The first point to make is that the word «banal» is difficult to use because it always defeats itself. It is an impossible word. If you want to condemn or praise something for being banal, that thing is no longer banal.
(...)
If «banal» is a label applied to a building, a painting, a person, a situation, a conversation, or a conference, it is a unique kind of label that actively transforms whatever it is applied to. It is precisely the word for a quality that is there before you before you point, before you look too directly. The banal is exactly that which you do not face. So, a conference panel devoted do «facing the banal» will necessarilly destroy its own subject.
Mark Wigley, no Porto, a 02.06.2001, numa conferência dedicada ao tema «Facing the Ordinary», originalmente intitulada durante a troca prévia de emails como «Facing the Banal»