Update: I forgot to say that I did not finish the book, though I did read about three quarters of it and it is an essay book, not one to be read in succession. Each essay is it’s own topic, its sort of like reading the newspaper in book form.
I know I said in my last post that nothing interesting in the art world is going on. That is not entirely true. A few months ago I reviewed someone’s book. That person found me on facebook, and continuously has been harassing me to take down a review I wrote about that book on amazon. It was the same one that I wrote on this blog, but at the time there were no other reviews on amazon and I was upset about my purchase.

SO, I have a dilemma. Do I take the review down because I feel bad? OR, do I keep it up because there are only two other reviews that were obviously put up by friends of the person? AND, my review has had 13 out of 15 people think it was helpful! The other one’s only have 0 out of 2 people thought it was helpful.

I sent him a message back telling him all that was wrong with facebooking someone to ask them to take down their review but said I understood that it’s hard enough to make it without negative reviews and that I would take it down. But I don’t know if morally I can do that. I feel bullied into taking it down, and I also feel like he knows that he has power in the art communities and I do not want to mess that up. This is the same problem I have with people who go on these sites that get paid or have friends that make the book sound like the greatest thing ever. I got solicited last year by a reviewing place who wanted me to come to a photo event and hype it up on my blog. Morally, I felt cornered and pushed with a free 500 dollars worth of portfolio reviews and I did not go. Usually I do not have moral obligations like this, but I feel a bit insulted. I will have to sleep on this…