tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30149973909680953912024-03-08T09:46:59.184-08:00Postcards of the HangingBen Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-29267314645512165772014-09-20T12:55:00.001-07:002014-09-20T12:55:39.774-07:00More remarks on tasteIn a recent post on his website "Shit-Fi," my critical nemesis Stuart Schrader raised a number of points that helpfully delimit my own positions.<br />
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<a href="http://shit-fi.com/Nacido_Para_Estorbar">Here is the post</a><br />
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<a href="http://shit-fi.com/Nacido_Para_Estorbar"></a>In discussing a band who never released any vinyl, the mega-unheard-of Spanish band Attak, Stuart sets up a curious strawman:<br />
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<i>Furthermore, to suppose that the reason “everyone” today knows about Bad Brains and “no one” knows about Attak can be linked to some inherent and objective qualities of each band’s music is to ignore how reception is conditioned by circumstance and ideology.</i><br />
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It is hardly likely that any person on earth would think this. I would suspect that "everyone" today knows about Bad Brains because they toured and released records. Attak: not. The example is poorly chosen. But Stuart extends this strawman position by imagining that such a person would also have "naturalized" their experience of music such that Bad Brains would sound superior to Attak. Well, that is an entirely different question. <br />
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(Unfortunately, Stuart does not elaborate on the forms or determinants of such ideology.)<br />
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Stuart asserts that music does not have "inherent qualities" that make us enjoy it, but that these qualities are a "social construction."<br />
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Music, or art in general, is a "social construction." The group of artists who make up a band, existing in the real world, reproducing their lives on a day-to-day basis, are already "social"--and the experience which produces creative expression and leads to the creative shaping of this experience (art) is equally "social." Art itself is a social construction. <br />
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Stuart forgets that, in the words of Schiller, there is an "aesthetic education of mankind." It is just as much the Bad Brains themselves who have shaped taste, as ideology--or perhaps we are wrong to distinguish the two, and it is as unwitting "agents" of ideology that the Bad Brains were unintentionally mystifying our capacity to hear Attak properly.</div>
Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-83916834009804578602010-07-31T15:53:00.000-07:002010-07-31T16:00:53.773-07:00Reviewing AlbumsThe first tape I ever owned was a Beach Boys greatest-hits, the first CD I ever owned was the soundtrack to the Big Chill—thanks Mom—and the first vinyl record I bought was a hardcore punk 7” EP. Were I to enter the new technological age, and purchase a digital download, it almost certainly would be a single mp3—the new Rihanna song, let’s say—in any case, as with my initial forays into all other music formats, it would not be an entire album. Ah, yes, the album—that doomed and anachronistic medium (we are told)—at every turn of my music-buying life has been diverted, chopped up, abbreviated, made irrelevant, and at the same time (we need look only to hip-hop as a genre) bloated, crammed with filler, expanded to the full 80 minutes allowed by the CD.<br /><br /> One need hardly point out that the “maximizing” of the album (compare Metallica’s Black Album (1991) at sixty minutes to Slayer’s Reign in Blood at twenty-nine minutes (1986) for an index of the CD’s tendency to promote, uh, “epic” ambitions in music) and the album’s increasing irrelevance are two sides of the same coin—the longer and only inconsistently-rewarding $18 album begs to be summarized, stolen, and cherry-picked from. So it is both a relief and an aggravation to remark upon Pitchfork Media’s continued dedication to the album as the only serious work of musical art (while Lil’ Wayne’s mixtapes are treated as charming “deconstructions” of the album’s untroubled supremacy).<br /><br /> In what does Pitchfork’s allegiance to albums consist? Alas, this can only be answered as a tautology (though it is the tautology of their aesthetic, and not mine). Pitchfork’s reviews treat albums as deep and meta-critical meditations upon…the album form itself. It is as though every album (in indie rock) were a minor recreation of Fellini’s masterpiece 8 ½, with its mise-en-abyme of the director’s making a movie about making a movie (or several?) about...artistic dilemmas. Applying this ready-at-hand formula to reviewing occasionally tedious and usually unprofound contemporary rock music does, as one might expect, yield some tedious and unprofound results.<br /><br /> You don’t need me to tell you that the most-acclaimed and innovative art is often a meditation on the medium itself: from Velasquez’s Las Meninas to Don Quixote, until Godard’s Contempt, this is a reliable way to produce one’s masterpiece.<br /><br /> It’s worth doing what in grad school they call “close reading”—let’s take the opening of a Pitchfork review of some Death Cab for Cutie album: <div><br /><i>Love isn't watching someone die, contrary to what Ben Gibbard memorably sang on Death Cab for Cutie's major-label debut. No, love is watching someone grow and change and still staying with them-- whether we're talking about family, friends, romantic interests, or a little college-town indie rock band from about an hour-and-a-half outside Seattle. Death is just the dénouement. In the three years since their platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated Plans, Gibbard and Death Cab producer/guitarist Chris Walla have both entered their thirties, coming off a wave of successes that included 2003's Transatlanticism going gold and the debut by Gibbard side project the Postal Service becoming Sub Pop's best-selling disc since Nirvana. That's a whole lotta love.</i><br /><br /><i>Narrow Stairs, Death Cab's second album for Atlantic and sixth proper LP overall, is one of the darkest and most muscular in the band's discography, but they're still aiming for the same place: your heart. It's an album about growing and changing and becoming resigned to the fact that you'll never be truly content. </i><br /><br />In brief, the album is about the band’s process of realizing that this was the album they needed to make. Hmm. As if that weren’t circular enough, this point is introduced by a quote from the band’s <i>previous</i> album!...in which I am assured that “love” and “death” are just metaphors for the vicissitudes of the music industry and creative process. That might be true, but what profit—when this produces platitudes like “You’ll never be truly content” or nonsense like “death is just the denouement.” Oops: Pitchfork insists upon the Francophile diacritical mark—dénouement.<br /><br /> But let’s play nice. This isn’t about pretentious spelling or Death Cab. Let me give you a sampling of other such moments from Pitchfork’s recent history, where the album’s lyrics are taken as a commentary on the art of making an album.<br /><br /><i>The sound is huge, but the song is a simple ode to being needed, about the pleasure in caring for something, whether a child or family pet… In other words, it's about accepting responsibility and most of all about growing up, which is something Animal Collective seem to be doing brilliantly, with their creativity and adventurous spirit intact. <br /><br />"This loneliness ain't pretty no more," she sings on [El Perro Del Mar’s] "This Loneliness", acknowledging the melancholic draw of pop music in general and her music specifically.<br /><br />On "Mushaboom", the signature track from her 2004 breakthrough album Let It Die, Leslie Feist [of Feist] claimed, "It may be years until the day my dreams will match up with my pay." Now, after countless sold-out shows across the world, close to half of a million records sold, and placement in a commercial for British bed manufacturers Silentnight, it seems safe to say this NPR darling's "pay" should be satisfactory. </i></div><div><i><br />Whether the implications of the line are intentional or not is difficult to say, but when, on "Paper Cup Exit", [Sonic Youth’s] Lee Ranaldo sings, "It's later than it seems," the band seem to be keenly aware of their age and relevance. That self-awareness, both of an appreciably long canon and the four lives it has traversed, makes Sonic Nurse all the more remarkable. </i><br /><br />Is there a problem with reviewing records this way? Frankly, yes. For one, it privileges English-language pop music over other genres: the Pitchfork model is always about <i>lyrics</i>. For instrumental music, or music with other things on its mind than its own importance, there is precious little to say for this style of review. Further, the model is extremely well-suited to the masterpiece: 8 ½, Don Quixote, Sunset Boulevard, Remembrance of Things Past—works with something interesting to say. The “meta” remark contained in snippets of contemporary indie rock have, well, let’s say they have somewhat less insight to offer. Pop music is melancholy; we have to grow up; achieving one’s dreams is not always so great; getting old sucks: these are all cheap insights.<br /><br /> As English majors in college, Pitchfork’s reviewers surely know the instant reward of showing that something called “form” is reflected in something else called “content,” and vice versa. If this tawdry hermeneutics is the only way to appreciate full-length albums in 2008, perhaps it is a kind of devil’s bargain. Still, it is worth remembering that on one hand this lyric-based method is akin to reviewing a film based on a print-out of its script, and secondly that no less an artist than Bob Dylan is (famously) singularly resistant to this kind of biographical/self-referential reading; with the exception of his disastrous “Christian period.” Should a method of aesthetic appreciation not be as well suited to evaluating successes (as those of Dylan’s classic but most sphinx-like period) as to indulging the pretentiousness of failures? </div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-71529533613510788782010-07-25T02:47:00.000-07:002010-07-25T04:03:12.100-07:00"Generic Pop Music"<a href="http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7836-poptimist-31/">Poptimist column from Pitchfork</a><div><br /></div><div>There is some wrong-headedness in the above link, and also some false statements. <div><br /></div><div>On the <b>wrong-headed</b> side, the idea of "pop music" trotted out here is totally unhistorical. Pop music is actually a really terrible vehicle for the "generic." In the obvious sense, yes, 90% of pop music at a given moment in time is very much identical to itself, and trends dominate over individual voices. But, what should be equally obvious is that, decade-to-decade, pop music is being constantly revolutionized. (Pitchfork's idea that "electro-dance" is a permanent feature of our lives is ideological in the highest degree.) And when things are outdated--constantly--they really do fall outside of their generic bounds. </div><div><br /></div><div>Also, pop history has a distorting effect. "Innovations" (things initially falling outside of the genre) are incorporated so quickly and so lastingly that they cannot always be grasped as such from the present day. This is all very "duh," but then you read this:<br /><br /><i>a happier idea of the generic: a core of musical ideas or values, which, executed well, satisfy the fans of a genre just as much as music that moves beyond those.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>1) No. This "core" is not stable or self-sustaining or core-like. In pop music, music that "moves beyond" a genre is then constantly re-absorbed within the genre as its new center.</div><div>2) The idea of musical ideas being "executed well" here is completely question-begging. </div><div>3) There is no possibility for a "deconstruction" here. The spatial metaphor laid out in this article does not consider that a great deal of innovation occurs *not only* "within" these boundaries--that is really just the spinning-off of variation--but that creativity does interesting things to the logic of boundaries: parody, pastiche, transplantation, etc. If you know anything about English poetry, you will know that meter is a similar thing. There is not "correct iambic pentameter" and "moving beyond iambic pentameter." What makes good iambic pentameter is the counter-rhythms and liberties one can take with the form. (Again, I stress this is different from just <i>variation</i>, which is the monkeys-on-typewriters production of permutations within a given limit.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Now for the <b>false</b> statements.<br /><br /><i> I got this feeling listening to the new Kylie Minogue album, </i>Aphrodite<i>: Not one track stood out, but I never stopped enjoying the record. As an experience it felt rather like good customer service: seamless, efficient, friendly, and inobtrusive.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>This is clever writing, even though "enjoying the record" is very question-begging. But the second sentence must give us pause: has anyone ever ENJOYED good customer service?<br /><br /><i> The generic is something one sees only at a distance in time or in taste.</i><br /><br /></div><div>Technically true--in an Aristotelian sense, one has to aggregate the essence of a genre from outside of the particular--the implication here is false. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's say that I want to get into some new style of music, say, folk music made with an African thumb-piano. It would be virtually impossible to get a view at the "center" of this genre "from a distance." In one sense, yes, the first 30 songs I heard would "sound alike" to me, and this would be a kind of generic similarity. But I totally refute this. Because I would be constructing this genre out of ignorance and pure phenomenality: the fact that something "showed up" on this quest would automatically incorporate it into my idea of this genre.</div><div><br /></div><div>This happened when I was getting into the very rule-bound genre of hardcore punk. I wanted fast, fast, fast music. But a lot of things that came my way were FAST, sure (Zeke, Capitalist Casualties, Dillinger Escape Plan) but really have to be placed outside the genre as I was looking for it and as I now know it. What I *wanted* was Jerry's Kids and Mob 47, but this "generic center" was not at all discernible from outside, i.e. from the "distance" that Pitchfork writes about.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not to be too philosophical here, but the "distance" here is not an objective one, like a fine or a coarse adjustment on a microscope (as the metaphor intends). It is really a subjective one; the phenomenon of "African thumb piano music" really exists only in my head UNTIL I have really educated myself. Once so educated, much that will seem generic on first glance will perhaps disappear (into a more correct classification) and an appreciation of nuances will show that was seemed very "usual" was in fact innovation of the highest order, etc. In short, "closing the distance" between oneself and a phenomenon that exists already in one's mind, is entirely an appreciation that the phenomenon in fact DID NOT exist in one's mind, and had to be appropriated anew in its heterogeneity.</div><div><br /></div><div>This last paragraph is also a good description of falling in love.</div></div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-7086692329332765652010-04-18T11:25:00.000-07:002010-04-20T14:49:30.268-07:00Recent Swedish Hardcore<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Martyrdöd- Sekt LP</b></div><div>Let's begin phenomenologically. It is impossible to say from a first listen whether a record is "good" or not. However, it is entirely possible to say whether I enjoy something or not. I contend, though, that these are the same thing. We all know what it is like to LOVE a song: it catches your attention, you play it a bunch of times in a row, you send the video to your friends, you have it stuck in your head. </div><div><br /></div><div>When you hear some music and this ("I love this!") does NOT happen, there is not some other thing happening: it's not as good. Does this mean that my Ornette Coleman records are not as "good" as Black Sabbath, because I do all sorts of ridiculous things in my room when I am listening to one and not the other? I enjoy them less, even over a span of years. Life is too short to worry about the difference. </div><div><br /></div><div>The d-beat, as we know, is a beat, a rhythm. Any band playing this style has to face up, immediately, to the fact that this beat can become deadly boring. The best bands, Discharge, Disclose, Totalitär, make it their own. They take precedence over the beat. The worst bands succumb to it, and their music disappears into X minutes of sheer material. </div><div><br /></div><div>Martyrdöd were a band I was very excited about in 2003-2005, but have not thought a great deal about since then. They were more mysterious and more metal-influenced than the bands who were going around at that time, although this appeal was subsequently undermined by rawer (and far superior) bands like Framtid and Lebenden Toten. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, this new Martyrdöd album: what's it like? For one thing, it is startlingly cliché-free. They seem like they are working within a musical idiom rather than within a bag of tricks. Somehow they convince me that d-beat can be profoundly melodic, without resorting to the "sweet" lead-lines of early 2000's stadium crust. It does not grab your attention, necessarily, but if you put time into this record, it pays back. The best d-beat ("Fight Back") grabs your attention, despite its being incredibly predictable. Martyrdöd are more thunderously monotonous, but I am convinced they crafted these songs to be immersive. It's a good record, but I suppose I am saying it is not a punk record. The Ramones are not "immersive," y'know? It's a good METAL record, in that sense (and in that sense only). </div><div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Disfear- Live the Storm LP</b></div><div>I guess this band never "made it," although this album was (favorably) reviewed on indie rock website Pitchfork. Strictly speaking, this has very little in common with Discharge anymore. I mean, there is a d-beat, it is redundant as hell, the singer is still the singer from Skitsystem (and At the Gates)... but it is basically emo. I don't mean of course that it is *really* emo, that emo music will come out of your speakers if you play this... but all the embellishments, the chord progressions, the long choruses, the expressive and bummed-out vocals--none of this has to do with Discharge. It is more like Coliseum. </div><div><br /></div><div>The whole point of Discharge was not to "rock." Discharge were a very abstract, cool-looking, almost inconceivably arty, monotone, and minimalist outfit. They weren't into tattoos or brass knuckles or sad/tough fonts. Discharge invented a timeless form of hardcore at a single stroke, by detaching melody, narrative, musicality, emotion, attitude, etc. FROM punk, reducing it to Stooges-levels of dumbed-down-high-concept. Discharge are an anthem, a protest--anything but a haphazard assemblage of rock cliches. In truth, Discharge are much more in the tradition of the Stooges, the Ramones, and Motorhead, than most any of the bands subsequent to them (although it remains a task to interpret this essence correctly).</div><div><br /></div><div>In any case, Disfear has nothing to do with any of this. Undoubtedly that makes Disfear catchier, more "rockin," than a legitimate group could ever be, but on the other hand this is just circus music for upset teenagers (à la Cradle of Filth).</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Wolfbrigade- Comalive LP</b></div><div>This was heralded as something of a "return to form" of this venerable band. In my opinion they haven't been good since Jonsson left (i.e. since after their second LP). Nothing here is even close to A New Dawn Fades or Lycanthro Punk, which were truly depraved slices of life from a crazy person. I'd like to see these clean-cut lads make a song called "Land Shark" or "Roll the Dice" totally convincing, which was the specialty of Wolfpack in their prime. Wolfpack certainly were not the greatest band of all time, but you definitely were afraid that they would STAB YOU. In this sense, they were in a league with Negative Approach and Poison Idea; simply scary people. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nowadays Wolfbrigade resort more to fonts than to visceral thrills, although the production here is certainly a step above what I heard from their last album, Prey to the World. They have totally ditched the Tragedy rip-offs which informed their album on Feral Ward, and so this is entirely straight-ahead. I couldn't tell you if it is better or worse than any of their 2000s records, though. But it's impossible to imagine wanting to hear these songs again. More damningly, if someone came over to your house and played you these riffs without a huge production and a full band, i.e. just on their little practice amp, I don't think they would sound better than anything else just made up on the spot. Totally by-the-numbers. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Warcollapse- Defy LP</b></div><div>I don't want to make any grand claims for this, but it is by far the best of the bunch. Why? For one thing, in their own way, Warcollapse have made a "party record," a bouncy, catchy, drug-addled good time. To the uninitiated, sure, this will sound like death metal, or at least be indistinguishable from the other albums here... but this is a lesson IN small differences. Or, as I have it on my other blog, "paying attention to" Swedish hardcore. Every second of this album is enjoyable, not to say riveting. What can I say? It grabs your attention. By any other measure, it is a ridiculous album. Like the first Star Wars movie, the criticisms are as obvious as they are redundant: (in this analogy) badly acted, derivative, only for teenage boys, a climax that has little to do with the preceding small-scale plot, etc. And these odes to the crust lifestyle and heavy drug use will probably not change any minds, either.</div><div><br /></div></div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-71603791181649150032009-12-11T21:40:00.000-08:002009-12-11T22:13:09.040-08:00A thesis for this blog?I was listening today to the Eno-Fripp collaboration "No Pussyfooting," and thinking, "wow this really sounds like Kraftwerk." And it seems to me that for nearly 100% of the music-discussing world, liking this album and liking Kraftwerk would go hand in hand.<br /><br />You can imagine the conversation in the record store.<br /><br />"I've enjoyed other Eno albums, but I don't really like King Crimson. Is this good?"<br />"Yeah. Do you like Kraftwerk?"<br />"Of course."<br />"You'll like this. It sounds like Kraftwerk."<br /><br />Which... it does. But I guess I want to say, there is NOTHING to like about (or "in") this similarity.<br /><br />I've made this argument elsewhere, but no art should ever be evaluated on its *premise*. The Mona Lisa-- on paper, it's not so great. Blade Runner *should* be a great movie, instead it is boring and anti-profound.<br /><br />The great hardcore band Black Flag realized this early on, changing their sound drastically and frequently in order to keep one step ahead of their own influence in the American punk scene. Only a crazy person would say, "You'll like My War. It sounds like Nervous Breakdown." They don't "sound alike." On the other hand, these two great achievements in American music are much more similar than Eno-Fripp & Kraftwerk, which are only <i>apparently</i> similar.<div><br /></div><div>It should be possible to like 99 records in a genre without it being a foregone conclusion that one will like the identical-sounding 100th record. I am using mostly musical examples, because, to take literature for an example, only unserious readers (like "consumers" of any mystery novel) are so faithful to a given genre. But even children did not go for just every single Harry Potter rip-off which was flung at the market after the success of J.K. Rowling's novels. </div><div><br /></div><div>I happen to like both Eno-Fripp & Kraftwerk. But this is (or should be) completely contingent, unrelated-- or else it is not real taste. Taken to its logical conclusion, genres would disappear completely as an indicator of taste. This should happen. Liking Led Zeppelin should be as much a predictor of liking Deep Purple as it is a predictor of liking Debussy.</div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-75776304523268086762009-11-28T22:22:00.000-08:002009-11-28T23:12:54.702-08:00How to review hip-hopWhat first occurs to me about how to review hip-hop albums is that there is an entire tradition, both of the music, and of reviewing it--which gives little guidance. Hip-hop record reviews are often like Jack Kerouac's prose in On the Road: the writers try to approximate the musical style under consideration. I, on the other hand, feel that a rap album should be reviewed in exactly the same fashion as a death metal album.<br /><br />Now, that is the long and the short of it. "How often will I listen to this? Is it memorable or paradigm-shifting? How many good songs are there in ratio to bad songs?" THESE are the questions. But I suspect my readers will not be satisfied without some examples.<br /><br />Here is a sample of a small section of a (Clipse) review from the blog <a href="http://hiphopisntdead.blogspot.com/search/label/Clipse">"Hip Hop Isn't Dead"</a><br /><br /><i>This song, recorded late in the game because those crackers that weren't playing fair at Jive didn't hear a single when an early version of Hell Hath No Fury was turned it, is now infamous because Pharrell made the mistake of selling the beat to Foxy Brown... Somewhere there's a rumored version of this song featuring Foxy Brown and Slim Thug's exact-same chorus: I would love to hear that one day for comparison's sake. Whatever happened to the Clipse's promised remix to this song that was supposed to feature Foxy, a compromise that was made to appease Shawn Carter?</i><br /><br />Now, I have earlier and often made the claim that albums should be considered in two ways: first, sub specie aeterni, i.e. as close as possible to their "objective" importance and greatness, and secondly, in pragmatic terms: how often I listen to something. "Whatever happened to the promised remix of this song?" i.e.--- obsessive blogging-as-journalism and gossip mill, has nothing to do with either criteria. This might be interesting, but it has nothing to do with a record review, or with the quality of a song. Only the most perverse alchemy could transform hype or gossip or blogging into listening experience. It simply can't be done.<br /><br />Here are a few reviews of Lil Wayne's last album: <div><a href="http://hiphopisntdead.blogspot.com/search/label/Lil%27%20Wayne"> Hip Hop Isn't Dead</a><br /><a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11608-tha-carter-iii/"> Pitchfork </a><br /><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/lilwayne/albums/album/21080575/review/21127308/tha_carter_iii"> Rolling Stone</a><br /><br />Now, to evaluate these, we need to go over what should be said about this album. It didn't age well; it is too long; 2/3 of the songs are bad; the remix of "Lollipop" was better than the album version; the Carter 2 was better; the Leak EP was better; Lil Wayne is best when there are no guests and no choruses--when he is just let loose over a beat. Well.. there's your review. Look over the reviews from its contemporary moment (last year) and I think you'll see that they all miss this basic summary.<br /><br />Why is that? Why do album reviews (and, e.g., death metal is just as bad about this as hip hop) miss the question of listenability? Because they focus on "scene" components--dissing producers, sorting through hype, settling feuds, taking sides in a historical continuum, worrying about who is biting whom, evaluating egos, considering and being frustrated by popularity, and of course the highly contentious world of beat-making. Other genres have analogous problems. It simply doesn't matter to whether the music is good or not, but it is unavoidable in music journalism which "belongs" to a scene.<br /><br />More from "Hip Hop Isn't Dead" (dot blogspot...)<br /><br /><i>Did Icarus and Redman have a falling out that I'm not aware of? That's the only reason I can think of that justifies Ready Roc's new position as go-to weed carrier and kidney donor alongside Meth's longtime candle warmer Streetlife. </i><br /><br />That is from a TRACK review.<br /><br />**<br /><br />As fans of music, we are capable of telling whether a song is good or not, whether we enjoyed an album or not, whether a record works or doesn't or is just background music that will never become another "Daily Operations" or "Illmatic." And because these are the ways that fans approach music, it is also what a review should address.<br /><br />See also <a href="http://ignorantarmies.blogspot.com/2009/09/indie-rock-and-you.html">my fake review of a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song</a> for an example of how to review music.<br /><br />My contention: gossip and name-dropping will never be a substitute for finding out whether a record is a classic, a near-classic, merely forgettable, or deserving of our contempt. That all pertains to the music; reviews (done poorly) thus date much worse than the albums themselves. This is of course as true for Bruce Springsteen (whose "9/11" album was received in a way completely detached from whether it had songs as good as his earlier work) as for Jay-Z.</div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-73253692092097252282009-11-14T20:37:00.001-08:002009-11-14T21:03:48.810-08:00Alternate Canon for FilmI saw The Red Shoes at Film Forum the other day, in a new print, and it occurred to me that possibly I was watching the greatest movie of all time. This signals to my brain: "Yes, but on what criteria?" And the answer is something like: "pure filmmaking," or "movie magic," etc. etc. But what I mean I think is better expressed in my favorite format: the list.<br /><br />The Red Shoes<br />Gone with the Wind<br />Lawrence of Arabia<br />Napoleon (1927) <br />Wizard of Oz<br />Ben-Hur (1959)<br />Citizen Kane<br />War & Peace (1967)<br />The Leopard<br />Modern Times<br />Juliet of the Spirits<br />Birth of a Nation<br />The Conformist<br />Lola Montes<br />West Side Story<br />2001: A Space Odyssey<br /><br /><br />Now, usually, these are not my actual favorites, nor my actual "Best" or "Most Important" films. But in all of these movies is a shocking, almost superhuman visual creativity and ambition. The colors of Gone with the Wind, the chariot race in Ben-Hur, the communicative silences of 2001, the sets in the Wizard of Oz, the choreography of West Side Story... Here I am breaking from my usual plot-centered valuations. It is a truism of course that the greatest auteurs (in film and literature) are often masters of BOTH detail and grand plan. Tolstoy and Proust in literature, and at least all of the historical epics listed above, are gigantic in scope and breathtaking in particular scenes.<br /><br />One problem with this list: it is much less "art house" than my tastes really are, and considerably more Hollywood. Of the great art house directors, Fellini is the most in this line. Bergman, Kurosawa, Renoir, Lang, are obviously virtuosos and there is probably room in here for some of their more extravagant work. The New Wave is usually too cramped. Truffaut's best work, but even Rashomon or The Seventh Seal, are STILL not Gone with The Wind, if you see what I mean. <br /><br />One movie that probably *does* belong here is actually one I disliked a great deal: Marketa Lazarova, a Czech black and white epic that was visually stunning from start to finish. Since it was so boring, it is disqualified as being (in another way) unwatchable. That Bergman never made a movie as "beautiful" as this one is obviously more instructive about what Bergman WAS doing, what kind of magic he *was* after, than in any way a negative remark about him.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-60040115980717636692009-09-26T17:03:00.000-07:002009-09-26T17:34:23.705-07:00Indie Rock and YouWhat is it LIKE to enjoy a piece of music? This is what I want to know from a record review. Obviously, the very worst reviews of music are those that just talk about the lyrics, but from an intellectual standpoint, just as bad is the pretentious claim that reviews should "tell us what the music sounds like." Well, nothing could be more idiotic while sounding like a reasonable demand. <div><br /></div><div>There is a rave review for the new GIRLS album, up on Pitchfork. Here is the part where they tell you what the music sounds like:<br /><br /><i>Musically, Album is mostly sunny Beach Boys pastiche, but it's not the kajillionth indie attempt at orchestral Pet Sounds majesty. Rather, it's simple and forthright early Beach Boys stuff: compact guitar-jangles, sha-la-la harmonies, muffled heartbeat drums. It sounds great. And even though it has a basic core sound, Album manages to cover a lot of aesthetic ground in its 44 minutes. Without being showy about it, they swing from rushing power-pop to acoustic campfire laments to "Morning Light", which is one of the most fully realized slices of shoegaze revivalism I've heard in years. If they'd made an entire album of songs like "Morning Light", Girls would be getting a ton of blog love, but they decided to go for something at once messier and simpler. And they're getting a ton of blog love anyway.<br /><br />There's a pillowy quality to many of the sounds on Album, but this isn't lo-fi or glo-fi or whatever. Rather, every little production flourish is so much a part of the whole that you don't notice it until the 10th or 15th listen. On "Lust for Life", for instance, there's a melodica that bubbles up on the second half. "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker" is joyous beach-party stuff, but there's a beautifully discordant guitar solo in there. "Hellhole Ratrace" builds to an epic guitar whoosh halfway through its seven minutes, but the beat's hammer never quite falls; the drums stay just slightly off. The guitars on "Lauren Marie" twang like Duane Eddy's. All this stuff functions like the sleigh bells on Liz Phair's "Fuck and Run": subtle little intuitive details that you might never notice but that add to the devastating whole. The canniness of Album's production choices and the scuzzy depression of the lyrics and the gut-level songwriting instincts, along with everything else about the record, add up to something elusive and fascinating-- maybe even heartbreaking.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Now, that is really specific. A true description of what this album sounds like. But what remains to be pointed out is the deep irrelevance of "sounding like..." <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">The guitars on "Lauren Marie" twang like Duane Eddy's--</span>you don't say?? Does that mean any song will mean anything to me on first listen, on twelfth listen, in ten years? No matter how precise the description of the sound, I actually have no idea what it is like to *enjoy* this record. I only know what it is like to have *heard* this record. </div><div><br /></div><div>Do the songs get under your skin? Do you find yourself singing them in the shower? Do you find little parts to memorize and play over and over? Or is it the sequencing? How does the filler fit in with the singles? Does it play best in short doses or all the way through? Might it be best to listen to this in the car or while doing the dishes? </div><div><br /></div><div>Without being too autobiographical, the reviewer should tell me these things. For example, let me review an indie rock song for you. This is how it's done. This is a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song from a few years ago.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jLnwPPsgifU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jLnwPPsgifU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Although much of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's sound (slurred, slightly precious, affected vocals and droopy, woozy guitar) will be familiar to fans of indie rock--most recently in Modest Mouse's stirring late-career hit "Float On"--the layering of synthesizers over a predominantly bass-driven melody reminds me of nothing more than prime New Order. Meaning, if there is something like a canon of crowd-pleasers and genuine HITS in indie rock, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have tapped into this tradition. Nothing I think could be more profoundly uncool than such a move: it's like writing a poem with T.S. Eliot as your major influence, emulating The Godfather in film, or saying your favorite music is Mozart. The "cool" thing is secretly the artistic position which cuts out a certain portion of the audience in advance, the art that is less ambitious but which has obvious allusions instead. CYHSY are truly embarrassing, because they seemingly did not get this memo. On the contrary, they quietly have gone about the business of writing a song that is outstanding beyond its years: like "Sweet Child o' Mine" on Guns 'n Roses' debut album, it seems impossible that a young band could have produced such an obvious classic. CYHSY don't try to write "the perfect pop song" as though that were just the code for certain moves: they understand that "the perfect pop song" has a *unique* energy, not just the bland moodlessness of power-pop. And unlike the Jesus & Mary Chain-influenced groups that would come after, in the Brooklyn noise-pop wave of 2008, CYHSY have mastered dynamics, and... musicianship! In conclusion, that this is perfect car-commercial music is not to be doubted; but that something this propulsive and memorable is never to be produced by abstract and merely stylistic concerns, but only by real uninhibited creativity, is equally testified to in this little gem. </div><div><br /></div><div>(In conclusion to this post, though, you will note that Pitchfork's review of the GIRLS album is different from my review of this CYHSY song, not just because the writing is different, but because no one could ever write such a thing of the boring, tepid, and suffocatingly-constrained mannerisms of GIRLS.)</div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-45438719517017749882009-08-06T22:24:00.000-07:002009-08-06T22:32:32.363-07:00Spectator (UK) list of 50 Greatest Films<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><div>reposted from Rogerebert.com</div><div><br /></div><div>This list is not outrageously wrong, but it has too many movies that are questionable as to whether they are even GOOD, much less great: #1 Night of the Hunter, #17 Blade Runner, and #50 Out of the Past, are all deeply problematic films. Interesting? Yes. But the "best movies" should only include GOOD movies, which these films are not. More discussion to come (including my list). </div><div><br /></div><div>And no list with Citizen Kane at #14 (!!!!!!), or a David Lean film which is maybe only his 5th best film can be right. Still, some great and inspired picks here: Earrings of Madame de..., Rio Bravo, Barry Lyndon, Killer of Sheep, M, Manhattan. Fellini at #43 is painful to read, though... I guess these are the times we live in.</div><div><br /></div>1. The Night of the Hunter, Laughton</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">2. Apocalypse Now, Coppola</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">3. Sunrise, Murnau</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">4. Black Narcissus, Powell & Pressburger</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">5. L'avventura, Antonioni</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">6. The Searchers, Ford</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">7. The Magnificent Ambersons, Welles</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">8. The Seventh Seal , Bergman</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">9. L'atalante, Vigo</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">10. Rio Bravo, Hawks</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">11. The Godfather: Part I and Part II, Coppola</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">12. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">13. La Grande Illusion, Renoir</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">14. Citizen Kane, Welles</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">15. The Scarlett Empress, von Sternberg</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">16. Tokyo Story, Ozu</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">17. Blade Runner, Ridley Scott</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">18. Rear Window, Hitchcock</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">19. Point Blank, Boorman</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">20. The Red Shoes, Powell & Pressburger</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">21. The Earrings of Madame de..., Ophuls</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">22. Shadows, Cassavetes</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">23. Pickpocket, Bresson</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">24. Viridiana, Bunuel</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">25. Barry Lyndon, Kubrick</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">26. City Lights, Chaplin</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">27. Pierrot le Fou, Godard</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">28. Sunset Boulevard, Wilder</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">29. Notorious, Hitchcock</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">30. M, Lang</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">31. The Roaring Twenties, Walsh</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">32. Singin' in the Rain, Donen and Kelly</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">33. The Long Day Closes, Davies</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">34. Killer of Sheep, Burnett</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">35. Gun Crazy, Lewis</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">36. Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">37. Taxi Driver, Scorsese</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">38. The 400 Blows, Truffaut</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">39. Pulp Fiction, Tarantino </span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">40. Kind Hearts and Coronets, Hamer</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">41. In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-Wai </span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">42. Sullivan's Travels, Sturges</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">43. 8 1/2, Fellini</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">44. Pinocchio, Disney</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">45. Great Expectations, Lean</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">46. Rome, Open City, Rossellini</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">47. Duck Soup, McCarey</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">48. Jaws, Spielberg</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">49. Manhattan, Allen</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">50. Out of the Past, Tourneur</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><blockquote style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 30px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-repeat: repeat-y; "><i></i><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></p></blockquote></span>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-17691682039733202672009-07-30T08:12:00.000-07:002009-07-30T08:30:03.022-07:003 reviews of the Fucked Up album from last yearLast year, I wrote a review of the Fucked Up album that was published online somewhere, but now it is time to compare *that* review (in its structure and criteria) with *other* reviews of the same record (ignoring things like "positivity" or what the record is "really" like).<br /><br />Here's my version:<br />*<br />Being a long-time fan of hardcore punk, I have watched Fucked Up's ascent with great interest, from their first US tour, playing in a store-front in Bushwick, to the promotional frenzy that recently culminated in a 12-hour performance (stunt) and this album being reviewed in the hallowed pages of the NY Times. And there is literally nothing interesting to be said about Fucked Up's transformation from a Poison Idea-styled punk band--who gained notoriety by releasing 2-song singles in a genre (hardcore) that tends to cram a dozen songs onto a 7"--into a double-album-releasing band with flutes, choirs, and the rest. Nothing interesting to be said, for two reasons: 1) viewed sub specie aeterni, no one really cares about "transitions," we care about albums: are they good? will we want to listen to them often?, and the whole "evolution" of a band involves this very suspect metaphysics of locating a sound in its infancy, tracing it into the present, or seeing what elements were discarded to pave the way for success and breakthrough. And, 2) this record is not all that interesting. If you recall some of Black Metal's "ambient" experiments, which could only be astonishing and beautiful to the most genre-bound hesher, Fucked Up obviously are banking on a surprise factor that has no real payoff--"oh my god they have flutes!"<br /><br />Whenever I don't like a band, I explain, fake-apologetically, "Well, you know me, I like the Kinks, so..."--as though I didn't want to wade in too deep, and really I wasn't qualified, but rather naive and would stick with what I knew. What this formulation means, of course, is that I like music that gets stuck in your head. Not "pop music," necessarily--probably everyone has had Mozart and Wagner stuck in their head, and probably Celtic Frost and the Bad Brains can be just as catchy. <strong>But the essential thing is that music be memorable. This is why any focus on production, who's doing the back-up vocals, lyrical themes, and extraneous instrumental touches, really misses the point--we listen to music to rock out to *parts* that we remember and like. And Fucked Up used to be really good at this. Like most music nowadays, this new album is not catchy, but it is full of parts. What the noodling, build-ups, repetitions, and whatnot are *doing* while not being catchy, is anyone's guess.</strong> The best bands at creating interesting little parts are Metallica, the Clash, and the Kinks--and on their last album, Fucked Up were in this tradition. This record is a bit like Napoleon's 1813 campaigns in Germany: although incorporating many different elements (Napoleon at Leipzig relied on allied troops from all over Europe), ultimately the strategy relies on bulk and an unimaginatively straight-forward attack, and, well, if you aren't up on your history, you can Wikipedia "Battle of the Nations" to see how this record succeeds. In short, if there is some ambition to ambient jamming that Fucked Up want to pursue, if they can make it interesting, I will follow a song full of neat parts to the ends of the earth, but you cannot dress up the plodding and unmemorable songs here. A record should be judged not by its scope or ambitions but by how often, over the years, one will listen to it. Even with the greatest enthusiasm or curiosity or goodwill, "The Chemistry of Common Life" is not a record that demands or rewards much time on your turntable. (emphasis mine)<br />*<br /><br />Here are some key phrases from the Pitchfork review:<br /><br /><em>shimmering overdubs, fractured harmonies, almost tactile in its texture, bongo-laced, refreshing take on religion. </em><br /><br />One reads this review in vain if searching for questions like, "Is this record catchy?" or "Will I enjoy listening to this?" or (more profoundly) "Am I *supposed* to enjoy listening to this?"<br /><br />From the Dusted review, we learn helpfully that the album, on the most basic level--the combination of instruments--does not work: <em>The disparity between these vocals and every other element on the record never gets easy to process, even on multiple listens.</em> In a way, that should be the end of the review: except that the reviewer obviously feels that this "dissonance" (my term) might in some back-door way be incorporated into the form... which is already to give up the game, critically speaking. It's like staring at an all-white canvas and wondering whether it is "art" or not---instead of the more incisive point of view: IF THIS IS ART, WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH ME? And with the best artists (cited above--the Kinks, Metallica, previous releases by Fucked Up), the answer to this question is a no-brainer. While the Dusted reviewer realizes that what is being attempted by the album is a kind of synthesis of disparate elements into a Leviathan, what is left out by her review is whether there is any PURPOSE to such a synthesis.<br /><br /><strong>What we like about a style or a genre is not *within* that style or genre.</strong> The tragedy of current tastes is to confuse these two things--the appeal of an album with the contingent trappings in which it occurs--to behave as though what made Black Flag Black Flag, what made the Velvet Underground the Velvet Underground, what made your favorite band your favorite band--to behave as though this were some algorithm of a style. And both the reviews I cited have been hoodwinked into a fixation ON this style, rather than on the (proper) fixation: is this catchy? am I enjoying this? what is the purpose of this?, etc.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-40112618639858575222009-07-22T22:56:00.000-07:002009-07-22T23:06:45.353-07:00Disgusting idiocy<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/fashion/23nostalgia.html?_r=1&ref=global-home"> NY Times article in which a bunch of people pretend to be "really excited" for the 1990s culture of their youths, even though this includes such unwatchable nonsense as Saved by the Bell and unlistenable garbage as Britney Spears</a><br /><br />Frankly, this is a low point. What is represents is this: people who DON'T have taste now recollecting fondly the time when NO ONE has taste (when you are are 13). Also, these references (they are little more than that) are truly the lowest common denominator (in a non-pejorative sense). *Everyone* of a certain demographic COULD have this conversation:<div>"Remember the ______?" with obligatory reply, "Yeah, that was so awesome; they should bring that back."<br /><br />Features such nuggets of wisdom as "Buying my first Discman was huge," and “'<span>I miss VHS tapes,' he said."</span><div><br /></div><div>No one *really* misses VHS tapes. What's next? Fond memories of New Coke? </div></div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-75816644684801995722009-07-19T09:46:00.000-07:002009-07-19T10:42:12.217-07:00A tired plea for an "overlooked genius"In 2009, it is so completely established, conventional, and even academically-approved to "elevate" a "genre writer" (H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain) to the status of "high" literature, that the gesture itself has completely lost the counterintuitive wink which surely began this retrospective-canonizing project in the first place.<br /><br />And yet, undaunted by the banality of this "reversal," <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine">here is an article in which the NY Times Magazine makes a plea for one Jack Vance</a>, "overlooked" science fiction writer.<br /><br />We are told that he is as good as: Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Jane Austen, Henry James, Proust, Poe-- that his being-American (instead of being from some fashionable Romance tradition) may also have contributed to his unsexiness, in addition to the perceived silliness of the genre fiction he writes.<br /><br />Let me respond to this in bullet points, since my overall response is probably too predictable to readers of this blog.<div><ul><li>I for one am completely unimpressed by the blurbing this article heavily relies on, especially that of Michael Chabon (who cares?!), and quite nonplussed by the praise of Neil Gaimon. This name-dropping is also a phantom punch, as the completely banal rhetoric here is (as always) "Your favorite writer's favorite writer." But what sick mind takes any interest in Michael Chabon's literary heroes?</li><li>In order for this enterprise to succeed, the literary worthiness of Vance's output needs to be conveyed by some demonstration (plot summaries, interesting features, some indelible character). But, sadly, Vance doesn't really *do* these things: elaborate architecture of a fictional universe (he lacks Tolkien's “impulse to synthesize a mythology for a culture"); "Intricate plotting is not Vance’s forte"; etc. </li><li>So what DOES this literary genius do well? Evidently he turns a phrase nicely (this appears to be about all). OK, so show me some nice turns of phrase. The article instead gives instance of some completely pedestrian and irritating writing. </li></ul><div>If I am going to believe that someone is as good as Proust, James, Austen, or Borges, then I would expect better writing than THIS:<br /><br /><i>“ ‘I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.’<br /><br />‘No need,’ said Cugel. ‘My interest was cursory.’ ”</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Let me give a counter-example of good writing. It is the first paragraph of Joseph Conrad's "Outcast of the Islands," which is itself rather a bad novel. But it suffices here, and you will see that I'm not trying to overawe you with a big "name" like Moby-Dick, War and Peace, David Copperfield. Just read until you see my point.<br /><br /><i>When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short episode—a sentence in brackets, so to speak—in the flowing tale of his life: a thing of no moment, to be done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined that he could go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the shade, breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before his house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he would be able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his half-caste wife, to notice with tender contempt his pale yellow child, to patronize loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, who loved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots on his little feet, and was so humble before the white husband of the lucky sister. Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to conceive that the moral significance of any act of his could interfere with the very nature of things, could dim the light of the sun, could destroy the perfume of the flowers, the submission of his wife, the smile of his child, the awe-struck respect of Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. That family's admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and completed his existence in a perpetual assurance of unquestionable superiority. He loved to breathe the coarse incense they offered before the shrine of the successful white man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high; the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. They were a numerous and an unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. He kept them at arm's length and even further off, perhaps, having no illusions as to their worth. They were a half-caste, lazy lot, and he saw them as they were—ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized men of various ages, shuffling about aimlessly in slippers; motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew upon decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs; young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving languidly amongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if every step they took was going to be their very last. He heard their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted.</i></div><div><ul><li>This is a fairly obvious point, but in order for some genre fiction (and really, Conrad IS this in his early works) to be as "great" as the High Literary canon, some example of it has to be already have been canonized. For example, Poe. Now, Poe *has* been thoroughly canonized. The problem for Vance's reputation is that this was, for Poe, instantaneous. Charles Baudelaire, the high poet of French modernity, translated and advocated for Poe near-contemporaneously. Conrad, too, was apparently of the same "height" as James and Madox Ford. Not so for Vance (or Lovecraft, or Chandler, or Cain, or Dick).</li><li>What do we have here, then? ANYTHING BUT a "raising to the level of..." (Hemingway, Proust, Austen). Instead, if you follow the rhetoric closely, what is being advocated for is a second, subsidiary, parasitical canon. A "low" canon, if you will. Let's imagine for a second that this Vance character is as good as this article says--though I am not at all persuaded that he is even as good as Frank Herbert or Ray Bradbury (writers I dislike). That is still a very long way from being "as good as" Henry James; in fact, that is an insane proposition. The only thing conceivable is that Vance might stand, in relation to other sci-fi writers, analogously to James' standing in relation to literary fiction in general. And thus, at the level of what <i>already exists</i> as a concept for everyone: the "classics of popular fiction": Tolkien, CS Lewis, Patrick O'Brian, Elmore Leonard, Philip K Dick. </li></ul><div>My overarching point here is, no one is going to confuse this writer who cannot a) create vast, intricate fictional mythologies, nor b) craft a memorable plot, nor c) write a citable example of interesting dialogue-- that a writer who cannot do any of these things is not susceptible to confusion with Borges, Poe, or (let's say) Balzac's fantasy works. That is to say, not susceptible with the "greats" of world literature. It IS possible (though, in this case, unlikely), that he may be confused with Ray Bradbury, Ursula K LeGuin, Robert Heinlein... but merely this list of names shows that it is a CONSTITUTIVE PRETENSION of science fiction to be regarded in this way. That is to say, that this very tired and played-out "revisiting" of a science fiction writer who deserves to be regarded as more thoughtful than mere genre fiction.... this is what science fiction, with its allegories and cultishness, is all about from the start. </div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, the question this NY Times article begs is the *undifferentiated* "canonical status" of a Raymond Chandler, operating on a transitive confusion... "If this writer is as good as Raymond Chandler, and I seem to have heard somewhere that Raymond Chandler is 'now' canonical.... then Jack Vance must be as great as Proust!" </div><div><br /></div><div>And this line of thought is precisely as idiotic as I have just indicated. If you are unconvinced, please reread the above comparison of his prose with Conrad's. And remember the #1 principle of all my contentions: that the "great" does not have FEWER pleasures to offer than the "popular", but greater, richer, and more substantial in every way. And the attempt to pass off unsophisticated genre fiction AS sophisticated will only ever fool, well... you know.</div></div></div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-82296715178971893232009-06-23T22:18:00.001-07:002009-06-23T22:18:41.878-07:00the hubris of the mediocreI know a lot of people who make music, work at record labels, art galleries, work in publishing, are artists, are getting MFAs, etc. Most interesting people in NYC are involved in some sort of cultural production. <br /><br />At the risk, therefore, of offending everyone I know, I would like to urge people to disassociate themselves from mediocre creative production, and to really (at whatever cost) aim for something monumental, lasting, and interesting.<br /><br />Take, for instance, the tragedies of the Roman playwright and philosopher Seneca. He is well-known as a prominent Stoic, but it might also be said that his plays are the most famous and well-regarded of ~ 1500 years of western literature, in the period between Euripides and Shakespeare. And yet you could hardly persuade anyone to READ Seneca today.<br /><br />This makes it seem like we have very high criteria for art: the best tragedies of 15 centuries are not good enough for our discriminating tastes! Nothing could be further from the truth. <br /><br />I don't want to wage a smear campaign on any band or writer in particular: but I think our criteria for judgment are all fucked up. All our judgments revolve around whether we LIKE something, or whether it it is WORTH seeing/paying $ for/attending---i.e. held up against other uses of our money and time. And so, an album may be "worth" the 3 cappuccinos which one foregoes purchasing in order to buy, and 2 hours of a movie/show may be "better spent" than sitting at home---- but these are not the right questions, if one is honest about things. In any case, no director ever tried to get a film made on THESE grounds. The right questions are: will this last? SHOULD this last? (sub specie aeterni)<br /><br />Masterpieces are unfashionable. No one will ever make a film like "Gone with the Wind" again, not because they will try and fail, but because no attempt will be made. But I would trade the entire decade of films 1999-2009 for "Gone with the Wind", and feel that I was getting a good bargain. What we have today is a lack of ambition, of the "good enough." In short, art today is terrible. <br /><br />To quote Ezra Pound, speaking of Thomas Hardy: "When we, if we live long enough, come to estimate the 'poetry of the period,' against Hardy's 600 pages we will put *what*?" Now I like some current things: the White Stripes, Bob Dylan, Darkthrone, the Dardenne Brothers, Wes Anderson, the Coen Brothers--to name a few. But look at this Ezra Pound quote again: obviously the answer to his question is "Ezra Pound." But what about today? Is there ANY poet of the stature of Hardy or Pound? Wouldn't you be mortally embarrassed to have to defend any answer??<br /><br />The title here is "the hubris of the mediocre": wouldn't you, shouldn't you, oughtn't you--oughtn't anyone be mortally embarrassed to bring into the world, a world with more GREAT novels than hardly anyone can read! a world already graced with the complete works of Balzac, Proust, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare--which could keeep anyone busy for some time!!----oughtn't anyone be mortally embarrassed to write their short stories and throw them onto this pile? Most people can't find the time for CHAUCER, and yet your short story is really going to compete for my time? Think of the Flaubert novels you would never read (Salammbo, Bouvard and Pecuchet)---and yet your little novella is hardly by a Flaubert, now is it? This is the real definition of hubris!<br /><br />How many albums/paintings/novels does one really have time for in life? Write something better than the "Purgatorio" (which no one reads) and I'll gladly read it; paint something better than one of Raphael's more-forgettable Madonnas, and I'll attend the opening; record a record better than Dylan's outtakes, and I'll buy it. <br /><br />Probably 1% of all this year's artistic production will have any interest in 20 years. And yet EVERYTHING produced today demands my attention. So, if you make art, make it for the ages: if you *don't* think you are better than Seneca, ask why anyone would want your art to enter the world, as though it were superior to 15 centuries of western literature!!Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-53094381677471030092009-04-24T18:05:00.000-07:002009-04-24T18:46:26.762-07:00Zola & the contemporary arts<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I dislike Emile Zola; his novels bore me. Nonetheless, his talent is undoubtedly a WRITERLY talent. Let's see what I mean. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is from 1880's Nana:</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 5px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 5px; font-family:verdana;font-size:12px;"><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Th</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">e "Petite Duchesse" was being rehearsed at the Varietes. The first act had just been carefully gone through, and the second was about to begin. Seated in old armchairs in front of the stage, Fauchery and Bordenave were discussing various points while the prompter, Father Cossard, a little humpbacked man perched on a straw-bottomed chair, was turning over the pages of the manuscript, a pencil between his lips.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Well, what are they waiting for?" cried Bordenave on a sudden, tapping the floor savagely with his heavy cane. "Barillot, why don't they begin?"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"It's Monsieur Bosc that has disappeared," replied Barillot, who was acting as second stage manager.'</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then there arose a tempest, and everybody shouted for Bosc while Bordenave swore.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Always the same thing, by God! It's all very well ringing for 'em: they're always where they've no business to be. And then they grumble when they're kept till after four o'clock."</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Bosc just then came in with supreme tranquillity.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Eh? What? What do they want me for? Oh, it's my turn! You ought to have said so. All right! Simonne gives the cue: 'Here are the guests,' and I come in. Which way must I come in?"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Through the door, of course," cried Fauchery in great exasperation.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Yes, but where is the door?"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At this Bordenave fell upon Barillot and once more set to work swearing and hammering the boards with his cane.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"By God! I said a chair was to be put there to stand for the door, and every day we have to get it done again. Barillot! Where's Barillot? Another of 'em! Why, they're all going!"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nevertheless, Barillot came and planted the chair down in person, mutely weathering the storm as he did so. And the rehearsal began again. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At this point, while the rehearsal was dragging monotonously on, Fauchery suddenly jumped from his chair. He had restrained himself up to that moment, but now his nerves got the better of him.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"That's not it!" he cried.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The actors paused awkwardly enough while Fontan sneered and asked in his most contemptuous voice:</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Eh? What's not it? Who's not doing it right?"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Nobody is! You're quite wrong, quite wrong!" continued Fauchery, and, gesticulating wildly, he came striding over the stage and began himself to act the scene.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Now look here, you Fontan, do please comprehend the way Tardiveau gets packed off. You must lean forward like this in order to catch hold of the duchess. And then you, Rose, must change your position like that but not too soon--only when you hear the kiss."</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He broke off and in the heat of explanation shouted to Cossard:</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Geraldine, give the kiss! Loudly, so that it may be heard!"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Father Cossard turned toward Bosc and smacked his lips vigorously.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Good! That's the kiss," said Fauchery triumphantly. "Once more; let's have it once more. Now you see, Rose, I've had time to move, and then I give a little cry--so: 'Oh, she's given him a kiss.' But before I do that, Tardiveau must go up the stage. D'you hear, Fontan? You go up. Come, let's try it again, all together."</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The actors continued the scene again, but Fontan played his part with such an ill grace that they made no sort of progress. Twice Fauchery had to repeat his explanation, each time acting it out with more warmth than before. The actors listened to him with melancholy faces, gazed momentarily at one another, as though he had asked them to walk on their heads, and then awkwardly essayed the passage, only to pull up short directly afterward, looking as stiff as puppets whose strings have just been snapped.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"No, it beats me; I can't understand it," said Fontan at length, speaking in the insolent manner peculiar to him.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bordenave had never once opened his lips. He had slipped quite down in his armchair, so that only the top of his hat was now visible in the doubtful flicker of the gaslight on the stand. His cane had fallen from his grasp and lay slantwise across his waistcoat. Indeed, he seemed to be asleep. But suddenly he sat bolt upright.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"It's idiotic, my boy," he announced quietly to Fauchery.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"What d'you mean, idiotic?" cried the author, growing very pale. "It's you that are the idiot, my dear boy!"</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bordenave began to get angry at once. He repeated the word "idiotic" and, seeking a more forcible expression, hit upon "imbecile" and "damned foolish." The public would hiss, and the act would never be finished! And when Fauchery, without, indeed, being very deeply wounded by these big phrases, which always recurred when a new piece was being put on, grew savage and called the other a brute, Bordenave went beyond all bounds, brandished his cane in the air, snorted like a bull and shouted:</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Good God! Why the hell can't you shut up? We've lost a quarter of an hour over this folly. Yes, folly! There's no sense in it. And it's so simple, after all's said and done! You, Fontan, mustn't move. You, Rose, must make your little movement, just that, no more; d'ye see? And then you come down. Now then, let's get it done this day. Give the kiss, Cossard."</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then ensued confusion. The scene went no better than before. Bordenave, in his turn, showed them how to act it about as gracefully as an elephant might have done, while Fauchery sneered and shrugged pityingly. After that Fontan put his word in, and even Bosc made so bold as to give advice. Rose, thoroughly tired out, had ended by sitting down on the chair which indicated the door. No one knew where they had got to, and by way of finish to it all Simonne made a premature entry, under the impression that her cue had been given her, and arrived amid the confusion. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">**************</span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Zola is a master of this kind of scene: the confused, the tedious, the pompous, the hoarse-with-shouting, pettiness, the difficulty of managing different egos, the frustrating, the not-worthwhile. </span></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Completely wonderful, acutely observed elements:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p align="justify"></p><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The title, "The Little Duchess": surely there have been dozens of boring comedies with this title. Its mediocrity is guaranteed and inborn.</span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Having the hunchback prompt-reader read the role of the courtesan during rehearsal, complete with kisses!</span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The *absence* of the chair used to stand in for the door through which the actors enter the scene.</span></span></span></span></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Rose, thoroughly tired out, had ended by sitting down on the chair which indicated the door."</span></span></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The number of missed cues, while tedious, is effective at producing the "confusion" and racket which Zola is aiming at.</span></span></span></li></ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now, this is just an example that jumped out at me recently. It's not the greatest writing ever. But the man was MEANT TO BE A WRITER. He is funny, versatile, effective at different "voices" and tones, gives a scene well, can be deadpan, "shows" rather than tells, but with a certain irony, etc. This is Zola.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Take, on the other hand, contemporary arts. Writing, music, painting, etc. How many MFA students are trying to write their little stories for a magazine right now, with no innate skill at the "little touches" which Zola brings to his novel? How many musicians with a mere workmanlike uncatchiness and/or a laborious pretentiousness in creating "soundscapes" with none of the UNDERSTANDING OF EFFECT which, say, Wagner brings? How many artists without the flair for the something-memorable which (to mix genres) is evident from the *very first line* of Rimbaud's "Season in Hell"??</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What I want from art: the production of ARTISTS, of persons for whom their expression in artistic form is a kind of "first language," with a skill at dynamics, comedy, effects, pace. In music, think of The Clash, the melancholy of the album "London Calling"; in literature, Conrad's improbable comedy of errors, "The Secret Agent," and in cinema, Howard Hawks' dialogue. These are all form-specific, but the creators' "knack" is evident--they are creating something </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">for us</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">; pacing, tone, dynamics, pastiche, comedy-- I am also thinking of the name "Proust."</span></span></span></div><p></p><p></p></span></div>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-39431871270273968102009-04-03T17:37:00.000-07:002009-04-03T17:40:32.862-07:00"Misfits Fan"Although everyone knows that the Misfits are "officially" my favorite band, when others are pondering my existence, they don't stop and ask what this<span style="font-style:italic;"> means</span>. Because, if initially the Misfits were only catchy, spooky, and had a cool image, in the years of shaping my taste and having my interests find <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">over and over again</span> the greatness of the music, they have come to embody several important principals of my aesthetics. I don't have time right now to go into all of this, but one principal will suffice.<br /><br />The Misfits are masters of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">pastiche</span>.<br /><br />That this is most evidently borrowed from The Ramones, and secondarily from the MC5 and the New York Dolls, only shows what a crucial part of early punk pastiche was. The second New York Dolls album is my favorite of the two, because of its extreme use of pastiche in nearly every track; ditto for the second MC5 record. With the Ramones, one often feels that the previous twenty years of pop music have been thrown in a blender or a Ramones-o-matic and have been spit out as 3-chord punk, but bearing the trace of their origin. To call the Ramones "essentially a pop band" or to overstate the Phil Spector quality of their music, however, is to 1) brutally misunderstand the group, and 2) miss out on the element of *pastiche*.<br /><br />The greatest rock pastiche is still The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away," immortalized on the Rushmore soundtrack. What style is not given the briefest possible coverage over this 9 minute track? And, album-wise, this is the great accomplishment of the Beatles White Album, the b-side of Abbey Road, and Let it Be. A mention should also be made of the Rolling Stones' Between the Buttons and the Kinks, especially on their greatest albums, "Face to Face," Something Else," "Arthur," and "Village Green Preservation Society."<br /><br />This is the heritage which the Misfits take up, which sadly has *not* been taken up by many subsequent punk bands. I am thinking especially of songs like "Teenagers from Mars," "In the Doorway," "Theme for a Jackal," "Braineaters," "London Dungeon," "Rat Fink," and so forth.<br /><br />I have always been against reducing the Misfits to "the spooky Ramones," and for this I point the listener to songs which are more-than-obviously playing with the Ramones formula: "Angelfuck," "Attitude," and "She."<br /><br />In any case, this is to suggest another Adventure in Listening; compare the Misfits with the Who, Monty Python, and the Simpsons, and I believe they will stand out even more from their contemporaries, and from the humorless and redundant music of today.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-14662348764416667932009-01-11T19:04:00.000-08:002009-01-11T19:06:11.665-08:00Is Seattle really *this* embarrassing?<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?pagewanted=1&em">NY Times article </a><br /><br />From an article on a Seattle pastor, who reconciles "Calvinism" (a doctrine that preaches that nothing we do on earth matters for our salvation, which is predetermined) with, uh, some stuff done on earth (wearing a skull t-shirt!!).<br /><br />That there will always be some WILDLY uncool "cool" Christian dude ("Hey guys do you like PEARL JAM?") with facial hair is such a given, it doesn't require any commentary. So, when you are reading this Times article, prepare for some surprises as you try to stomach the suggestion that THESE things are "edgy":<br /><br /><ul><li>"a black skateboarder's jacket and skull T-shirt"<br /></li><li>" 'the cussing pastor' "<br /></li><li>"fashionably distressed jeans and taste for indie rock"<br /></li><li>"his taste for vintage baseball caps"<br /></li><li>"members say their favorite movie isn't "Amazing Grace" or "The Chronicles of Narnia" — it's "Fight Club." "<br /></li><li>"The front desk, black and slick, looked as if it ought to offer lattes rather than Bibles and membership pamphlets."<br /></li><li>"retro T-shirts and [...] intimidating facial hair"<br /></li><li>"the worship band was warming up for an hour of hymns with Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." "<br /></li></ul>Basically, here is an article the entire subject of which is this "bad boy" preacher, but not a single word suggesting that, if you knew this person, he would be the lamest guy you knew. Vintage baseball caps! Bruce Springsteen! Bad facial hair!! This image is so ludicrously uncool, it's hard to stifle your laughter as the author of the article treats these cultural signifiers of regular dude-ness as though it were 1991. Is a latte some kind of satanic marker that I'm unaware of?<br /><br />Here is the most embarrassing thing you'll hear someone say this week, but it's even more embarrassing printed in an article about how tough and renegade the speaker is:<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">'He came to admire Martin Luther, the vulgar, beer-swilling theological rebel who sparked the Reformation. "I found him to be something of a mentor," Driscoll says. "I didn't have all the baggage he did. But you can see him with a quill in one hand and a drink in the other. He married a brewer and renegade nun. His story is kind of indie rock."'</span><br /><br />Yikes! This Martin Luther guy is even cooler than Joey Lawrence!Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-51857992891568734012008-10-19T09:44:00.000-07:002008-10-19T10:05:54.571-07:00I was just talking to my mom on the phone...So here I am listening to Mahler, my room smells like cat food, 2/3 of my bed is covered in notebooks and shoes... <br /><br />And I'm talking on the phone to my mother, and I ask if she's going to see the Oliver Stone movie "W."<br /><br />Now, no one has taken a less sophisticated or more vitriolic stance towards George W. Bush than my mother. She hisses him. She thinks he is "stupid." She has not done her homework, and everything he has done seems to her thoroughly "Republican"--even while he has been isolating himself from his own party with his positions on, for example, immigration. My mother's view of George Bush could not be more ill-informed or more partial.<br /><br />And yet, as a good Christian bourgeois, my mother tells me that she had been hesitant about seeing the Oliver Stone movie, until she heard that it was "more balanced" than one might have thought. <br /><br />If anything exemplifies the moral bankruptcy of "tolerance" and "understanding," it is this superficial desire to see even war-mongers and sponsors of crimes-against-humanity (like George Bush) as "having a story" that can be presented in a "balanced" and "even-handed" manner. <br /><br />This is ideology in its clearest form. Balanced. Non-partisan. We present, you decide. Both sides of the story. Explanations based on childhood biography. Surprisingly fair. <br /><br />My mother, who says she was wary of a film that would be a "hatchet job," is glad to hear that the film is "fair." But what *objective judgment* demands IS a hatchet job. Nothing could be more fair than a devastating, informed, and merciless hatchet job on Bush as president and man. There *are* political nuances to Bush, which my mother and other Democrats have not noticed, and which should be emphasized against the moral-superiority of bourgeois liberal "Blue State" partisans. There are also personal qualifications that should be insisted upon--the man is most likely *not* "an idiot" in the usual sense of the term, as my parents have always insisted. Does that make him more scrupulous? No. More dangerous? Perhaps. But all of that gets lost in the "night in which all cows are black" of his famed stupidity.<br /><br />In short, what is "fair" in judgment has nothing in common with what is "fair" in the minds of the middle-class who have always encouraged us as children to share, say nothing if we don't have something nice to say, and that everyone is good at something. That their world is run as amoral thievery on all levels is nothing to be "considerate" of. [Please note this post has nothing to say about the film itself, but is ONLY concerned with the critical reception which praises its "even-handedness."]Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-1478097132122672212008-10-08T17:06:00.000-07:002008-10-08T17:18:58.424-07:00sub specie aeterniRolling Stone used to (and may still) have an inset feature on classic bands in their reviews section, where you could read a brief bio of a group and also see an overview of their discography, wherein you would learn that, say, "London Calling" or "Houses of the Holy" were (surprise!) 5 star albums. Meaning, of course, not that Rolling Stone had given these albums five stars upon their release, but that *with hindsight*, these were impeccable and classic albums. A bit of a cop-out, from my perspective of really disliking Rolling Stone, but certainly the correct way of thinking of reviews. The only catch is, we can't always wait 20 years to find out if an album is good or not. <br /><br />So: there is the "present moment" of a review, in two senses: for the "contemporary musical context" in which an album is released, and also the present moment of the listener's always-developing taste. As a 16 year old and huge fan of Black Flag, I was in no position to appreciate a timeless classic like Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush." In this respect, the "hindsight" can only be my *future* appreciation of a work, which is as imperceptible to me as its value to posterity. <br /><br />The only ideal review is one that reviews the album "in-itself" or "for us" (Hegel), i.e. "sub specie aeterni" (Spinoza)--from the viewpoint of eternity, or as considered "timelessly" and with everything known. <br /><br />This is not usually possible, for obvious reasons. What is possible? Well, the exact opposite. Not at all an "objective" appreciation, but the completely subjective and pragmatic one. I have a perfect test question. "How many times do you think you will listen to this record?" A "five-star" record would be the most-listened to, a four-star less listened to, etc. until the 1-star record would be the 1 or 2-listen album. By "pragmatic," I mean not treating the quality of a record as something existing IN it, and that will emerge with time (like a meaning), but only in the sense of its tool for us (as giving enjoyment). <br /><br />Bad reviews confuse these two positions.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11741271077444826389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-64114740225867167412008-08-28T10:48:00.000-07:002008-08-28T11:02:07.533-07:00People and IdeasThere is a considerable misunderstanding of human beings that arises in America every 4 years. Around election time, a bystander could almost be led to believe that people (voters) have competing and well-thought-out views on complex issues such as the economy and world affairs.<br /><br />To avoid the liberal error, which is that "<span style="font-weight:bold">*we* </span>have thought through these things, and <span style="font-weight:bold">*they* </span>are content to watch NASCAR and follow their religious leaders," I want immediately to say, <span style="font-style:italic">this is how things should be</span>. People do not have coherent world-views. <br /><br />This, of course, is what Marx means by "ideology" and Gramsci by "common sense"--there are NOT competing and fleshed-out conceptions of the world competing with each other, at least not among persons who are not professional ideologues, pundits, academics, politicians, etc. If there were, the "spectrum" idea of our political parties ("Obama is moving to the center in recent speeches") would fall apart immediately: a spectrum is only slightly more sophisticated at representing complex ideas than our binary political-party system is. Although I will concede that a number of issues, in their party-affiliations, have become hypostatized in clusters of "sites of real struggle"--for instance, the affinity of Black voters with the Democratic party is more or less correct, where their voting for Republicans would be sheer madness.<br /><br />But I don't want to talk about politics. That is just an example. I want to demolish the idea that people for the most part "have ideas" or "hold positions" or even "act in their self-interest." Aristotle has an interesting idea that knowing something, really knowing it, is the same as knowing its cause: in this sense, I completely reject the idea that persons "know what they think" about things. <br /><br />If I didn't have to go buy some clothes right now, I would call Freud into this discussion as well. Needless to say, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">for me the meaning of life is to "find out what I think about things."</span>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-25313096742815674162008-08-08T06:31:00.000-07:002008-08-28T11:07:20.052-07:00Hating on Manohla Dargis<div dir="ltr"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Could Manohla Dargis </span><a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/movies/08eleg.html?8dpc"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">try any harder</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> to show that she has read some Philip Roth novel? (No great accomplishment, really, in itself.) It's bizarrely tasteless, and so insistent that it almost feels high-concept. Roth, after all, is not Shakespeare, and so many films are adapted from novels that this is a strange one to single out for a book report. I'm a bit embarrassed for her.</span><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is all from a MOVIE review:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The book</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> is fascinating and repellent, more admirable than likable, a fusion of early Roth (sex) and late Roth (death). </span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br></span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">In the nove</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">l Kepesh is pathetic and self-loathing, but perversely enthralling because Mr. Roth's prose is. </span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br></span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">...the humiliating revelations that, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">in the novel,</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> Kepesh ritualistically bathes in. </span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br></span></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> It shares some of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the book's</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> dialogue...<br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> a spiky, claustrophobic, insistently impolite </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">novel</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">...<br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the book's</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> blunt force, its beautiful sentences, flashes of genius and spleen.<br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the novel's </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">furious bite.</span></span></span></div> </div> Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-67656663696056890312008-07-05T20:51:00.000-07:002008-07-05T21:18:12.485-07:00"They do not know it, but they are doing it"<a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com">Stuff White People Like</a> is a well-known blog that I have just recently started looking at. Let me give you my take on it, but first (to situate my originality), here is what some idiots had to say:<br /><br />Here's a stupid article about it:<br /><a href="http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=49eb53ed-afbc-4aae-bf17-6ffc44f40a48">new republic</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"If there's one thing white people really like, it's pretending to poke fun at themselves while actually being allowed to feel superior."</span><br /><br />and here's another:<br /><a href="http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/07/05/white_people/">salon</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The author has received "hate mail accusing him of racist stereotyping."</span><br /><br />The site is genius not because it is "so funny" (the writing is quite poor, actually) nor because it is "true" (being told that I like coffee and sweaters is "true" only in the most minimal way) . I see it rather as a continuation of Roland Barthes' brilliant semiological study of French culture, <i>Mythologies</i>--with "white people" here substituting for Barthes' (white) French bourgeoisie. <br /><br />The "insight" that the site is about "yuppies" rather than about *all* white people is hardly an insight at all. THAT IS THE JOKE, if there is one. Which is to say, that is the logic of ideology: having two last names, for instance, is "invisible" within a certain class. The idea that it is something someone "likes" and similar to t-shirts or liking Barack Obama *is* the joke. "Having two last names" or "knowing what's best for poor people" are not likes and dislikes--they are truly invisible to the white urban bourgeoisie. The making-explicit of these phenomena as if they were all the same is the entire enterprise. The idea that white people "like" waiting a long time to get a table at a restaurant, and "like" threatening to move to Canada--this is the joke. We don't "like" it: we aren't even aware that we are doing it. (Marx's definition of ideology)<br /><br />White people:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/29/us/portland03650.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/29/us/portland03650.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-73733523521147362012008-06-28T16:48:00.001-07:002008-08-28T11:07:38.148-07:00another Vampire Weekend postThe last post about this indie-rock quartet was well-received, so I'll venture another opinion.<div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Vampire Weekend are a concept act about *not* wearing tight jeans in 2007-08.</span></div> Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-33909440457610727932008-06-25T20:16:00.000-07:002008-08-28T11:07:38.149-07:0070s AlbumsSo, I have a problem with organizing my music-listening. I don't have a great deal of time to really "sit down with" my records, because I don't listen to music while I read, and when I'm not at home reading I like to be out doin' thangs or watching movies.<br /><br />My procedure for a long time was to have a pile of "recently listened to/new" records out in front of my turntable, but this ended up being unmanageable. Then, for a while, I tried to restrict the number of records that were "out" at any given time to a dozen, which were to be played into the ground before moving to the next group. But, like the strange movies that work their way to the top of your netflix queue, it is hard to plan out in advance what albums you will want to hear a week from now.<br /><br />My solution now is to only listen to records from the 1970s. I have already broken this rule from the start by listening to Led Zeppelin "I," Isaac Hayes "Hot Buttered Soul," and King Crimson "In the Court of the Crimson King," all from 1969. But we know deep down those are really 70s albums, because they are such 70s artists and in such 70s genres. <br /><br />* * * *<br /><br />Some time ago, Pitchfork Media published a list of the top 100 albums from the 1970s. I am planning to make my own list when I'm done with all this, but for now I would like to do a "reading" of the Pitchfork list, which can be found <a href="http://www.listsofbests.com/list/102">here pt 1</a> and <a href="http://www.listsofbests.com/list/102?page=2">here pt 2</a>. <br /><br />Negatively speaking, there are some gross errors here. The Sex Pistols album is wildly underrated (at #51), while the CBGB scene (Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, Suicide) and post-punk are overrated. This is in line with the entire project's favoring of the "artsy." Most egregiously, Black Sabbath is completely absent, as is Bob Marley. There are countless inexplicable exclusions.<br /><br />Positively (that is, descriptively), the list's unbelievable pretension in what got included is unmistakable: as much Krautrock and glam as possible, Brian Eno and David Bowie everywhere, while the genres of reggae, soul, jazz, and funk are represented by mere touchstones. The most cliche thing possible would be to cry "hipster!" and "pretentious!" at these values. That is mistaken. Highly overrating Sly and the Family Stone is not a "hipster" move. The earnest inclusion of several Led Zeppelin albums is not "pretentious" <b>in itself</b>. What is pretentious is the split desire to produce a list by and for indie-rock (pitchfork's readership) and at the same time to make grand pronouncements about the place of Funkadelic in 70s culture. Which is to say, the list is more embarrassing to the extent that it steps *outside* its hipsterism and private tastes. For instance, is Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions" REALLY the only Stevie Wonder album superior to David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane"?? I wonder if there is a single person on earth who would assert that in a non-list form. <br /><br />A GREAT list has its own logic--it makes you forget what has been left off. You grow to understand what the criteria were. This list is awful, because of the striking, striking confusion of putting a Sly and the Family Stone album at #4, and the only Marvin Gaye album at #49 (by contrast, Rolling Stone has this album as the #1 album of this decade!). A really really good list should be so well-conceived that in re-making or re-working it, you accidentally just repeat it while you think you are disagreeing with it. Like, it forces you to say, "The Beatles *really are* the best band"--for instance. Or, any list of the greatest novels that has Madame Bovary or Moby Dick at the top of the list is obviously throwing down a gauntlet. <br /><br />Another type of great list is the list of albums that looks like a person's real private taste. The Pushead list of the 100 best punk records of the 1980s is an excellent example of this. It is bizarre and I disagree with a great deal of it, but it is *honest* and seemingly responsive only to internal criteria. Nothing is included for the sake of representing something else. <br /><br />But let me tell you what I most like about lists. We are all inclined in our personal recommendations and on our myspace pages to represent our tastes a certain way. But the Beatles really are the best band. And it is important once in a while to have some perspective as regards what is "great" and a "must-buy." It is easy to say that something is fantastic when it is not being compared to anything else, but when held up against, say, James Brown's "The Payback," that is usually much harder to assert.<br /><br />In any case, here is my preliminary top 10 list (before I've done a lot of listening to my pile of 70s albums)--with pitchfork placement in parentheses.<br /><br />1the stooges- fun house (12)<br />2bob dylan- blood on the tracks (5)<br />3the ramones- ramones (23)<br />4david bowie- ziggy stardust (81)<br />5sex pistols- never mind the bollocks (51)<br />6stevie wonder- talking book (--)<br />7led zeppelin- 4 (7)<br />8judas priest- sad wings of destiny (--)<br />9bob marley- catch a fire (--)<br />10neil young- after the gold rush (99)<br /><br />My inclusion of judas priest is the only one i think is "non-canonical"--but I think if one subtracts the entire subsequent history of metal from this album, it is truly the culmination of led zeppelin, glam, and black sabbath, i.e. a masterwork.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-75449195097488646032008-06-13T21:05:00.001-07:002008-06-13T21:27:50.380-07:00Let's admit we (you) made a mistakeLook, America. No one has tricked us except for ourselves. In <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10007985-happening/?critic=creamcrop#mo" target="_blank">reviews</a> of the new Marky Mark film--oops, the new Donnie Wahlberg film--oops, le nouveau film de M. Night Shyamalan, nearly every critic unleashes all they've got of mockery and cynicism. Rating a terrible 20% at Rotten Tomatoes (and an even worse score among respectable "top" critics), "The Happening" is sure to bomb and may just put an end to Mr. Shyamalan's Hollywood career. Opening this weekend, it's up against an Incredible Hulk movie, but sadly--very sadly--it cannot pose as the "intelligent alternative" to the Hulk, since by all accounts, it is just as retarded.<br /><br />My contention: it's not that this person's films have gotten worse. Rather, we have become increasingly aware of how hacky and boring and pretentious and badly-scripted, etc. they were in the first place. There is a handy graph of this data on Rotten Tomatoes, but here are the ratings scores for his films (in chronological order):<br /><br />Sixth Sense: 84<br />Unbreakable: 68<br />Signs: 74<br />The Village: 43<br />Lady in the Water: 24<br />The Happening: 20<br /><br />I saw the first four of those when they came out (I love movies). At the time, I too felt that Unbreakable was stylish but boring; Signs was stylish but dumb; and The Village was stylish but truly retarded. Lady in the Water starred my least favorite actor Paul Giamatti, so I didn't go see it, and who knows about the Happening. Sure it *sounds* bad. <br /><br />So, it does indeed seem like this man's films get progressively worse. But I saw The Sixth Sense recently: IT IS HORRIBLE. Easily as bad/dumb as any of those other movies. And once one feels this way, it does not at all incline one to think, "Well his second and third movies were also, y'know, kind of good." Once the first illusion is dissolved, his films certainly do not look like a <span style="font-style:italic">steady decline</span><span style="">. </span><br /><br />>Epistemologically, what we have hear is a randomly arranged pile of equivalently-bad films. By "random" I mean that their chronology is irrelevant on video store shelves, and in terms of absolute quality-evaluations. The *illusion* of a decline (i.e. the illusion of an initial quality) only spells out our obvious biases and desires: we wanted these movies to be good, and we kept on wanting that even when they weren't. Each time that they weren't good, we pretended that it was the fault of the object (of our criticism), when really they are all the same. Our "disappointment" in Mr. Shyamalan was really guilt at an initial mistake that we could not admit and therefore had to keep repeating<br /><br />So, while I cannot defend these shitty movies, I make two charges: that everyone had a serious lapse in judgment as regards The Sixth Sense (and to a lesser degree his other positively-reviewed films); and that the venom spat at his newest work should really be turned towards reviewers themselves for encouraging him in the first place and not admitting their complicity in this pretentious, bombastic career.Ben Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3014997390968095391.post-3420603322901704452008-06-04T08:33:00.000-07:002008-08-28T11:07:38.149-07:00New Weezer VideoThe <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI">video</a> for the new Weezer song is a series of references to popular youtube phenomena (or what wikipedia calls "internet memes"). Most often, Weezer has (somehow!) gotten these losers to reprise their 3-minutes-of-fame-grabbing appearance in the video for this song, singing along or dancing, etc. Other times, the members of Weezer themselves are impersonating famous videos.<br /><br />I'll be honest, I didn't "get" 80% of the references. I'll be more honest, whenever someone shows you a viral internet video, it's always really really embarrassing for that person. They are sitting next to you, saying, "yeah---oh wait here's the best part" and looking at you with this stupid grin. After you smile a little, out of pity, they say something dumb like, "well it was pretty funny the first time." Anyways, I looked up every reference made in this video, and the original youtube videos often had 20 million views, without ever being something weird or very funny. In short, I am shocked at our nation's sense of what constitutes "OMG you have to see this." Then again, I don't work in an office any more, so I am a bit removed from all this.<br /><br />But even lamer is the "after-life" of the people who appear in these videos. Here they are in a Weezer video, which is a HUGE step up from the internet. But... don't they know... that they are popular in the first place for being wildly embarrassing? I contend that they don't. I mean, I don't think it is possible for someone to think that. A famously bad American Idol contestant from several years ago released an album to capitalize on his massive exposure. The question of whether he thought "he could really sing" or not is academic--his biggest mistake was thinking anyone would find him funny for a 45 minute CD. The Weezer video is funny (no, it's not, but we'll get to that) because it keeps the references short, they make the people recognizable (if you have seen their videos in the first place), and they pretend there is NO after-life for these people at all. They are here to "do their one thing." Which is all we want them to do. <br /><br />What's sad is that people don't know what makes them funny in the first place. To ever read an interview with someone whose popularity was a fluke, and hear them describing their "new projects," is heart-breaking. You just wish someone would tell them, "We don't care about you now. Go back to where you came from." And I like the Weezer video's spirit in pretending that, wait, we actually like these people, they seem fun, let's all celebrate them one more time.<br /><br />The reason, however, that the Weezer video is not "funny" is because... well, in what way could it be funny? I'm familiar with the concept of the joke, and there are a couple here, sure. But the majority of the youtube allusions can only be called "funny" if by that you mean "referential." Perhaps you thought someone doing something on video was funny--but does that carry over to watching them sing or dance along to a Weezer song? You can imagine millions of people seeing this video and saying, "Oh that's so funny, how did they get all those people to sing along? Do you think they used CGI or that they *really* had them all there?" etc. Where "funny" in this sentence means something like:<br />-improbable<br />-confusing<br />-not condescending to me<br />-factual<br />-expensively edited<br />-containing references understandable by me<br />-in front of me right nowBen Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17317445668508916179noreply@blogger.com0