Judging from the way this week is going, reports of my survival may have been exaggerated. Nevertheless, here is a something I've been thinking about of late.

When enjoying the arts — visual, literary, athletic, whatever — is your appreciation affected by the opinions or actions of the person who created it?

Here's the perspective of author Neil Gaiman, when asked by one of his fans how he felt about this age-old dilemma:

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place. I love the work of many creators who self-avowedly believe or believed things that I consider to be "fairly wretched", not to mention wrong-headed, lunatic, irresponsible or simply wrong. Worse yet: there are artists, actors, songwriters, authors, whose work I love, like or admire and who, biographers or historians tell us, actually did things that were utterly reprehensible. And worse even than that, there are all those things by Anonymous, who could have been or thought or done, well, anything, and we'll never know...

Are you willing to overlook the odious beliefs and habits of artists who create work you admire, or does your distaste override any aesthetic enjoyment? Or, on the opposite end, have you ever tried to make yourself like an artists because they are "on your team" philosophically?