From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #73 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, March 9 2004 Volume 13 : Number 073 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: FW: Robin in the news ["Stewart C. Russell" ] I wish Robyn would do this... ["Brian" ] RE: FW: Robin in the news ["Bachman, Michael" ] Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... ["Rex.Broome" ] REAP ["Jay Lyall" ] Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... [Capuchin ] RE: FW: Robin in the news ["Jason Brown \(Echo Services Inc\)" ] Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... [Eb ] RE: FW: Robin in the news ["Jason R. Thornton" ] RE: Contemporary analogs ["Bachman, Michael" ] Year of Death II continues [Miles Goosens ] Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... [Capuchin Subject: Re: FW: Robin in the news Marcy Tanter wrote: > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3545679.stm but doesn't everyone know that "Turdus migratorius" translates as "Migration's a shit"? I guess it fared as well as the Baltimore Oriole (the bird, not the rounders player) which landed on Fair Isle in the Shetlands, and was promptly eaten by a crofter's cat. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 10:48:53 -0500 From: "Brian" Subject: I wish Robyn would do this... ...but he's far too elusive! Click on the "Live" section: http://www.bid.clara.net/swell/ There are lots of feg musician on the list, but this is a strange thing as it is, huh? Anyway if there are any Mid-western US fegs (or if Rex is in WV), come see us play in May. Unfortunately, the only other Monochrome Set listener Feg lives in New Zealand! -which is very strange to me given the lyrical content of MSet songs: I'm dead and dank and rotten My arms are wrapped in cotton My corpes loves you let's marry... Im caught in a mesh of veins My fingers and flesh and brains My skull gives head, so lets wed... - ----------- The only MSet to Robyn connection is that Morris Windsor was the Monochrome Set's drummer for a short time in 1982, oh, and that the MSet and the Soft Boys had the same manager (Mike Alway) for a while. - -Nuppy - -- Brian nightshadecat@mailbolt.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 11:04:46 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news Marcy Tanter wrote: > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3545679.stm Stewart retorted: >but doesn't everyone know that "Turdus migratorius" translates as "Migration's a shit"? >I guess it fared as well as the Baltimore Oriole (the bird, not the rounders player) which landed onFair Isle in the Shetlands, and was promptly eaten by a crofter's cat. One bird I would like to send away from Michigan that has been a big nuisance is the cormorant. A large flock in the spring can wipe out all perch in a good size lake in a couple of weeks. This has hurt vacation areas that depend on good fishing to bring in the vacationers who spend the money. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 08:47:55 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Life in the Fast Lane (0% Glenn Frey) Simpsons-related Dear Abby column pulled By Heather Hollingsworth March 9, 2004 | KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Somewhere in Springfield, state unknown, Bart Simpson is in detention, filling a chalkboard with the words "I will not write a fake letter to Dear Abby." Well, it probably wasn't Bart's handiwork, but he'd no doubt approve of the prank that forced Dear Abby's editors to pull next Monday's advice column, which included a letter that mirrored an episode of "The Simpsons." "It did sound too similar not to be a hoax," said Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Kansas City-based Universal Press Syndicate. The syndicate sent the column to newspaper subscribers last week. A day later, a newspaper editor called after noticing one of the letters to Abby sounded "awfully familiar," said Sue Roush, one of the column's editors. The column is titled "Wife meets perfect match after husband strikes out." In the letter, the writer describes herself as a 34-year-old mother of three who has been married for 10 years to a man who is "greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude." Today's Daypass sponsored by Schindler's List The writer says her husband, Gene, gave her a bowling ball for her birthday -- complete with the holes drilled to fit his fingers and embossed with his name. Undeterred, the woman decides to learn to bowl and heads to the local lanes, where she meets another man, Franco, who is "kind, considerate and loving." They fall in love and Franco proposes. "I no longer love Gene," writes Stuck in a Love Triangle. "I want to divorce him and marry Franco. At the same time, I'm worried that Gene won't be able to move on with his life. I also think our kids would be devastated. What should I do?" After the letter raised the suspicions of the newspaper editor, Universal Press Syndicate did some research and discovered that Gene seemed a lot like Homer Simpson's thoughtless character in an episode titled "Life on the Fast Lane." In both the letter and the Simpsons episode, the husbands grow suspicious when they stumble across bowling gloves -- obvious gifts to their wives from the other man. In the television show, Homer responds by ineptly professing his love for Marge, who later goes to him at the nuclear power plant where he works. He lifts her up and carries her out of the plant as his co-workers watch and cheer. "Obviously, it has no basis in reality," said Fox Network spokesman Scott Grogin. Jeanne Phillips, who writes Dear Abby, told "Stuck" to tell her husband why she strayed. "To save the marriage," she wrote, "he might be willing to change back to the man who bowled you over in the first place." Phillips was traveling and her editors told The Associated Press she could not immediately be reached for comment. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what youre looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 10:46:10 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... Miles/Stewart: >>>> >Tooker Gomberg, 48 >> >(Candian activist >> Who among us didn't think "Hobbit"? > >>OK, then - who among us *did*? Besides me? I mean, it's even got "Took" >>in there. I see that... but... are there Jewish Hobbits? Spalding Gray... damn... you know, it's really hard to explain him to people who've never heard of him. He seems to belong to the era in the '80's where artsiness crept perilously close to the mainstream, and now seems to be largely forgotten. But if you strain you can remember: Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Phillip Glass, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and quite a few other similar folks were damned near household names. Arty directors, too... Wenders, Cronenberg, Lynch.... or do I just remember it that way because I see that period through the prism of Late Night with David Letterman? Amyway, I wonder what the recognition factor would be for those names amongst, say, the 25 and under set. And I'm hard pressed to think of contemporary analogs for them... Can anyone help me draw a bead on that whole scene? Two things come to mind that make then different from now... the first being that things seemed more interdisciplinary then, and you were more likely to see just plain weird stuff in more mainstream venues. And the second being that, while that kind of art was sometimes confrontational and ironic, it was, I dunno, gentle in a way. It seems that post Tarantino, post grunge, post whatever the hell happened in 1992 or so, artsiness has been obligated to be a little more mean-spirited. I'm not arguing that either approach is more valid, just trying to suss out what the hell happened. Just a little melancholy. I'll miss Spalding Gray, and that seems to point me towards a thing or two I was already missing without realizing it. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 12:26:52 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Bachman, Michael wrote: > One bird I would like to send away from Michigan that has been a big > nuisance is the cormorant. A large flock in the spring can wipe out all > perch in a good size lake in a couple of weeks. This has hurt vacation > areas that depend on good fishing to bring in the vacationers who spend > the money. Right... screw the natural order, we've got an economy to boost! J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 14:46:55 -0600 From: "Jay Lyall" Subject: REAP 'Murphy Brown's' Pastorelli dead at 49 http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/09/obit.pastorelli.reut/index.html - ---------------------------------------- Jay Lyall - Houston, Texas "Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy." - Mike Donohue http://www.johnkerry.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 12:49:33 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Rex.Broome wrote: > Spalding Gray... damn... you know, it's really hard to explain him to > people who've never heard of him. [snip] > Amyway, I wonder what the recognition factor would be for those names > amongst, say, the 25 and under set. And I'm hard pressed to think of > contemporary analogs for them... I was chatting with the video store clerks last night (we talk movies and celebrities sometimes and they don't charge me for borrowing tapes and discs) and only one of them knew who Spalding Gray was at all. I think the 25-year-old cut-off is exactly accurate in that case. I was stunned and saddened. > Can anyone help me draw a bead on that whole scene? Two things come to > mind that make then different from now... the first being that things > seemed more interdisciplinary then, and you were more likely to see just > plain weird stuff in more mainstream venues. And the second being that, > while that kind of art was sometimes confrontational and ironic, it was, > I dunno, gentle in a way. It seems that post Tarantino, post grunge, > post whatever the hell happened in 1992 or so, artsiness has been > obligated to be a little more mean-spirited. I think you're hitting something with "mean-spirited", but it's a bit more than that. There's a blatant obviousness to the mainstream these days. I was talking to some friends the other day about Black Sabbath (OK, someone was doing Sabbath at a karaoke bar where we sat). It's almost strange to think of how they were viewed when I was a kid. The anger and confusion isn't as simplistic as it is in modern metal. This plays into your idea of being "more interdisciplinary" -- if I don't take that to mean that the work necessarily bridges media or incorporates multiple crafts and take it, instead, to mean multi-dimensional and incorporating more human traits. I find a one-dimensionality in modern art. It's a kind of primitivism, I suppose, but I see it more as a charicature of emotion. The art you describe was closer to the mainstream because even if you didn't sync exactly with the standing wave the artist was trying to maintain, there was enough complexity that you could at least find something harmonic with which you could resonate. In other words, the appeal was more universal without being more simplistic. > I'm not arguing that either approach is more valid, just trying to suss > out what the hell happened. I don't really know what "valid" means in this context. People just do stuff. But I will say that the modern tendency toward simplified emotion seems to further segregate people and make them less aware of their alienation. These categories and types (typified by the stereotype -- heh) emphasize some small aspect of being human and blow it way out of proportion and almost completely neglect the other aspects. When a person attempts to adhere to one of these types they distance themselves (perhaps consciously, certainly on purpose) from some other part of what makes them a person like any other. As I heard one fellow say a while back, "When did we become consumers with lifestyles instead of people with lives?" > Just a little melancholy. I'll miss Spalding Gray, and that seems to > point me towards a thing or two I was already missing without realizing > it. I appreciate that. I think that gets to some of what bothers me so much about his passing, too. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 16:04:11 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news - - On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Bachman, Michael wrote: > One bird I would like to send away from Michigan that has been a big > nuisance is the cormorant. A large flock in the spring can wipe out all > perch in a good size lake in a couple of weeks. This has hurt vacation > areas that depend on good fishing to bring in the vacationers who spend > the money. Jeme replied: >Right... screw the natural order, we've got an economy to boost! Jeme, The problem is, they multiply at an alarming rate. They not also wipe out fish population, but they also eat all the foliage in their roosting area, so you end up with denuded vegetation. They have devastated the Les Cheneaux islands in the Eastern UP of Michigan, with tens of thousands of nesting pairs. In the early 1970's we had less than 100 nesting pairs in the entire state. Do a search on cormorant problem and see all the hits you get. Also, this is not just a Michigan problem. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:10:12 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Bachman, Michael wrote: > The problem is, they multiply at an alarming rate. They not also wipe > out fish population, but they also eat all the foliage in their roosting > area, so you end up with denuded vegetation. They have devastated the > Les Cheneaux islands in the Eastern UP of Michigan, with tens of > thousands of nesting pairs. In the early 1970's we had less than 100 > nesting pairs in the entire state. Do a search on cormorant problem and > see all the hits you get. Also, this is not just a Michigan problem. But the cause isn't the cormorants... it's something else. What? Consider also that this was exactly the justification for wiping out the passenger pigeon. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:15:10 -0800 From: "Jason Brown \(Echo Services Inc\)" Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news >Consider also that this was exactly the justification for wiping out the >passenger pigeon. What exactly was so awful about that? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 16:24:41 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... Capuchin wrote: > > As I heard one fellow say a while back, > "When did we become consumers with lifestyles > instead of people with lives?" Or as my friend and political cartoonist Cinders McLeod (who really needs to update her website, ) wrote: "Was there life before lifestyle?" Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:31:33 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Jason Brown (Echo Services Inc) wrote: > >Consider also that this was exactly the justification for wiping out > >the passenger pigeon. > > What exactly was so awful about that? We don't know how to make more. We don't even understand the system of which they were a part or how their demise might impact that system in the long-run. Hell, even from a purely homocentric view, there could be some chemical in the spleen of the passenger pigeon that cures Xavier's Plague that will otherwise eradicate the Earth's population in 2085. They were irreplacable and therefore infinitely valuable. You can go around wasting resources if they are abundant. But if you can't get more when you run out, you don't have abundance and you need to conserve. It is exactly because we don't know exactly what good they do that they should have been preserved. What kind of arrogance would cause a person to say, "I don't know what this does, so it must be useless."? J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:36:37 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... >He seems to belong to the era in the '80's where artsiness crept >perilously close to the mainstream, and now seems to be largely >forgotten. But if you strain you can remember: Laurie Anderson, >David Byrne, Phillip Glass, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and >quite a few other similar folks were damned near household names. Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Robert Wilson, Peter Sellars.... >Arty directors, too... Wenders, Cronenberg, Lynch.... or do I just >remember it that way because I see that period through the prism of >Late Night with David Letterman? Amyway, I wonder what the >recognition factor would be for those names amongst, say, the 25 and >under set. And I'm hard pressed to think of contemporary analogs >for them... Interesting observation. And I can't really think of the "contemporary analogs" either. I guess we're stuck with Josh Groban, instead. ;) I have a duller observation to offer: Life sucks. Thanks. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 16:40:59 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... Rex and Capuchin discuss, Jeme: > I was chatting with the video store clerks last night (we talk movies and > celebrities sometimes and they don't charge me for borrowing tapes and > discs) That is one very cool set-up! >and only one of them knew who Spalding Gray was at all. I think > the 25-year-old cut-off is exactly accurate in that case. I was stunned > and saddened. Really? Why *should* they necessarily know who Spalding Gray was? He was pretty much an artist of the 80s, politically inclined, and one that was never very mainstream. I mean, when I was 25, I'm not sure if I knew the Spalding Gray equivalent of the earlier generation. Perhaps you are more stunned and saddened with your own aging...? ;) > I think you're hitting something with "mean-spirited", but it's a bit more > than that. There's a blatant obviousness to the mainstream these days. With due respect to you guys, I sense here a wave of . . . pre-middle-age nostalgia! As far as I remember the 80s mainstream, while it had some good and some bad, I would hardly say it was less "obvious." Setting aside the dreadful teeny-pop American Idol stuff that's predominant right now, the current "cool mainstream" features groups like the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Outkast, and even the Flaming Lips, among others. Back in the 1980s, for every U2 and REM and the Smiths, we also had tons of blatant obvious crap, too. > was talking to some friends the other day about Black Sabbath (OK, someone > was doing Sabbath at a karaoke bar where we sat). It's almost strange to > think of how they were viewed when I was a kid. The anger and confusion > isn't as simplistic as it is in modern metal. It isn't? I mean, Black Sabbath was one of a kind, but I think that Korn, Staind, and their ilk are no more or less simplistic than Dokken, White Snake, Motley Crue.... Which were a lot more popular than Black Sabbath! Actually, now that I think about it, Korn and their ilk may be actually less simplistic than the hair bands.... I had a friend who listened to Korn and those groups, and their lyrics weren't *that* bad, just not my cup of tea. A bit too theatrically self-pitying. (Cut to anguished Ozzie from Black Sab's eponymous track: "Oh God No Not Me..!!!!!") >I find a one-dimensionality in modern > art. It's a kind of primitivism, I suppose, but I see it more as a > charicature of emotion. OK, I assume by "art" to a certain extent you mean popular forms of art. One-dimensionality? Well, then.... What about Radiohead? Bjork? Sigur Ros? Norah Jones? Eminem? What about the HBO TV renaissance, which brings shows like "The Shield" in its wake? What about the surprising popularity of films like "The Lord of the Rings?" > As I heard one fellow say a while back, "When did we become consumers with > lifestyles instead of people with lives?" People have been saying that sort of thing in America since the 20s; and probably before that. Rex: > But if you strain you can remember: Laurie Anderson, Was just as much "mainstream" as she is now. And back then, she had a sharper grasp on her talent, too. But she was never beyond the "cool mainstream." > David Byrne, Self-destructed, to a large extent, wouldn't you say? I mean, I am sure he's happy doing his own thing, but who knows what the Talking Heads might have done if they stayed together? >Phillip Glass, Now more popular than ever, actually, and drifting closer to the mainstream. Look at "The Secret Window." >Keith Haring, Dies, alas. But I am sure that someone hipper than me am knows what artist makes the kids happy these days.... >Robert Mapplethorpe and quite a few > other similar folks were damned near household names. Mapplethorpe was a household name only because of the controversy surrounding him, not his talent at photography. >Arty directors, too... > Wenders, Cronenberg, Lynch.... or do I just remember it that way because I see > that period through the prism of Late Night with David Letterman? Heh heh . . . Yes, sadly, I would think that is likely the case! > And I'm hard pressed to think of contemporary analogs for > them... Well, some of them fulfilled roles that may not need "analogs" at this point, but there are equally talented people out there with comparable hip/mainstream/arty cred... As I said before, Bjork, Radiohead, Sigur Ros...? In classical, Thomas Ades? To some weird extent, Jack White? Nan Goldin? As far as directors go, Lynch just had a *major* critical success with Mulholland Drive, Wenders as well with "BVSC," and Cronenberg has himself made a move towards less "accessible" films. > And the second being that, while that kind of art > was sometimes confrontational and ironic, it was, I dunno, gentle in a way. Well, you named a group of artists who were essentially gentle -- except, of course, your choice in directors. You think "Blue Velvet" is more gentle than "Pulp Fiction?" And what about punk rock? Confrontational performance art? Comedy like Bill Hicks? Again, I think your selections reflect your own nostalgia about your own tastes back in the day.... At least, in my opinion. I know I tend to do the same thing, quite a lot. I can *feel* myself aging every time I open "Rolling Stone!" (Cut to Grandpa Simpson: "Back then I was cool and hip! Now I don't know what's cool, and the music is strange and scary! It will happen to YOUUUU!!!") > It seems that post Tarantino, post grunge, post whatever the hell happened in > 1992 or so, artsiness has been obligated to be a little more mean-spirited. I don't really see that at all... I think rather, that post-Tarantino, a certain violent, stylized aesthetic may have entered the mainstream; but that has more to do with my generation aging than it does with the mainstream getting more "mean-spirited," I think. Just my respectful observations in way of a disagreement, - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:54:01 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Contemporary analogs Still pondering this question. About the only suggestion I can come up with is Moby. Quail named some similar arty musicians, but they don't really bleed into other spheres in the way Moby (somewhat) does. He seems like more of a general "personality in the art world" in a way Bjork isn't. He's also "arty New York," like so many of the '80s examples which Rex named. Oh, and add David Hockney and Robert Longo to the '80s list? Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 13:58:11 -0800 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: RE: FW: Robin in the news At 01:31 PM 3/9/2004 -0800, Capuchin wrote: >Hell, even from a purely homocentric view, there could be some chemical in >the spleen of the passenger pigeon that cures Xavier's Plague that will >otherwise eradicate the Earth's population in 2085. Or, those passenger pigeons could have evolved into a superior master-species that enslaved the humans and fed upon our children in high-class passenger pigeon restaurants. We'll never know. >What kind of arrogance would cause a person to say, "I don't know what >this does, so it must be useless."? I probably have been a bit too harsh in my criticism of our human resources department, now that I think about it. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 17:03:04 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Contemporary analogs Eb wrote: >Oh, and add David Hockney and Robert Longo to the '80s list? I would add John Sayles to the directors list. A personal favorite of mine since I first saw "Return of The Secaucus 7" back in 1981. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 14:06:50 -0800 From: Eb Subject: RE: Contemporary analogs >Eb wrote: > >>Oh, and add David Hockney and Robert Longo to the '80s list? > > I would add John Sayles to the directors list. A personal favorite >of mine since I first saw "Return of The Secaucus 7" back in 1981. I don't think the "directors" portion of Rex's thesis is so strong. There are always arty directors around. Look at how well-known Steven Soderbergh is, for instance. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 16:29:20 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Year of Death II continues Courtesy of the Wire list, I've just been alerted to a "Reap" we may have missed: John McGeoch, of Siouxsie/Magazine/PiL guitar goodness. http://www.stevenseverin.com/johnmcgeoch.htm later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 15:01:55 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Back when you could still be post-modern on purpose... On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, The Great Quail wrote: > Jeme: > > I was chatting with the video store clerks last night (we talk movies > > and celebrities sometimes and they don't charge me for borrowing tapes > > and discs) > > That is one very cool set-up! It would be a whole lot cooler if it weren't such a sucky video store. But yeah, I do get whatever they have whenever I want it. > > and only one of them knew who Spalding Gray was at all. I think the > > 25-year-old cut-off is exactly accurate in that case. I was stunned > > and saddened. > > Really? Why *should* they necessarily know who Spalding Gray was? He was > pretty much an artist of the 80s, politically inclined, and one that was > never very mainstream. I don't consider him "an artist of the 80s" at all. Consider that two of his four monologues on film were made in the 1990s (the last by Stephen Soderbergh, no less -- and I say that because he's very much a current force in film and not considered anachronistic). > I mean, when I was 25, I'm not sure if I knew the Spalding Gray > equivalent of the earlier generation. I would say Garrison Keillor, but they're about the same age. Heh. > Perhaps you are more stunned and saddened with your own aging...? ;) I was stunned they didn't know who he was because of my previous associations, sure. But I wasn't so much saddened that they didn't know who he was as that they didn't even seem to understand the appeal of sincerity. > As far as I remember the 80s mainstream, while it had some good and some > bad, I would hardly say it was less "obvious." You can't deny that there is a permissiveness in modern culture that allows for more blatant description of human action that diminishes the prevalence of metaphor and allusion. I'm not saying that the permissiveness, in and of itself, is a bad thing, but that it adds a harshness and that, in turn, has a segregating effect. > Setting aside the dreadful teeny-pop American Idol stuff that's > predominant right now, the current "cool mainstream" features groups > like the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Outkast, and > even the Flaming Lips, among others. Are you kidding? The Strokes? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? I think they fit very well with the American Idol pap. There's no attempt there to reach any deeper than the stereotype requires. > Back in the 1980s, for every U2 and REM and the Smiths, we also had tons > of blatant obvious crap, too. U2, REM, and The Smiths are certainly not in the category that Rex was describing. They're just pop bands. I think I see now where you veered off from what we were trying to express. I don't think anyone's saying that the 80s mainstream was more interesting than the mainstream of today. It's just that the avant-garde was closer to the mainstream, culturally... not that the mainstream was any more or less avant-garde. There was an understanding in the mainstream that there was interesting work going on out in the fringes and there was an awareness of what those things were and why they were good and interesting. Today, there is more marginalization and more segregation of cultural sects. > > was talking to some friends the other day about Black Sabbath (OK, > > someone was doing Sabbath at a karaoke bar where we sat). It's almost > > strange to think of how they were viewed when I was a kid. The anger > > and confusion isn't as simplistic as it is in modern metal. > > It isn't? I mean, Black Sabbath was one of a kind, but I think that > Korn, Staind, and their ilk are no more or less simplistic than Dokken, > White Snake, Motley Crue.... Which were a lot more popular than Black > Sabbath! This has nothing to do with popularity, it has to do with cultural acceptance and mainstream recognition. To me, it all comes down to the false tolerance we have today. Take as example the "Free Speech Zones" (which were by no means an invention of the Bush administration). The idea being one like "you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't have to listen". The fringe is no longer a cultural force as a subcultural force. They're not breaking ground for the mainstream to follow so much as running out in the field to show how far out they are, not to show how a person can get there. > > I find a one-dimensionality in modern art. It's a kind of > > primitivism, I suppose, but I see it more as a charicature of emotion. > > OK, I assume by "art" to a certain extent you mean popular forms of art. No, I mean art, generally. > One-dimensionality? Well, then.... What about Radiohead? Bjork? Sigur > Ros? Norah Jones? Eminem? While I've never listened to Sigur Ros, the others don't give me much hope for finding what I'm describing. These aren't cutting edge artists... these are multi-platinum recording industry product. > What about the HBO TV renaissance, which brings shows like "The Shield" > in its wake? The cutting-edge stuff is still left out in a void, though. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about either Sex In The City or The Sopranos (though both are quite entertaining!). There isn't any kind of greater exploration of humanity there. It's not what you'd call avant-garde. > What about the surprising popularity of films like "The Lord of the > Rings?" Is there anything more simplistic than a good v. evil fantasy tale? I don't think you'd compare it to, say, Eraserhead. But what WOULD you compare to that? What is a modern experimental work that is well-known and referenced in the mainstream today? The closest you might get is Pi, but can you name-drop Aronofsky as a punchline for Jay Leno in the same way that Johnny Carson did DID with David Lynch in 1984? > Rex: > > But if you strain you can remember: Laurie Anderson, > > Was just as much "mainstream" as she is now. And back then, she had a > sharper grasp on her talent, too. But she was never beyond the "cool > mainstream." Uh... really? Because she used to appear on network television. > > David Byrne, > > Self-destructed, to a large extent, wouldn't you say? I mean, I am sure > he's happy doing his own thing, but who knows what the Talking Heads > might have done if they stayed together? OK... I think you're missing the point here. He's not saying "Where are they now?" He's saying "Who's taking up the mantel?" For this one, anyway, I would say Wayne Coyne fits fairly well. > >Phillip Glass, > > Now more popular than ever, actually, and drifting closer to the > mainstream. Look at "The Secret Window." Ah, more popular than ever, sure, but more a part of the mainstream consciousness? He's got a bigger audience, but it's a ghetto (or, more apt, a gated community). > > Robert Mapplethorpe and quite a few other similar folks were damned > > near household names. > > Mapplethorpe was a household name only because of the controversy > surrounding him, not his talent at photography. Perhaps, but his name was universally known. Who compares? What work has had that much mainstream cultural impact even for its controversial subject matter? "The art community" is a whole different thing than the mainstream culture. They're not so much forces that influence each other as separate systems. > > And I'm hard pressed to think of contemporary analogs for > > them... > > Well, some of them fulfilled roles that may not need "analogs" at this > point, but there are equally talented people out there with comparable > hip/mainstream/arty cred... As I said before, Bjork, Radiohead, Sigur > Ros...? Radiohead and Bjork are pretty much arena performers. Their influence on mainstream culture is due entirely to the huge number of people that buy their records and worship their personae. I think this puts them way out of the "avant-garde" field. > As far as directors go, Lynch just had a *major* critical success with > Mulholland Drive, Wenders as well with "BVSC," and Cronenberg has > himself made a move towards less "accessible" films. But are the modern experimental works used as yardsticks against which the more mainstream fare is measured? They're considered apples and oranges today. The subcultures are carefully segregated. > > And the second being that, while that kind of art was sometimes > > confrontational and ironic, it was, I dunno, gentle in a way. > > Well, you named a group of artists who were essentially gentle -- > except, of course, your choice in directors. You think "Blue Velvet" is > more gentle than "Pulp Fiction?" I don't think "gentle" is the word I would use, but it's certainly more human. Blue Velvet certainly has characters with amplified quirks, but they're just amplified human flaws. Pulp Fiction is (and surely was intended to be) nothing but one-dimensional characters who are more mechanical than human. The harshness isn't in the actions displayed on the screen, but in the treatment of people and the intended audience reaction to that treatment. In Pulp Fiction, the violence is not intended to be horrific or disturbing. The emotional impact is intentionally nullified by the characters reactions to what is going on around them. This is the source of the harshness. To beat the horse, Pulp Fiction was 100% mainstream. Look at its box office ranking for the year. Compare that to Blue Velvet. > And what about punk rock? What about it? Punk rock was poorly understood by much of the mainstream, but at least it was recognized and on the radar. What compares today? What is the crazy, rebellious thing people are doing that gets to be a subject for an episode of Law & Order (like the "punk rock" episode of Quincy, M.E.)? > Confrontational performance art? Spalding Gray was cutting-edge performance art. Which modern cutting-edge performance artist is having his work filmed by acclaimed directors? Hell, what experimental films are playing at the local cinema? In the 1980s, you could see a concert film at the cineplex or the mall, today they're at "the art house" pretty much exclusively. Again, intentional segregation. > Comedy like Bill Hicks? Right... who's been on Letterman lately that challenged the social order? > > It seems that post Tarantino, post grunge, post whatever the hell > > happened in 1992 or so, artsiness has been obligated to be a little > > more mean-spirited. > > I don't really see that at all... I think rather, that post-Tarantino, a > certain violent, stylized aesthetic may have entered the mainstream; but > that has more to do with my generation aging than it does with the > mainstream getting more "mean-spirited," I think. Huh? What does your aging have to do with the violent, stylized aesthetic entering the mainstream? That sentence makes no sense to me. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #73 *******************************