[littlemanpoet]

Aiwendil: Apparently, I am using "aesthetic beauty" more broadly than you. In my view, humor is aesthetically pleasing in its own way.

I was recently listening to a tape on Tolkien, from Mars Hill, and an incidental remark came up that the words "amuse" and "muse" are related as opposites. "Muse" is a source of inspiration. "Amuse" is, literally, "no muse"; that is, not inspiration, but the displacement of inspiration. Thus, amusement was originally understood to be the opposite of creativity, hence, of the process of art. Of course, time has worn its typical ravages upon language, and now we talk about the art of amusement. This is just one more instance that bears out Tolkien's view that language has become less able to do its job as it has developed, contrary to what is generally believed to be true about language.

The Saucepan Man: Beauty remains in the eye of the beholder.

I love it when someone uses this aphorism, because it is assumed to be an obvious truth whereas it is no such thing. Rather, it belies the whole philosophy of the human subject as the arbiter of truth (and beauty). This aphorism grew out of humanistic renaissance philosophy, not out of some inherent understanding of reality. Obviously, the aphorism suggests that beauty is relative, whereas no such opinion can claim to be fact. By contrast I would suggest that "Beauty is in the eye of the Designer", who designed both human ability to perceive beauty, and beauty itself.

The Saucepan Man: Surely if someone finds something "enjoyable", it is "good" in their mind?

"In their mind" is an important qualifier in your question. You are implying the subjective, with which I disagree. But yet another distinction is necessary regarding the term "good". This time, it's not moral versus artistic, but good as pleasure-providing versus good as of high quality. So I would say "yes", anyone will find a work of art that is enjoyable to them, as "good as pleasure-providing". But that does not necessarily carry over to "good as of quality". I relate instance after instance, from parents' enjoyment of children's simple performances, to Monty Python's tongue-in-cheek Arthurian tale (which is a-musement, by the way) to a third rate love song or poem that, though awful, a given person finds enjoyable at a certain time in his or her life. Good? No, not as art. Enjoyable? Certainly.

Which brings me to a recent abortive attempt at fantasy reading, which happens to bring this thread right back to its auspicious origins: I recently attempted to start reading the novel, "Kingdoms of Light" by Alan Dean Foster. I should have been suspicious when the jacket revealed that a wizard's pets were going to be the protagonists of the story. I tried the first chapter anyway, and was disgusted by the sheer awfulness of the writing. Everything was in cartoonish overload, outlandish and full of stock nonsense. I felt insulted. It was as if this writer, who has written over 70 novels, decided that he "knew what that kind of reader liked", and threw together this mishmash that fairly insults the reader. I can't say any more good or bad about it, as I stopped reading in disgust. So, not enjoyable. Maybe he was trying to be a-musing. I could believe that.