About Writing "Description"

I hear so many people today talking tripe about the need to avoid long, detailed description that "gets in the way of the story." It's a no-brainer that anything that is clunky, awkward and badly crafted is going to get in the way of any story... That's why good authors work so hard at their craft to avoid such things. But the people who say--or even imply--that writers (and especially young writers) should take care to avoid being too descriptive have been watching too many movies and WAY too much TV. So here's another no-brainer: An honest-to-God reader needs description if he or she is to be able to visualize what the author is talking about. A reader can't simply visualize what's in the writer's mind. Readers need and demand to be given enough instruction to enable them to visualize what's happening on the page.

That's where this little snippet comes from.