Naturally, this is an ongoing topic.
Let me start by saying that I sometimes jokingly wonder what would happen if I were stopped by a cop for a traffic violation, and when I rolled down my window, said something like, "Hey, thanks, but I don't believe in police, so I guess thanks but no thanks. Have a nice day." This is illustrative in a couple ways: 1) that police are the last people on earth who could wrap their heads around their own irrelevance, and 2) that it is ludicrous in America to state that one is outside of the system.
Let's historicize. There has been one great challenge to American democracy: the secession of a number of states from the Union in 1861, on the grounds that: [Secession] illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. (Jefferson Davis). Basically, the slave-owning states, when Lincoln was elected, saw that the national government was irreconcilably opposed to the core beliefs of their fucked-up white asses. So the argument of the Confederacy is, "We came into the union of our free will, and we can leave when we please." Or: "Since we are already outside of the democratic system, and the majority will be turned against us, we will make this officially the case and truly exist outside the American democratic system by seceding."
Eventually this was settled, but to my knowledge there has never since been an "outside" of the American democracy. This despite consistently pathetic voter turn-out, widespread corruption, fraud, disputed ballots, and repeated demonstrations that party politics are only nominally beholden to their constituents. So, I would say, the real success of American democracy is the shared illusion that everyone is equally represented, that there is only one legitimate government of our land, that the law is the law, that hundreds of millions of middle class or midwestern voters are capable of providing a legitimate and reconcilable counter-balance to my vote, etc. One country, one law, one government, no "outside".
Compare this to our prickly friends in Iraq. The celebration over their historic voting was short-sighted, because when people don't vote in Iraq, it has a very different meaning than when people don't vote in America. If you don't vote in America, you still acknowledge the legitimacy of the traffic ticket. If you don't vote in Iraq, you might be at war with the authority giving traffic tickets. In a way, George Bush was right when he stressed the way that ordinary Iraqi voters braved the terrorists who wanted to stop them from voting, because what is at stake in Iraq is not (as much) the specific ideological/political direction of the country, but the desperate attempt to have a consensus government-- one where even if you disagree with the specific administration, you see yourself as inside of the system and subject to the laws of the present and future governments. So, in a way, everyone who voted (and was willing to accept the result if their party lost) was on the same side. What George Bush misses is the non-incidental nature of this "outside" of "democracy".
What Democrats in America don't understand is that there is no "real" position for them, historically, as a Left party; that American democracy depends on vacillations and reversals in power, that if the entire country moved to the right, and Democrats lost in a landslide, there would 1) be no question of the ballots' legitimacy, and 2) that any political rigidity can lead easily to a one-party system which "we" hate on principle--- although ironically one-party systems can be extremely flexible (see: China).
My question, then, arises from the example of Uganda as described in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: why can't there be a one-party democracy? (The Ugandan ruling party is "all-inclusive".)
So, a list of questions:
-- Can there be a one-party democracy?
-- What is socially/historically necessary for universal inclusion to take root?
-- Can there be (has there been) a democracy that is not universally inclusive?
-- Is there a benefit to "holding off" on democracy when the result of voting will be a non-inclusive sovereignty? (ie: if an anti-democratic or exclusionary group came to power in Iraq)
-- Is it completely meaningless to not vote in America, given that not voting is interpreted as tacit acceptance of the legitimacy of the result?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Hulk Hogan (democracy (post) to-come)
So a couple days ago, I was drinking coffee and watching some TV before I went to the library. There were two shows on at the same time, so I didn't really see the entirety of either episode, but I watched a good 12 minutes of "Hogan Knows Best" and probably 10 minutes of "House of Carters". (Luckily, they are re-running the Hogan episode AS I TYPE, so I am going to be able to watch the rest of it.) For those of you who don't know, "Hogan Knows Best" is a reality show about the ex-professional-wrestler Hulk Hogan and his family. His daughter, Brooke, is a monstrous 6-foot bleached-blonde (like if Christina Aguilera were on steroids instead of...uh...crazy pills?). I can only imagine grizzly bears getting in bed with this girl, and even they might still get the worse of it.
Anyways, Brooke is an aspiring pop-star, for seemingly no reason (she is hideous, can't sing, is not creative, etc), but the family somehow muscled (yes) Scott Storch, a famous producer, into signing Brooke to his label. To date, she has released a song, featuring a phoned-in rap from disgusting Houston sub-retard Paul Wall (his name itself raises the question whether he could remember his own name if it didn't rhyme), which no one on the planet could possibly have heard and enjoyed. To further her career, the family then moves to Miami, into an ultra-modern (but unfinished) house, where the new season has started.
In this episode, Hulk and his hulking wife are going around meeting the neighbors, carrying a plate of cookies. Afterwards they describe the neighbors as "very stiff...they didn't want to take our cookies." Because almost ALL their neighbors are JEWISH. But somehow, even though they are wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls, this has not occurred to them. So when they get home, they tell their kids that these people are "kosher." Prompting the following conversation:
Brooke: "Dad, Kosher means Jewish."
Hulk: "Oh, like how sausage means Italian."
Brooke: "It's so funny to say 'kosher', because we just say 'oh, that's kosher, like... that's fine.' "
Hulk: "I thought Kosher was like...pickles."
There is a really sickening moment where the mom, who is this over-bronzed, over-boobed giant, is talking to these Jews as if they were from outer space, making this weird grimace, talking really loudly, and saying things like, "My daugh-ter, Brooke, wants to be like Brit-ney," while these Jews are clearly terrified of her and waiting for her and the cameras to leave.
Nonetheless, they plan an entire party for the neighborhood, but the mom insists that they have Kosher food because "Do you know how many Jews live here?" and stressing that she invited "all" of the neighbors to the party. So, they have a discussion about where to get Kosher food, and even what means:
Mom: "There's a whole grocery store called 'Be Kosher.' "
Brooke: "Mom, that's probably just the name of the store."
Hulk: "It's like an underground society I didn't even know existed."
When Hulk Hogan finally goes to Kosher World, he asks the world's friendliest person (who just happens to be working at the counter), what Kosher is, and takes this information back home:
Hulk: "Sounds like Kosher food is probably better than what we've been eating... I'll be eating Kosher all the time. It's much better quality food than what we've got."
When explaining that the animals "don't feel pain" and are taken care of and disease free, the mom puts her hands over her ears and shouts, "Let's not even talk about that!!" and makes this grotesque squeamish face.
At the party, Brooke is going about networking, and tries to shake hands with a Rabbi, who refuses to touch her (for which, who can blame him?) and IN SUBTITLES (even though he is speaking English), tells her he is a Rabbi. She concludes, "Rabbi means 'no touch'. "
Eventually, it turns out that the Kosher food is not Kosher, that Hulk has prepared it on a grill with the non-Kosher meat that he bought, but a younger Rabbi congratulates him on making an effort to reach out to his neighbors and is jovial about the whole event. Still, the younger Rabbi asks Hulk (unironically) if the grill had been put in a mikvah (a ritual bath), which has to be the most clueless question anyone has ever asked Hulk Hogan.
******
Two concluding notes:
1) The other show I was watching at the time, "House of Carters", is a reality show about Nick Carter (formerly of the Backstreet Boys), and his family (including 'tween sensation turned awkward-teenager Aaron). They have been deserted by their parents, who are divorced, and live in a palatial beach house together, getting drunk and having emotional breakdowns non-stop while all working on horrible (truly horrible) pop albums in their respective studios. But the show is almost too heartbreaking to watch the second the dad comes on the screen, dressed in expensive summer-wear, driving a sports car, gold watch, etc.-- all bought with his children's money, and is a complete VILLAIN. He lies, he teaches horrible lessons, he guilts everyone, he demonizes his ailing ex-wife (their mother), forces displays of affection, shouts people down, won't let anyone cry. Ugh. So this is actually more profound "human drama" than the Hulk Hogan show, but is far too raw.
2) What's really noticeable about the Hulk's encounter with Jews in Miami is not (only) his complete fucking ignorance--the man is a multi-millionaire who is in his late 40s and has traveled all over the world but doesn't know what a Jew is--or his surprisingly non-chalant understanding that it is just a different, more-or-less-wacky group with more-or-less-wacky beliefs than his own and (except for one mean-spirited moment where they contemplate buying non-Kosher food and passing it all off as Kosher) presumably only a few questions away from being accommodated and welcomed.
And I was reminded that probably half of my friends in high school (in Texas) were Jews (from New York), who now have all gone on to Law school and who I really don't keep up with. But watching this episode, I was reminded how appealing Jews are (have to be?) in places like Dallas or Miami: compared to Hulk Hogan, the Jews appearing in this episode are modest, witty, charming, intelligent, self-deprecating, understanding, well-spoken, ironic, etc. I don't want to say I grew up surrounded by Hulk Hogans, but yes, in Texas, someone being ironic, witty, able to explain their difference with some compassion on your behalf, is quite rare. And so I really saw this episode from the perspective of deep-compassion with anyone who had to explain anything complex (Kosher) to Hulk Hogan (a moron), and was reminded why (and this is not sarcasm) Billy Crystal and Jerry Seinfeld were two of the most popular comedians of the 1990s, especially with middle America, whereas Hulk Hogan's "Mr. Nanny" was one of history's great bombs.
Anyways, Brooke is an aspiring pop-star, for seemingly no reason (she is hideous, can't sing, is not creative, etc), but the family somehow muscled (yes) Scott Storch, a famous producer, into signing Brooke to his label. To date, she has released a song, featuring a phoned-in rap from disgusting Houston sub-retard Paul Wall (his name itself raises the question whether he could remember his own name if it didn't rhyme), which no one on the planet could possibly have heard and enjoyed. To further her career, the family then moves to Miami, into an ultra-modern (but unfinished) house, where the new season has started.
In this episode, Hulk and his hulking wife are going around meeting the neighbors, carrying a plate of cookies. Afterwards they describe the neighbors as "very stiff...they didn't want to take our cookies." Because almost ALL their neighbors are JEWISH. But somehow, even though they are wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls, this has not occurred to them. So when they get home, they tell their kids that these people are "kosher." Prompting the following conversation:
Brooke: "Dad, Kosher means Jewish."
Hulk: "Oh, like how sausage means Italian."
Brooke: "It's so funny to say 'kosher', because we just say 'oh, that's kosher, like... that's fine.' "
Hulk: "I thought Kosher was like...pickles."
There is a really sickening moment where the mom, who is this over-bronzed, over-boobed giant, is talking to these Jews as if they were from outer space, making this weird grimace, talking really loudly, and saying things like, "My daugh-ter, Brooke, wants to be like Brit-ney," while these Jews are clearly terrified of her and waiting for her and the cameras to leave.
Nonetheless, they plan an entire party for the neighborhood, but the mom insists that they have Kosher food because "Do you know how many Jews live here?" and stressing that she invited "all" of the neighbors to the party. So, they have a discussion about where to get Kosher food, and even what means:
Mom: "There's a whole grocery store called 'Be Kosher.' "
Brooke: "Mom, that's probably just the name of the store."
Hulk: "It's like an underground society I didn't even know existed."
When Hulk Hogan finally goes to Kosher World, he asks the world's friendliest person (who just happens to be working at the counter), what Kosher is, and takes this information back home:
Hulk: "Sounds like Kosher food is probably better than what we've been eating... I'll be eating Kosher all the time. It's much better quality food than what we've got."
When explaining that the animals "don't feel pain" and are taken care of and disease free, the mom puts her hands over her ears and shouts, "Let's not even talk about that!!" and makes this grotesque squeamish face.
At the party, Brooke is going about networking, and tries to shake hands with a Rabbi, who refuses to touch her (for which, who can blame him?) and IN SUBTITLES (even though he is speaking English), tells her he is a Rabbi. She concludes, "Rabbi means 'no touch'. "
Eventually, it turns out that the Kosher food is not Kosher, that Hulk has prepared it on a grill with the non-Kosher meat that he bought, but a younger Rabbi congratulates him on making an effort to reach out to his neighbors and is jovial about the whole event. Still, the younger Rabbi asks Hulk (unironically) if the grill had been put in a mikvah (a ritual bath), which has to be the most clueless question anyone has ever asked Hulk Hogan.
******
Two concluding notes:
1) The other show I was watching at the time, "House of Carters", is a reality show about Nick Carter (formerly of the Backstreet Boys), and his family (including 'tween sensation turned awkward-teenager Aaron). They have been deserted by their parents, who are divorced, and live in a palatial beach house together, getting drunk and having emotional breakdowns non-stop while all working on horrible (truly horrible) pop albums in their respective studios. But the show is almost too heartbreaking to watch the second the dad comes on the screen, dressed in expensive summer-wear, driving a sports car, gold watch, etc.-- all bought with his children's money, and is a complete VILLAIN. He lies, he teaches horrible lessons, he guilts everyone, he demonizes his ailing ex-wife (their mother), forces displays of affection, shouts people down, won't let anyone cry. Ugh. So this is actually more profound "human drama" than the Hulk Hogan show, but is far too raw.
2) What's really noticeable about the Hulk's encounter with Jews in Miami is not (only) his complete fucking ignorance--the man is a multi-millionaire who is in his late 40s and has traveled all over the world but doesn't know what a Jew is--or his surprisingly non-chalant understanding that it is just a different, more-or-less-wacky group with more-or-less-wacky beliefs than his own and (except for one mean-spirited moment where they contemplate buying non-Kosher food and passing it all off as Kosher) presumably only a few questions away from being accommodated and welcomed.
And I was reminded that probably half of my friends in high school (in Texas) were Jews (from New York), who now have all gone on to Law school and who I really don't keep up with. But watching this episode, I was reminded how appealing Jews are (have to be?) in places like Dallas or Miami: compared to Hulk Hogan, the Jews appearing in this episode are modest, witty, charming, intelligent, self-deprecating, understanding, well-spoken, ironic, etc. I don't want to say I grew up surrounded by Hulk Hogans, but yes, in Texas, someone being ironic, witty, able to explain their difference with some compassion on your behalf, is quite rare. And so I really saw this episode from the perspective of deep-compassion with anyone who had to explain anything complex (Kosher) to Hulk Hogan (a moron), and was reminded why (and this is not sarcasm) Billy Crystal and Jerry Seinfeld were two of the most popular comedians of the 1990s, especially with middle America, whereas Hulk Hogan's "Mr. Nanny" was one of history's great bombs.
Monday, November 13, 2006
top five 90s sitcoms
1. The Simpsons (first ten seasons)
2. Seinfeld
3. Married...with Children (pre-Ted Mcginley)
4. Newsradio
5. Frasier (pre-Daphne & Niles sex)
hon mention: Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me
Obviously these fall into two categories: the classic family sitcom and the "ensemble" sitcom.
It is hard to look back now--after Friends ruined everything for everyone, and when Sex and The City, The Office, and Arrested Development (none of which I've seen) have evidently changed sitcoms (again) forever--and see how revolutionary Seinfeld must have been. Like a few other cultural vocabularies, Seinfeld's has been completely reabsorbed into our lives, and in its wake, so many shows took after its template that it is hard to spot its innovations from its 90s-isms and conventions.
Which is to say, of course there were ensemble sitcoms before. Three's Company and The Golden Girls come to mind. What I think is secretly revolutionary about Seinfeld is that there is NO PREMISE. In Three's Company and The Golden Girls (for example--or for a family example, The Jeffersons), the premise is, "these people now have to live together, and maybe they don't want to, and their personalities will be brought into close contact." This is also 2/3rds of the logic behind Friends (Monica and Rachel live together, Joey and Chandler live together). On Seinfeld, there is no premise. George and Jerry have always been friends, Elaine is Jerry's ex-girlfriend but this is not a new development, no one lives together, there is no reason why the first episode should be the first episode and not the twelfth... Kramer is not in the first episode, but he is not "structurally" new-- he is not a premise. And, up until the last episode, Seinfeld resists premises: George's fiance dies, Jerry and George's pilot is a bust, Elaine and George are always getting new jobs, Kramer's schemes don't go anywhere, no one has a consistent romantic partner, etc. All the reasons that a show might "jump the shark" are new, usually permanent developments (Daphne & Niles having sex changes everything and is irreversible, Ted McGinley as the neighbor's new husband), and Seinfeld never makes anything permanent (Newman is kept to a minor character, for instance) while successfully spinning its own mythologies and sagas.
As far as family comedies go, The Simpsons follows a dysfunctional line from All in the Family through Mama's Family, but really is rooted in animated sitcom The Flintstones and its forebearer, The Honeymooners. In a way, The Simpsons is less interesting to talk about than Seinfeld, because it is so much more of a universe, and because, unlike Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Groening does not know when to quit (or does not care to), and the show has declined irrevocably for no reason other than the writing no longer produces winning jokes. But if Seinfeld is "situational", The Simpsons' strengths are in its immense quotability and the unrivaled nuances of its characterizations. Edmund White writes about Proust that he combines the Dickensian and Jamesian methods of characterization-- you only get one "catchy" bit at a time, but the sheer volume of these bits adds up to an extremely shaded and memorable "round" character. Has anyone read an American novel from the last 30 years with any character that could stand up in characterliness to Homer Simpson, to all of his shames, nobilities, weaknesses, memories, repressions, aims, principles, loves, and secrets?
As far as the honorable mentions, Everybody Loves Raymond is probably the best traditional sitcom since The Cosby Show, but I haven't seen more than 1/2 of its episodes, and Just Shoot Me is hon. mention for the David Spade character alone. South Park is not a sitcom, and probably Dr. Katz is not, either, although both those shows are great.
2. Seinfeld
3. Married...with Children (pre-Ted Mcginley)
4. Newsradio
5. Frasier (pre-Daphne & Niles sex)
hon mention: Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me
Obviously these fall into two categories: the classic family sitcom and the "ensemble" sitcom.
It is hard to look back now--after Friends ruined everything for everyone, and when Sex and The City, The Office, and Arrested Development (none of which I've seen) have evidently changed sitcoms (again) forever--and see how revolutionary Seinfeld must have been. Like a few other cultural vocabularies, Seinfeld's has been completely reabsorbed into our lives, and in its wake, so many shows took after its template that it is hard to spot its innovations from its 90s-isms and conventions.
Which is to say, of course there were ensemble sitcoms before. Three's Company and The Golden Girls come to mind. What I think is secretly revolutionary about Seinfeld is that there is NO PREMISE. In Three's Company and The Golden Girls (for example--or for a family example, The Jeffersons), the premise is, "these people now have to live together, and maybe they don't want to, and their personalities will be brought into close contact." This is also 2/3rds of the logic behind Friends (Monica and Rachel live together, Joey and Chandler live together). On Seinfeld, there is no premise. George and Jerry have always been friends, Elaine is Jerry's ex-girlfriend but this is not a new development, no one lives together, there is no reason why the first episode should be the first episode and not the twelfth... Kramer is not in the first episode, but he is not "structurally" new-- he is not a premise. And, up until the last episode, Seinfeld resists premises: George's fiance dies, Jerry and George's pilot is a bust, Elaine and George are always getting new jobs, Kramer's schemes don't go anywhere, no one has a consistent romantic partner, etc. All the reasons that a show might "jump the shark" are new, usually permanent developments (Daphne & Niles having sex changes everything and is irreversible, Ted McGinley as the neighbor's new husband), and Seinfeld never makes anything permanent (Newman is kept to a minor character, for instance) while successfully spinning its own mythologies and sagas.
As far as family comedies go, The Simpsons follows a dysfunctional line from All in the Family through Mama's Family, but really is rooted in animated sitcom The Flintstones and its forebearer, The Honeymooners. In a way, The Simpsons is less interesting to talk about than Seinfeld, because it is so much more of a universe, and because, unlike Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Groening does not know when to quit (or does not care to), and the show has declined irrevocably for no reason other than the writing no longer produces winning jokes. But if Seinfeld is "situational", The Simpsons' strengths are in its immense quotability and the unrivaled nuances of its characterizations. Edmund White writes about Proust that he combines the Dickensian and Jamesian methods of characterization-- you only get one "catchy" bit at a time, but the sheer volume of these bits adds up to an extremely shaded and memorable "round" character. Has anyone read an American novel from the last 30 years with any character that could stand up in characterliness to Homer Simpson, to all of his shames, nobilities, weaknesses, memories, repressions, aims, principles, loves, and secrets?
As far as the honorable mentions, Everybody Loves Raymond is probably the best traditional sitcom since The Cosby Show, but I haven't seen more than 1/2 of its episodes, and Just Shoot Me is hon. mention for the David Spade character alone. South Park is not a sitcom, and probably Dr. Katz is not, either, although both those shows are great.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
"to infantilize"
I was saying to someone earlier today that I found some aspect of school to be "infantilizing"--or someone was saying this to me--and I stopped to think how much I love this word. As a transitive verb, it just means "To reduce to an infantile state or condition" or "to condescend to as if still to a young child". What neither of these definitions capture is the long transitive form, that infantilization is not accomplished at the flick of a switch, and even more subtly, that infantilization is not a simple transitive at all. The infantilization must be taken on by the subject.
Like Foucault's sense of discipline and surveillance, where the object of knowledge learns to discipline ITSELF, infantilization is something you perform on yourself on behalf of an outside subject. So, "I abuse you" is different from "I make you feel worthless," but both of these forms of transitivity (the active v. the assumed) are captured in the splendid to infantilize. One assumes one's own infantilization.
Other verbs like this would be like, to subordinate, to convert, etc.
Like Foucault's sense of discipline and surveillance, where the object of knowledge learns to discipline ITSELF, infantilization is something you perform on yourself on behalf of an outside subject. So, "I abuse you" is different from "I make you feel worthless," but both of these forms of transitivity (the active v. the assumed) are captured in the splendid to infantilize. One assumes one's own infantilization.
Other verbs like this would be like, to subordinate, to convert, etc.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
best records from the record fair
Necros- Conquest for Death
This has long been a favorite of mine, so I was stoked to pick up the original, since I already have two bootlegs of it (an LP and a CD). This band is perhaps most famous for the extremely rare "Sex Drive" EP (limited to 100?), which you will recall was the name of my last band. But Conquest for Death is the album I think kids should hear before the Minor Threat LP, because it is not totally mind-melting like Negative Approach, but still captures hardcore in a melodic mode without being wishy-washy.
Led Zeppelin- iii
Uh...so, I like Zeppelin's hard rock stuff, but this record is mainly devoid of that (although "Immigrant Song" has to be one of their toughest), and is totally cool bluesy folk that is played really fast, with aggressive strumming (see "Gallows Pole") and one torch-song ("Since I've Been Loving You"). I dunno, I think normally the acoustic Zeppelin songs (on side B of IV, for example) are throwaways, but maybe because they were basically writing an entire record of non-heavy songs, they still found a way to make these songs punchy and diverse because of the narrowed range.
David Bowie- Man who Sold the World
This is another totally weird record-- it is half a weird psychy-folk record like Tyrannosaurus Rex, and half a metal album-- kind of the missing link between "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Sad Wings of Destiny". As with all (good) Bowie, the hooks are there, but here they are spread out among weirder and weirder arrangements. The first listen, I just tried to find the hooks, but once you know when they are coming, you can sort of settle into the uneasy blend of hard-rock, prog, and strange folk that I'm sure is extremely "in" right now, but I don't know what else sounds like this. Recommendations, please!
King Diamond- Conspiracy
The fourth King Diamond record is, I believe, a sequel to "Them", and I actually like it a bit more. "Them", as far as things go, was a fairly normal King Diamond record (whatever that means), whereas the first song here is nine minutes long! The other noticeable element is an overwhelming amount of "spooky" riffs, or at times even the "riff" to the WEDDING SONG. Also, there are a few Frankenstein-ish mosh parts (just imagine Frankenstein's monster moshing and a chunky riff), and times where the vocals are completely out of control and theatrical, having no relation to any melody/rhythm and just throwing the whole thing off balance. Then there are the obligatory Euro-metal solos, and lyrics like "you'd better stop kissing her! the doctor is the devil!" sung in three different voices. This has to be up there with The Birthday Party and Rudimentary Peni in the "I hope they sought therapy" genre.
This has long been a favorite of mine, so I was stoked to pick up the original, since I already have two bootlegs of it (an LP and a CD). This band is perhaps most famous for the extremely rare "Sex Drive" EP (limited to 100?), which you will recall was the name of my last band. But Conquest for Death is the album I think kids should hear before the Minor Threat LP, because it is not totally mind-melting like Negative Approach, but still captures hardcore in a melodic mode without being wishy-washy.
Led Zeppelin- iii
Uh...so, I like Zeppelin's hard rock stuff, but this record is mainly devoid of that (although "Immigrant Song" has to be one of their toughest), and is totally cool bluesy folk that is played really fast, with aggressive strumming (see "Gallows Pole") and one torch-song ("Since I've Been Loving You"). I dunno, I think normally the acoustic Zeppelin songs (on side B of IV, for example) are throwaways, but maybe because they were basically writing an entire record of non-heavy songs, they still found a way to make these songs punchy and diverse because of the narrowed range.
David Bowie- Man who Sold the World
This is another totally weird record-- it is half a weird psychy-folk record like Tyrannosaurus Rex, and half a metal album-- kind of the missing link between "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Sad Wings of Destiny". As with all (good) Bowie, the hooks are there, but here they are spread out among weirder and weirder arrangements. The first listen, I just tried to find the hooks, but once you know when they are coming, you can sort of settle into the uneasy blend of hard-rock, prog, and strange folk that I'm sure is extremely "in" right now, but I don't know what else sounds like this. Recommendations, please!
King Diamond- Conspiracy
The fourth King Diamond record is, I believe, a sequel to "Them", and I actually like it a bit more. "Them", as far as things go, was a fairly normal King Diamond record (whatever that means), whereas the first song here is nine minutes long! The other noticeable element is an overwhelming amount of "spooky" riffs, or at times even the "riff" to the WEDDING SONG. Also, there are a few Frankenstein-ish mosh parts (just imagine Frankenstein's monster moshing and a chunky riff), and times where the vocals are completely out of control and theatrical, having no relation to any melody/rhythm and just throwing the whole thing off balance. Then there are the obligatory Euro-metal solos, and lyrics like "you'd better stop kissing her! the doctor is the devil!" sung in three different voices. This has to be up there with The Birthday Party and Rudimentary Peni in the "I hope they sought therapy" genre.
Monday, November 06, 2006
pretention/ taste arbitration
The weird thing about the word "arbitrary" is its relation to arbiter/arbitration--that is, to decision making. So that "arbitrary" actually means "subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion". Might one then say that "discretionary spending" is "arbitrary spending"? (discretionary: "regulated by one's own judgment). And then you get into the quagmire of defining spending which is discrete but not discreet, etc.
I digress.
In matters of taste, arbitration can seem arbitrary: why this trend and not another? And although in this short blog I am unable to go into matters such as snobbishness, class-determinations, a history of high and low culture, the hegemony of the bourgeois, the curious (demographically aproportional) ascendency of Jews and gays in determinations of culture (at least in New York), hipsterism, the legacy of the 1960s, and other factors that arbitrate what is cool, please consider these the background and future topics of this blog: to remove the "arbitrary" from arbitration of taste, to "expose it for what it is."
The other day in my Scholarly Writing seminar, we read James English's "Economy of Prestige". I also spilled teriyaki sauce all over the copy I was borrowing, and had to drack down the last hardcover copy in New York City so that the person who loaned it to me would not think I was the world's biggest jerk. In the class discussion, I thought my smartest comment was that, as in Borges' "The Lottery of Babylon," the lottery stops being a system of monetary prizes with clear winners, and becomes an extremely obscure, universal system resistant to ideas of winning/losing or even of an obvious outcome, until the lottery becomes indistinguishable from LIFE, so I thought that the system of prizes in English's narrative has become essentially synonymous with culture. There is no "outside".
However, something like the Criterion Collection has a prestige that is not about prizes, so I dunno... that probably also should be investigated later.
My point for today is this: the word "pretentious" should be used correctly. There is a great moment in Zizek's "Looking Awry" where he calls A River Runs Through it "pretentious". This is the precise meaning of the word. Of course, this example is doubly ironic. One, to cite a prominent philosopher to define the word "pretentious"--- secondly, that this philosopher's "slumming it" by discussing this garbage film is in its own way pretentious.
Nonetheless, I think we may use A River Runs Through it as our definition of pretension, and from there go on to discuss taste. What A River Runs Through it, or, to switch our examples, Schindler's List demonstrates, is a certain paranoia of being unable to distinguish between the "actually good" and the merely "pretentious" (that is, a paranoia which would have saved the Oscar from going to Forrest Gump instead of Pulp Fiction).
Ironically (in the sense that here taste is not discretionary but overheard--and thus arbitrary in an entirely different way), many seem to think that the only way to avoid falling into a trap of "bad taste" is to have an exaggeratedly refined set of "good taste" which ends up being altogether predictable and pretentious.
To simplify:
1) Schindler's List is a wildly successful film by an acclaimed director, about a serious subject, featuring several great performances, based on a literary novel, of an appropriately epic length, a winner of numerous awards and accolades, etc.
2) At the same time, I would be completely shocked to hear anyone (in 2006) cite Schindler's List as being anywhere near a great film, on their list of great films, a film by a great director, of anything approaching artistic relevance, or even a second look, etc.
3) In order to be cool, to have good taste in movies, one must not like Schindler's List. But, this demands a certain paranoia-- should one not like any films similar to Schindler's List? is all of Spielberg off limit? all holocaust movies? all Hollywood movies? all American movies? all 90s movies?
4) If one closed out all spielberg/hollywood/American/90s films, you would certainly weed out a lot of garbage. On the other hand, you would weed out some good stuff.
5) That "good stuff" on the other hand, probably is more popular and therefore susceptible to 'contamination' by uncool teenagers, as in the case of Rushmore, Reservoir Dogs...
6) The easy, paranoid solution, then, is to simply stick to the pretentious-- foreign, canonized, or experimental films which will never have the whiff of popularism or uncoolness. At worst, they will be slight and irrelevant. One risks nothing.
I find this to be absolutely unacceptable. Take the superior movie "Reds." Nearly all the same things (as in #1) could be said about Reds as about Schindler's List, and while Reds is probably going to have a comeback with its recent DVD release, I can imagine a good number of snobs having to wait another 10 or 20 years to realize how great this movie is, until it takes its place among (deservedly canonized) movies like "Dog Day Afternoon", "The French Connection," "Bonnie and Clyde," etc.
The point here is that being PRETENTIOUS (in avoidance of the obviously pretentious hollywood dreck and anything paranoiacally associated with it) means, not that you are avoiding all criticism ("at least i didn't accidentally like schindler's list"), but that you are infantilizing your taste, and are exposed to the critique (by me, at least) that there is actually no taste to be discerned in such an obviously defensive move.
You may also take the above as an indictment of hipsterism. Rather than being cutting-edge, in the negative sense hipsterism is a cowardly retreat behind unassailable categories of elitism, the avant garde, the imported, the sheltered. It waits around for something to be deemed "safe" (latest: doom metal, which would have been the least cool thing in the world ten years ago) while always repeating the same mistake (as with "Reds", which is totally under the radar).
This, you will notice, is the opposite of cutting-edge. It would be better termed as "waiting around". And, as an effort to esablish oneself as having "good taste", it accomplishes quite the reverse: the plainly pretentious exposes itself as having no taste at all.
I digress.
In matters of taste, arbitration can seem arbitrary: why this trend and not another? And although in this short blog I am unable to go into matters such as snobbishness, class-determinations, a history of high and low culture, the hegemony of the bourgeois, the curious (demographically aproportional) ascendency of Jews and gays in determinations of culture (at least in New York), hipsterism, the legacy of the 1960s, and other factors that arbitrate what is cool, please consider these the background and future topics of this blog: to remove the "arbitrary" from arbitration of taste, to "expose it for what it is."
The other day in my Scholarly Writing seminar, we read James English's "Economy of Prestige". I also spilled teriyaki sauce all over the copy I was borrowing, and had to drack down the last hardcover copy in New York City so that the person who loaned it to me would not think I was the world's biggest jerk. In the class discussion, I thought my smartest comment was that, as in Borges' "The Lottery of Babylon," the lottery stops being a system of monetary prizes with clear winners, and becomes an extremely obscure, universal system resistant to ideas of winning/losing or even of an obvious outcome, until the lottery becomes indistinguishable from LIFE, so I thought that the system of prizes in English's narrative has become essentially synonymous with culture. There is no "outside".
However, something like the Criterion Collection has a prestige that is not about prizes, so I dunno... that probably also should be investigated later.
My point for today is this: the word "pretentious" should be used correctly. There is a great moment in Zizek's "Looking Awry" where he calls A River Runs Through it "pretentious". This is the precise meaning of the word. Of course, this example is doubly ironic. One, to cite a prominent philosopher to define the word "pretentious"--- secondly, that this philosopher's "slumming it" by discussing this garbage film is in its own way pretentious.
Nonetheless, I think we may use A River Runs Through it as our definition of pretension, and from there go on to discuss taste. What A River Runs Through it, or, to switch our examples, Schindler's List demonstrates, is a certain paranoia of being unable to distinguish between the "actually good" and the merely "pretentious" (that is, a paranoia which would have saved the Oscar from going to Forrest Gump instead of Pulp Fiction).
Ironically (in the sense that here taste is not discretionary but overheard--and thus arbitrary in an entirely different way), many seem to think that the only way to avoid falling into a trap of "bad taste" is to have an exaggeratedly refined set of "good taste" which ends up being altogether predictable and pretentious.
To simplify:
1) Schindler's List is a wildly successful film by an acclaimed director, about a serious subject, featuring several great performances, based on a literary novel, of an appropriately epic length, a winner of numerous awards and accolades, etc.
2) At the same time, I would be completely shocked to hear anyone (in 2006) cite Schindler's List as being anywhere near a great film, on their list of great films, a film by a great director, of anything approaching artistic relevance, or even a second look, etc.
3) In order to be cool, to have good taste in movies, one must not like Schindler's List. But, this demands a certain paranoia-- should one not like any films similar to Schindler's List? is all of Spielberg off limit? all holocaust movies? all Hollywood movies? all American movies? all 90s movies?
4) If one closed out all spielberg/hollywood/American/90s films, you would certainly weed out a lot of garbage. On the other hand, you would weed out some good stuff.
5) That "good stuff" on the other hand, probably is more popular and therefore susceptible to 'contamination' by uncool teenagers, as in the case of Rushmore, Reservoir Dogs...
6) The easy, paranoid solution, then, is to simply stick to the pretentious-- foreign, canonized, or experimental films which will never have the whiff of popularism or uncoolness. At worst, they will be slight and irrelevant. One risks nothing.
I find this to be absolutely unacceptable. Take the superior movie "Reds." Nearly all the same things (as in #1) could be said about Reds as about Schindler's List, and while Reds is probably going to have a comeback with its recent DVD release, I can imagine a good number of snobs having to wait another 10 or 20 years to realize how great this movie is, until it takes its place among (deservedly canonized) movies like "Dog Day Afternoon", "The French Connection," "Bonnie and Clyde," etc.
The point here is that being PRETENTIOUS (in avoidance of the obviously pretentious hollywood dreck and anything paranoiacally associated with it) means, not that you are avoiding all criticism ("at least i didn't accidentally like schindler's list"), but that you are infantilizing your taste, and are exposed to the critique (by me, at least) that there is actually no taste to be discerned in such an obviously defensive move.
You may also take the above as an indictment of hipsterism. Rather than being cutting-edge, in the negative sense hipsterism is a cowardly retreat behind unassailable categories of elitism, the avant garde, the imported, the sheltered. It waits around for something to be deemed "safe" (latest: doom metal, which would have been the least cool thing in the world ten years ago) while always repeating the same mistake (as with "Reds", which is totally under the radar).
This, you will notice, is the opposite of cutting-edge. It would be better termed as "waiting around". And, as an effort to esablish oneself as having "good taste", it accomplishes quite the reverse: the plainly pretentious exposes itself as having no taste at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
