The 9.5

An old buddy in grad school used to say that something artistic can never be perfect. You can always make it better.

He also said that it is impossible to say that when things are so good, it is impossible to separate them or to say that one is better. When things reach this standard, he would call it a 9.5 or a "nine-five."

Once things reach the status of a 9.5, they cannot be debated as to which is better.

For example, to debate if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is better than The Godfather or Jaws is a waste of time. The are all 9.5s.

I thought about this when someone mentioned a new U2 album coming out and it might be their best ever. Well to debate something better than The Joshua Tree is futile. It's a 9.5. Maybe the new album will be a 9.5. Maybe it won't.

I also thought about this when watching No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. They are both very good movies, but they are lacking just enough so that I think they are not worthy of a 9.5. Possibly 9s, but not 9.5s.

For me, Once is a 9.5. as is Boogie Nights.

There are films that are 9.5s and a few dozen albums, and athletes can even be 9.5s. Ruth and Mays are/were 9.5s for example as was Secretariat.

Hopefully this makes sense to people.

 

Disagrees.

 

And I disagree with a 10.

 

I'll see you and raise you a 10

 

Maybe 10.5, maybe 10.

NOT 9.5

Copout in the purest of senses.

 

Hey, that horse lost races.

 

Maybe we ought distinguish between measurable competition and art for the purpose of this discussion?

 

True.

The 9.5 should just be limited to art which is judged by opinion and not a watch or scoreboard.

 

But these go to 11.

 

Well, if the best things ever were a 9.5 to this guy, then that's really in his mind a 10. If there's no perfect, but these things are as close to perfect as it gets, then the 9.5 means a 10.

 

Whew, at first I thought the Big One had hit the West Coast.

 

In what universe has U2 produced something of a 9.5 level? Certainly not this one.