[From the NY Times article on the non-binding House Resolution against a troop increase in Iraq]:
Despite the emotions on both sides, there were moments of agreement. Ms. Pelosi drew sustained applause when she said that everyone in the chamber praised the valor and sacrifice of Americans serving in Iraq.
Only in a Christian nation like America could there be such a "love the sinner, hate the sin" attitude, unquestioningly and nauseatingly repeated, always for political purposes, and without any real meaning.
What does it mean to "support" American troops in Iraq?
- To fund the brutal war of racist occupation they are waging?
- To praise those who continue to enlist after all pretense of the original (even then dubious) motive for the war has been dropped?
- To hope that "their guys" get killed when they come up against "our guys"?
Now, I'm not completely naive. I understand the political meaning behind saying "We support our troops"--and as long as that is a completely meaningless sound-bite, I guess I don't mind. But the second it actually comes to wanting an American soldier to "do his duty" and kill an Iraqi, or valiantly give up his own life, or have expensive new equipment, or even report for duty in the morning--then I am against such support. The only troops I "support" are those who desert or refuse to serve. This war is bullshit and anyone engaged in it is bullshit and I don't support the individuals without whose participation it could not continue.
[And to those who will say, desertion and subordination are hardly options, Ben!; I say: if someone told you, either you go out and kill in the name of a bogus cause, or spend time in jail and possibly ruin your life and bring disgrace upon your family---to me, there is no excuse for saving one's own skin* by shooting other people; it's disgusting.]
*= And I hardly imagine it comes down to this moral dilemma for our valiant troops--and why should it, when they are so kindly praised and supported in their execution of duty?
Friday, February 16, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Pop Music
The last time I wrote something about pop music, it was to say how unsatisfying "pure pop" is in an album context. For instance, compare the Buzzcocks singles to their albums. The albums have stretched out songs, instrumentals, different styles--while their singles show only one side of the band (albeit to great success). The same could be said of a lot of great artists: anyone who buys Bob Dylan's "Greatest Hits" is in for some good tunes, but you miss the inspired album tracks like "It's Alright, Ma" and "It Takes a Lot To Laugh..."
This almost could lead to a discussion of "two types of artists": one type capable of writing songs in a variety of formats, and another type that is oriented towards only one thing. So, the Velvet Underground, Wire, Joy Division, The Cure, Fucked Up on one hand, and Black Sabbath, Gang of Four, Motorhead, Pink Floyd, CCR, The Ramones, The Kinks on the other hand.
But that is not an argument I'm really interested in making--since the dichotomy really proves itself: in the division between "variety" and "unity," everything is varied if you look close enough at one level, and everything blends together if you zoom back far enough.
Rather, I would like to point out that everything needn't come down to pop music in the end. This seems to be the logic of the day, when Justin Timberlake is the most universally-beloved artist.
Take the Ramones, for instance. The general take on the Ramones is that they were influenced by Phil Spector pop, the trashy glam-pop of the NY Dolls, and pre-Beatles American pop-rock like the songs they covered ("California Sun," "Do You Wanna Dance?"). And sure, these are their influences. But, to make this point for the millionth time, the most important influence on punk is The Stooges. The Stooges, who are a "pop band" in no one's conception. And I think it is through this lens that the Ramones need to be seen, to debunk the idea that they are merely latter-day, fucked-up versions of Jan and Dean (why this is an appealing vision I don't know, because it takes all the fun out of the Ramones). And in this conception, "Beat on the Brat" looks a bit different. Isn't this the worst pop song ever?
Ok, so let's define pop music. My definition is that pop music is self-interpreting. On another day, I might say, "pre-digested." I don't mean this negatively, nor do I mean to say that it can't be internally interesting, but if you look at the Beatles' hit songs in their later period, it is still apparent that these songs are, for all their interest, not difficult to hum. "Lady Madonna," "Ballad of John and Yoko," "Obla-di-Obla-da," "Hey Jude." (Here I should say that the all-time worst Beatles hit is the earlier "Paperback Writer.")
The correct point to make, in defending pop music, is all the complexity and variety that can go within a pop song and have it still be self-interpreting. The classic example of this is "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, or, in a later moment, "Love Will Tear Us Apart," by Joy Division. The appeal is, "look how much went into this, and you can still dance to it"--a perfect union of artistry and accessibility.
I don't want to walk all over that, but I think that it has warped everyone's conception of music. For one, I would say that the other essential tenet of pop music is that you throw everything at the wall and see what sticks---this being incompatible with the refinement and genius bands expect from themselves. This, I think, is the motive behind the Buzzcocks' longer album tracks--they are working out one impulse, which will then be "channeled" in a more concise form, into endlessly rewarding pop songs--the same way that Gerhard Richter's split artistic personality was mutually reinforcing to its separate tendencies.
Let's say, then, that we need to get over our fascination with Justin Timberlake and "the perfect pop song" and return to an album context (exactly what has been destroyed by 70-minute rap albums and the prominence of mp3s)--which will have the added benefit of moving away from pure style into a revaluation of form. For instance, instead of trying to graft your Beach Boys harmonies onto your neo-folk ramblings, why not try writing a riff or melody someone might actually want to listen to?
*****
Ok, so after I wrote the first part, I saw this review of an 80s indie-pop retrospective:
"A lot of these bands went in for jingle-jangle 60s-styled pop songs, recorded roughly and sung in starry-eyed schoolkid voices. At times it was defiantly unsexy, and defiantly unambitious-- the sound of idealistic student slackers shambling their way through deliberately simple pop." And this reminds me of when I met kids a few years ago who, when asked what music they listened to, simply said "pop," meaning of course, NOT top 40 stuff. What is hip NOW, I think, is to blur the line (as Pitchfork repeatedly attempts) and say that Toby Keith, The Byrds, and whatever band from Brooklyn are all working in the same idiom, *really*. I find this disingenuous and pretentious, but also wrong-headed. I really stick by my example of "Beat on the Brat," and the Ramones' insistence that they ALL loved the Stooges. As if to prove my point, Pitchfork gives a mediocre review to this collection of the music they are always championing, as if even they can see, when you pile a lot of these singles together, it kind of falls apart on the level of interest.
To forget that the reason the Jesus and Mary Chain are so great is for the same reasons that they AREN'T the Byrds is to fuck everything up.
Well, to conclude very haphazardly, here is a wonderful song which would make a terrible pop song: the opening credits of "The Big Gundown," scored by Ennio Morricone and sung by Audrey Nohra.
This almost could lead to a discussion of "two types of artists": one type capable of writing songs in a variety of formats, and another type that is oriented towards only one thing. So, the Velvet Underground, Wire, Joy Division, The Cure, Fucked Up on one hand, and Black Sabbath, Gang of Four, Motorhead, Pink Floyd, CCR, The Ramones, The Kinks on the other hand.
But that is not an argument I'm really interested in making--since the dichotomy really proves itself: in the division between "variety" and "unity," everything is varied if you look close enough at one level, and everything blends together if you zoom back far enough.
Rather, I would like to point out that everything needn't come down to pop music in the end. This seems to be the logic of the day, when Justin Timberlake is the most universally-beloved artist.
Take the Ramones, for instance. The general take on the Ramones is that they were influenced by Phil Spector pop, the trashy glam-pop of the NY Dolls, and pre-Beatles American pop-rock like the songs they covered ("California Sun," "Do You Wanna Dance?"). And sure, these are their influences. But, to make this point for the millionth time, the most important influence on punk is The Stooges. The Stooges, who are a "pop band" in no one's conception. And I think it is through this lens that the Ramones need to be seen, to debunk the idea that they are merely latter-day, fucked-up versions of Jan and Dean (why this is an appealing vision I don't know, because it takes all the fun out of the Ramones). And in this conception, "Beat on the Brat" looks a bit different. Isn't this the worst pop song ever?
Ok, so let's define pop music. My definition is that pop music is self-interpreting. On another day, I might say, "pre-digested." I don't mean this negatively, nor do I mean to say that it can't be internally interesting, but if you look at the Beatles' hit songs in their later period, it is still apparent that these songs are, for all their interest, not difficult to hum. "Lady Madonna," "Ballad of John and Yoko," "Obla-di-Obla-da," "Hey Jude." (Here I should say that the all-time worst Beatles hit is the earlier "Paperback Writer.")
The correct point to make, in defending pop music, is all the complexity and variety that can go within a pop song and have it still be self-interpreting. The classic example of this is "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, or, in a later moment, "Love Will Tear Us Apart," by Joy Division. The appeal is, "look how much went into this, and you can still dance to it"--a perfect union of artistry and accessibility.
I don't want to walk all over that, but I think that it has warped everyone's conception of music. For one, I would say that the other essential tenet of pop music is that you throw everything at the wall and see what sticks---this being incompatible with the refinement and genius bands expect from themselves. This, I think, is the motive behind the Buzzcocks' longer album tracks--they are working out one impulse, which will then be "channeled" in a more concise form, into endlessly rewarding pop songs--the same way that Gerhard Richter's split artistic personality was mutually reinforcing to its separate tendencies.
Let's say, then, that we need to get over our fascination with Justin Timberlake and "the perfect pop song" and return to an album context (exactly what has been destroyed by 70-minute rap albums and the prominence of mp3s)--which will have the added benefit of moving away from pure style into a revaluation of form. For instance, instead of trying to graft your Beach Boys harmonies onto your neo-folk ramblings, why not try writing a riff or melody someone might actually want to listen to?
*****
Ok, so after I wrote the first part, I saw this review of an 80s indie-pop retrospective:
"A lot of these bands went in for jingle-jangle 60s-styled pop songs, recorded roughly and sung in starry-eyed schoolkid voices. At times it was defiantly unsexy, and defiantly unambitious-- the sound of idealistic student slackers shambling their way through deliberately simple pop." And this reminds me of when I met kids a few years ago who, when asked what music they listened to, simply said "pop," meaning of course, NOT top 40 stuff. What is hip NOW, I think, is to blur the line (as Pitchfork repeatedly attempts) and say that Toby Keith, The Byrds, and whatever band from Brooklyn are all working in the same idiom, *really*. I find this disingenuous and pretentious, but also wrong-headed. I really stick by my example of "Beat on the Brat," and the Ramones' insistence that they ALL loved the Stooges. As if to prove my point, Pitchfork gives a mediocre review to this collection of the music they are always championing, as if even they can see, when you pile a lot of these singles together, it kind of falls apart on the level of interest.
To forget that the reason the Jesus and Mary Chain are so great is for the same reasons that they AREN'T the Byrds is to fuck everything up.
Well, to conclude very haphazardly, here is a wonderful song which would make a terrible pop song: the opening credits of "The Big Gundown," scored by Ennio Morricone and sung by Audrey Nohra.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Man, I don't fucking care
I'm all for fine living, but "mixology," "bartenders who are more like actors," following protégés of certain bartenders, and cross-Atlantic competition, reeks of the unspoken-probability that everyone who goes to these bars is a douchebag.
In New York, everything is a cut above, and it's probably true that part of that is a trickle-down from these high-end establishments. It's probably also true that you haven't really had a martini until you've had a $20 one in a place like these, but FUCK ME if there is anything innately classy about bridge-and-tunnelers and thick-necked investment bankers getting trashed. Anyways, this shit can die a slow death or fuck off like all other euro-pretensions: hipster dives and jack-and-coke forever!
see also this description of what sounds like my worst-nightmare (Milk and Honey NYC):
At last - a bar where the post-modern infatuation with stardom and celebrity has been thrown out like so many shattered shards of a Crystal bottle. This hard-to-find gem on Eldridge St is invitation-only and the lucky non-famous who get the nod have to call ahead and get buzzed in through a hi-tech surveillance door. It’s very 007 except the likes of Pierce Brosnan wouldn’t get in - owner Sasha has banned Quentin Tarantino and outlawed all “name-dropping and star-f*****g.” Gorgeous cocktails like blood-orange screwdrivers and strong-mint mojito muddles are expertly prepared by Sasha himself while lucky guests get to take reservation-only booths or stool space at the small five-seat bar. He wields a strong stick does our Sasha: not only is name dropping banned but men cannot introduce themselves to ladies and giving out phone numbers is strictly prohibited. Quirky, classy and just in time.
In New York, everything is a cut above, and it's probably true that part of that is a trickle-down from these high-end establishments. It's probably also true that you haven't really had a martini until you've had a $20 one in a place like these, but FUCK ME if there is anything innately classy about bridge-and-tunnelers and thick-necked investment bankers getting trashed. Anyways, this shit can die a slow death or fuck off like all other euro-pretensions: hipster dives and jack-and-coke forever!
see also this description of what sounds like my worst-nightmare (Milk and Honey NYC):
At last - a bar where the post-modern infatuation with stardom and celebrity has been thrown out like so many shattered shards of a Crystal bottle. This hard-to-find gem on Eldridge St is invitation-only and the lucky non-famous who get the nod have to call ahead and get buzzed in through a hi-tech surveillance door. It’s very 007 except the likes of Pierce Brosnan wouldn’t get in - owner Sasha has banned Quentin Tarantino and outlawed all “name-dropping and star-f*****g.” Gorgeous cocktails like blood-orange screwdrivers and strong-mint mojito muddles are expertly prepared by Sasha himself while lucky guests get to take reservation-only booths or stool space at the small five-seat bar. He wields a strong stick does our Sasha: not only is name dropping banned but men cannot introduce themselves to ladies and giving out phone numbers is strictly prohibited. Quirky, classy and just in time.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Theory and education
There is a blurb from the Village Voice which appears on many of Slavoj Zizek's books: "...the best intellectual high since ANTI-OEDIPUS." This is reprinted in earnest, I suppose, while I think it captures two profound truths. Firstly, Zizek probably IS the most intellectually exciting and stimulating figure on the scene, to the extent that I am qualified to assent to that statement. Secondly, there is something intoxicating, something like getting "high," about reading Zizek--something that baffles straight-forward sense, something unlike normal reading, something--may I say?--addictive.
Here are the points I'll be working with (I've noticed a lot of times, my premise, not my argument, is what people disagree with).
This post has nothing to say about these thinkers, as such. I have read widely in the authors listed above; I like some more than others, I don't think any of them are "nonsense" or disposable; I think their contributions were among the most important intellectual contributions of the last century; and I read them for pleasure (and the pleasure of thinking).
This post is about their reception and use, which I hereby characterize as:
1) largely dillettantish
2) paying insufficient attention to the pre-history of these topics
3) stylistically damaging
4) guilty of "dumb versions" of their theories, and/ or "keywords" readings
5) pretentious and exoticizing
Largely dilettantish: It is an irony to me that the main readers of "theory" are not the expected population, grad students. While my friends and I read *heavily* in theory, in comparison to our other reading, it can only comprise a small portion of our total reading, because, after all, you can't get a PhD in the Theory Department. I think the sort of problems discussed in this post also lead to a dampening of enthusiasm for theory in more mature minds--the "high" wears off. In any case, people who stick with high-level critical thought no longer seem to be fan boys or dilettantes, but you may say they are "seriously engaged." Rather, those who seem to the biggest "fans" of theory are undergraduates and 20-somethings. As for 20-somethings, it is hard to care what they do in New York, in between their "music projects" and gentrifications, but when someone says that THOUSAND PLATEAUS is their "favorite book," it is hard not to snicker. As for undergraduates, the rest of this post will deal with them, but their dilettantism is almost built-in, since no professor is going to assign *all* of THE ORDER OF THINGS to an undergraduate class, but is far more likely to teach exemplary snippets, photocopies into a course-pack. (This is also disastrously true for Karl Marx.)
2) paying insufficient attention to the pre-history of these topics: Derrida, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre all wrote books on Edmund Husserl. Presumably 95% of undergraduate enthusiasts of Derrida have not read Husserl. I know I haven't! After I had read about seven books by Derrida, I opened a book by Heidegger and was floored by how foolish I had been to think that everything Derrida was doing (even stylistically) was new and his innovation, when even the first page of Heidegger's THE WAY TO LANGUAGE is astonishingly proto-Derridean. Not that everyone should read everything in order--but, if one reads Derrida at all, the first thing you notice is that he seems to have read everything. This, of course, would be a different kind of dilettantism, but a more desirable one: a dilettante who has read Husserl.
3) stylistically damaging: I actually wish more people wrote like Zizek and Derrida, who have completely different styles, each of which is all too easy to parody. However, wouldn't that be a
great improvement over the weirdly vocabulary-heavy, distended, humorless prose that undergraduates feel compelled to write in emulation of theory? See here for a perfect (and endlessly-generated) parody/example. [I must admit, I find it very depressing when it is assumed that I write at all in that tedious, name-dropping vein. The only paper I have ever written that involved Heidegger, Derrida, et al, was perfectly lovely and a "lay reader" said it was the best thing I'd ever written. Hi, Dad!]
As for 4) and 5), dumb versions and exoticizing, it is hard to suggest anything about the former, except, "Don't do it!," and the pretentious tendency to uncritically laud anything European is as rampant as the tendency to uncritically dismiss anything European qua pretentious. As for readers of theory who read something and say, "I love it! I'm not sure if I understood it right, though," I can sympathize, but one's time really could be better spent than in being completely mystified by Agamben.
As for my recommendations of how NOT to be a lame reader of theory (ack! that sounds likea title for some dreaded Amazon list), I can only suggest patience and, to quote Derrida, "doing your homework." Zizek *is* a great introduction, but I think he has the potential to be a dead-end for a lot of readers, since he mostly points to Lacan (maybe the "hardest" of the lot). I would suggest starting with Baudrillard (because he has all the most exaggerated qualities imputed to theory) or Foucault, and reading whole books instead of just bits and pieces (or just Wikipedia). I have always said, you probably will get the first 10 or so books you read plain wrong or only partially, but you can always re-read, and once you are in the swing of things, it all is less mystifying. Right now I am reading in the line Kant-->Hegel-->Husserl-->Sartre, and after that I'll probably do Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Deleuze---since I don't "do" theory, I figure I have all the time in the world to get this background---but really you can do no wrong as long as your readings are honest and rigorous.
As for being intimidated by all this, that never got anyone anywhere, and if one is (as is most likely) intimidated by all the BAD versions of the "theory reader," why--all the more reason to get it right. Certainly one doesn't have to engage with these thinkers or their concerns, but they are as valid as the next, and at least raise interesting questions. Never mind how shaky the starting-point is.
Derrida obit in NY times
Guardian obit: "deep thinker or truth thief?"
Here are the points I'll be working with (I've noticed a lot of times, my premise, not my argument, is what people disagree with).
- By "theory," I mean a usually-European, post-1960, left-leaning, esoteric set of critics who write a kind of interdisciplinary philosophy that derives usually from Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, rather than in the analytic and/or pragmatic philosophy popular in American Universities (hence you can't major in "theory" or usually study these subjects in an American philosophy department).
- Some names: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Giorgio Agamben, Jean Baudrillard, Guy De Bord, Maurice Blanchot, Slavoj Zizek, Paul Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Jean-Luc Nancy, Emmanuel Levinas; and closer to home: Frederic Jameson, Paul De Man, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Susan Sontag.
- I don't think it is useful or necessary to include a previous generation, although one will see a lot of mentions of: Walter Benjamin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukacs, Gaston Bachelard, Theodor Adorno, etc. I say, "Leave them out of this!"
- That these thinkers (Derrida, Lacan, et al.) tend to be classed indiscriminately as post-structuralist, post-modern, etc.
- That much of the reaction against and enthusiasm for these thinkers has much to do with their reputation as subversive writers, whose self-important and inaccessible prose requires much analysis to get to the point of their "abstruse theories," if they aren't just clap-trap.
This post has nothing to say about these thinkers, as such. I have read widely in the authors listed above; I like some more than others, I don't think any of them are "nonsense" or disposable; I think their contributions were among the most important intellectual contributions of the last century; and I read them for pleasure (and the pleasure of thinking).
This post is about their reception and use, which I hereby characterize as:
1) largely dillettantish
2) paying insufficient attention to the pre-history of these topics
3) stylistically damaging
4) guilty of "dumb versions" of their theories, and/ or "keywords" readings
5) pretentious and exoticizing
Largely dilettantish: It is an irony to me that the main readers of "theory" are not the expected population, grad students. While my friends and I read *heavily* in theory, in comparison to our other reading, it can only comprise a small portion of our total reading, because, after all, you can't get a PhD in the Theory Department. I think the sort of problems discussed in this post also lead to a dampening of enthusiasm for theory in more mature minds--the "high" wears off. In any case, people who stick with high-level critical thought no longer seem to be fan boys or dilettantes, but you may say they are "seriously engaged." Rather, those who seem to the biggest "fans" of theory are undergraduates and 20-somethings. As for 20-somethings, it is hard to care what they do in New York, in between their "music projects" and gentrifications, but when someone says that THOUSAND PLATEAUS is their "favorite book," it is hard not to snicker. As for undergraduates, the rest of this post will deal with them, but their dilettantism is almost built-in, since no professor is going to assign *all* of THE ORDER OF THINGS to an undergraduate class, but is far more likely to teach exemplary snippets, photocopies into a course-pack. (This is also disastrously true for Karl Marx.)
2) paying insufficient attention to the pre-history of these topics: Derrida, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre all wrote books on Edmund Husserl. Presumably 95% of undergraduate enthusiasts of Derrida have not read Husserl. I know I haven't! After I had read about seven books by Derrida, I opened a book by Heidegger and was floored by how foolish I had been to think that everything Derrida was doing (even stylistically) was new and his innovation, when even the first page of Heidegger's THE WAY TO LANGUAGE is astonishingly proto-Derridean. Not that everyone should read everything in order--but, if one reads Derrida at all, the first thing you notice is that he seems to have read everything. This, of course, would be a different kind of dilettantism, but a more desirable one: a dilettante who has read Husserl.
3) stylistically damaging: I actually wish more people wrote like Zizek and Derrida, who have completely different styles, each of which is all too easy to parody. However, wouldn't that be a
great improvement over the weirdly vocabulary-heavy, distended, humorless prose that undergraduates feel compelled to write in emulation of theory? See here for a perfect (and endlessly-generated) parody/example. [I must admit, I find it very depressing when it is assumed that I write at all in that tedious, name-dropping vein. The only paper I have ever written that involved Heidegger, Derrida, et al, was perfectly lovely and a "lay reader" said it was the best thing I'd ever written. Hi, Dad!]
As for 4) and 5), dumb versions and exoticizing, it is hard to suggest anything about the former, except, "Don't do it!," and the pretentious tendency to uncritically laud anything European is as rampant as the tendency to uncritically dismiss anything European qua pretentious. As for readers of theory who read something and say, "I love it! I'm not sure if I understood it right, though," I can sympathize, but one's time really could be better spent than in being completely mystified by Agamben.
As for my recommendations of how NOT to be a lame reader of theory (ack! that sounds likea title for some dreaded Amazon list), I can only suggest patience and, to quote Derrida, "doing your homework." Zizek *is* a great introduction, but I think he has the potential to be a dead-end for a lot of readers, since he mostly points to Lacan (maybe the "hardest" of the lot). I would suggest starting with Baudrillard (because he has all the most exaggerated qualities imputed to theory) or Foucault, and reading whole books instead of just bits and pieces (or just Wikipedia). I have always said, you probably will get the first 10 or so books you read plain wrong or only partially, but you can always re-read, and once you are in the swing of things, it all is less mystifying. Right now I am reading in the line Kant-->Hegel-->Husserl-->Sartre, and after that I'll probably do Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Deleuze---since I don't "do" theory, I figure I have all the time in the world to get this background---but really you can do no wrong as long as your readings are honest and rigorous.
As for being intimidated by all this, that never got anyone anywhere, and if one is (as is most likely) intimidated by all the BAD versions of the "theory reader," why--all the more reason to get it right. Certainly one doesn't have to engage with these thinkers or their concerns, but they are as valid as the next, and at least raise interesting questions. Never mind how shaky the starting-point is.
Derrida obit in NY times
Guardian obit: "deep thinker or truth thief?"
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