appreciation and enjoyment. Where that line falls may be slightly different between people (though obviously I draw it at exactly the right point) but it's nuts to pretend it doesn't exist at all. If the issue is making it a hard line, think of it as a continuum--one that moves as we become better readers. It does imply a value judgment; enchanters are superior to teachers and storytellers. But Maus is better than Watchmen is better than Archie, whether you call them comics or comix or graphic novels--is that really a disputable statement? I don't mean "better for you," by the way, I mean "more pleasurable"--you're exactly right that distinguishing between enlightenment and entertainment is silly.

I suspect that some of the reason this issue is so vexed is because there was a time I liked Watchmen better than Maus, and at a certain age would have preferred Archie. As I learned to read more closely, the things that gave me pleasure changed--but the enjoyment I got from reading increased. (The same is true for film; in the last five years or so, the kinds of films I enjoy have changed dramatically, but when I love a movie now, it's a stronger emotion than I had about my favorite films when I was just out of college. And that isn't because I have more experiences for filmmakers to prod and poke, unless you think there's a lot in Andrei Rublev that I can relate to; it's because I watch more closely.) This doesn't have to do with children's literature versus adult literature or genre condescension or whatever: I think The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists is a better film than The Hunger Games (and a much better film than American Beauty) and would have felt differently ten years ago. So when I meet someone who prefers Watchmen there's something of "I was like you, once, but then became wiser." But it's not (entirely) arrogance, it's more like "If you liked that, this will really blow your mind.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of the Nabokov essay.