From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #14 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, January 16 2009 Volume 17 : Number 014 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Rex ] quail speaks [Jill Brand ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [lep ] pitchforkmedia is a tease ["John B. Jones" ] re: guided by voices ["michael hooker" ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Rex ] Re: guided by voices [lep ] Re: coming to Rod's defense [2fs ] Re: pitchforkmedia is a tease [2fs ] Playmobil Security Check Point (NR) [Steve Schiavo ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [2fs ] Re: pitchforkmedia is a tease [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Rex ] re: Subject: Where are they now? -Andy Metcalfe ["Marc Holden" ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Great Quail ] Re: All hail the American Night! [lep ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [lep ] reap [lep ] reap [Christopher Gross ] Re: reap ["Sumiko Keay" ] Re: All hail the American Night! [Christopher Gross ] reap ["Stewart Russell" ] Re: reap ["Sumiko Keay" ] Re: All hail the American Night! [Great Quail ] Re: All hail the American Night! [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:51:45 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Great Quail wrote: > Ok, Rex -- nothing personal, really, I just have to tweak your list a bit. > It's kind of the musical equivalent of "You kids get off my lawn!" > > > 8. Album-recreation concerts. This was a neat idea, but we can stop. > > Why? Who is "we?" Was "I Often Dream of Trains" a bad idea? Aren't a lot of > albums *designed* to be listened to as a whole experience, so doesn't it > make sense to have a concert where they are played that way? There probably are some good candidates left to do, but for my tastes, it's gotten a bit bandwagon-y and stunt-y. IODOT is not at all a bad idea, but it was the first RH tour I skipped in many years, pretty much solely because I'm bored with this concept. > > > > 9. Serious reviews of new albums by non-artists. > > Honestly. As a guy who only listened to *three* new albums straight through > last year (two of them from 80s groups), and admittedly does not like hip > hop... Um... what? What other genres do I not know that I don't like? When did I admit this? Why would I, since it's not true? Also, what is an "80s group"? Is that a 12-step program or something? I get a strong feeling here that you think you know more about me than you do, and that it has something to do with your attachment to genre labels that I don't follow, and some stereotype of '80's nostalgists that I don't fit. > do you really feel capable of judging what a "non-artist" is at this > point? Of course! Far more of the music that I hear casually now is by non-artists. I can quantify non-artist music better at this point in my life than ever before. Anyone can get a similar crash course from Radio Disney. But you don't really want to, unless you want to cherry-pick an artist from that world to champion as legitimate just to show how very open-minded and eclectic you are. Some people are like that. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:23:07 -0500 (EST) From: Jill Brand Subject: quail speaks "I actually like the song "Womanizer." Does that make me a bad person? (Or just a pervert?)" - - --Quail I think the latter. Or just a guy approaching the prime of middle age. Kevin Barnes is my Britney Spears, but he takes more clothes off. And Quail also wrote: "PS: Having just been introduced to the Fleet Foxes, I would like to jump their eponymous CD immediately way high up on my Best of 2008 list. Jeez! This album is great! And I think very Feg-friendly...." My son brought this home in early December, and some of it is exquisite. My two favorite songs are Tiger Mountain Peasant Song and He Doesn't Know Why, which I put on repeat for about an hour yesterday. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:39:59 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List Rex says: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Great Quail wrote: > >> Ok, Rex -- nothing personal, really, I just have to tweak your list a bit. >> It's kind of the musical equivalent of "You kids get off my lawn!" >> >> > 8. Album-recreation concerts. This was a neat idea, but we can stop. >> >> Why? Who is "we?" Was "I Often Dream of Trains" a bad idea? Aren't a lot of >> albums *designed* to be listened to as a whole experience, so doesn't it >> make sense to have a concert where they are played that way? > > > There probably are some good candidates left to do, but for my tastes, it's > gotten a bit bandwagon-y and stunt-y. IODOT is not at all a bad idea, but > it was the first RH tour I skipped in many years, pretty much solely because > I'm bored with this concept. you know how i love to gang up on you, rex, so i'll put in my 2 cents that i'm with quail on this (good lord, how else would liz phair get me to see her last summer?) regardless of the concept, i think if you have a certain relationship with an album, you'll want to hear the whole thing. i'd be curious how IODOT ranks on your ordered list of robyn's albums. personally, not only are some of my favourite songs of RH's on that album, but also quite a few that he doesn't seem to play that often. i don't think i'd ever heard him play "cathedral", and "winter love" i'd only heard him play once. "nocturne" was a big zero until then as well. (also, the concert was informative because i learned which song is actually "heart full of leaves". i always figured it was the one that went "the leaves have never looked as good...") (regardless, he played both "heart full of leaves" *and* the song that i always was "heart full of leaves", and it was great to hear both of them.) my point being that even if the concept is worn out, my guess is that the actual songs played won't be. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:52:19 -0800 From: "John B. Jones" Subject: pitchforkmedia is a tease Today's news headline: "Robyn to Drop Acoustic EP". Fool that I am, I actually clicked on it before I saw the picture of the Swedish blonde above it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:57:24 -0500 From: "michael hooker" Subject: re: guided by voices my favorite female voice: eddi reader her robert burns album is a treasure ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:14:16 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 6:39 PM, lep wrote: > > regardless of the concept, i think if you have a certain relationship > with an album, you'll want to hear the whole thing. i'd be curious > how IODOT ranks on your ordered list of robyn's albums. > It's pretty high up there, actually. But it's also one of those records whose grooves I wore out to the point where I sometimes "can't hear it any more". Every three years or so I need to curl up with it and totally luxuriate in all that it entails for me; this just happened to not be one of those years... I did want to see Sonic Youth do "Daydream Nation at Twenty", but I ended up in the wrong state at the time. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:22:13 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: guided by voices michael hooker says: > my favorite female voice: > > eddi reader > > > her robert burns album is a treasure have i been negligent in my michael counting or should NumMicheals := NumMichaels + 1? xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:56:30 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: coming to Rod's defense On 1/15/09, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > kevin studyvin wrote: > > Van the Man was definitely on my list. Of course so was > > > Jim Morrison, where I seem to be all alone, but what the heck. > > > I think The Doors biggest problem is that Morrison thought he was a poet (which was ludicrous), the Oliver Stone movie -- even that Oliver Stone would make a movie about them, and when they are bad, the are over-the-top pretentiously bad. It's sort of like The Police, except that Sting had the sense to not die in a bathtub. Some would disagree on the sensibility of that course. I mean, if Sting had died of a heart attack in a bathtub during his 18th hour of tantric sex, right after _Synchronicity_'s completion, just think of what his legacy *wouldn't* include! - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:57:21 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: pitchforkmedia is a tease On 1/15/09, John B. Jones wrote: > Today's news headline: > > "Robyn to Drop Acoustic EP". > > Fool that I am, I actually clicked on it before I saw the picture of the > Swedish blonde above it. Wait - Robyn Hitchcock moved to Sweden and dyed his hair blond? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:02:07 -0600 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Playmobil Security Check Point (NR) And to think I had to make do with a robot that threw ping-pong balls and shot rockets out of its head. - - Steve __________ I can't resist an anime that includes a small, cute, violence prone girl with a scythe. - John ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:00:01 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List On 1/15/09, Rex wrote: > I did want to see Sonic Youth do "Daydream Nation at Twenty", but I ended up > in the wrong state at the time. How many states are in Daydream Nation? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:25:25 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: pitchforkmedia is a tease 2fs wrote: > On 1/15/09, John B. Jones wrote: > > Today's news headline: > > > > "Robyn to Drop Acoustic EP". > > > > Fool that I am, I actually clicked on it before I saw > the picture of the > > Swedish blonde above it. > > Wait - Robyn Hitchcock moved to Sweden and dyed his hair > blond? Okej yeah "I love how (coffee) makes me feel. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain!" -- Kenneth Parcell ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:40:47 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 8:00 PM, 2fs wrote: > On 1/15/09, Rex wrote: > > > I did want to see Sonic Youth do "Daydream Nation at Twenty", but I > ended up > > in the wrong state at the time. > > How many states are in Daydream Nation? Why, it takes a Nation of *millions*, of course. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:03:30 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: re: Subject: Where are they now? -Andy Metcalfe Nuppy pointed out: >Haven't scene this before. So that's where Andy is! >Buffalo Smoke: >http://www.buffalosmoke.net/index.html Thank you, Brian. That was a really interesting find there. Marc I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't pretend to even know what the questions are. Hey, where am I? Jack Handey ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:32:40 -0500 (EST) From: djini@voicenet.com Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered Kevin wrote: > > Based on some pf the photos that were published of Poppy Z back in the olden days, she was pretty clearly female. Oh yeah, it was all internal. That's pretty much what body dysmorphia is, right? The disagreement between the inner and the outer. (Sometimes) she wished she was a pretty boy, is the point. I never did like her fiction much - it's like Clive Barker's - I just do not get it. People were fanatical about it though, I remember. People you didn't want to argue with. > Alas, the former Goth horror queen has > abandoned the wicked ways of her misbegotten youth, claiming these days to more interested in good ole N'Orleans cuisine than the transgender vampire fiction she used to write, and is pretty much indistinguishable from the latter-day Linda Ronstadt. Is she recording music now? Yikes. And Anne Rice has become a full-on religious maniac. I wonder what Stephenie Meyer will do in middle age to entertain/dismay us all. Jeanne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:17:08 -0600 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered On Jan 13, 2009, at 2:32 PM, djini@voicenet.com wrote: > I wonder what Stephenie Meyer will do in middle age to entertain/ > dismay us all. Isn't she already dismaying enough? - - Steve _______________ Interaction with cosmic intelligence may be influenced by Penrose noncomputable Platonic wisdom embedded in Planck scale geometry. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:34:11 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 5:17 AM, Steve Schiavo wrote: > On Jan 13, 2009, at 2:32 PM, djini@voicenet.com wrote: > > I wonder what Stephenie Meyer will do in middle age to entertain/dismay us >> all. >> > > Isn't she already dismaying enough? > Oh, Christ, yes. I rather suspect she's already on the same page as Rice, crypto-Christian-wise. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:41:47 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Rex wrote: >> I wonder what Stephenie Meyer will do in middle age to entertain/dismay us >>> all. >> >> Isn't she already dismaying enough? >> > Oh, Christ, yes. I rather suspect she's already on the same page as Rice, > crypto-Christian-wise. Well, maybe in middle age Meyer will turn into an agnostic, leftist sexual libertine with kinky streak! And maybe sexual dysmorphia to boot. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. - --Chris "hey, her initials are S&M already" the Christer ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:25:45 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: All hail the American Night! Jeff analyzes, > I think The Doors biggest problem is that Morrison thought he was a poet > (which was ludicrous), I have to say -- it's one thing to criticize someone's poetry; it's another to ridicule their self-identification as a poet. I have two volumes of Morrison's verse -- it sits between Milton and Neruda on my poetry bookcase. Is it as good as its alphabetically-determined siblings? No, of course not. In fact, some of his verse is pretty wretched, even for a young man in the 60s. However, some of it is surprisingly good. Some of it contains flashes of brilliance. It's obviously inspired by the Beats, and is strongly reminiscent of Kerouac's poetry at times. ("The sea is a Vagina which / may be penetrated at any point." or, "The car rasps quiet. / Motor destroys itself on rotten fuel. / The pump is ill. / The hose has a steel nozzle." or "And when she exits bed, the barge / To bathe in ocean's tile & under / surgeon's glare, blinking / I bask on the red floor of a Red Sea.") Moreover, he's been published (by Vintage no less!), read, and discussed. That makes him a poet. Maybe not a great one; fine. But I simply think it's more productive to actually critique his poetry or point out its deficiencies than to simply label him a non-poet. > It's sort of like The Police, except that Sting had the > sense to not die in a bathtub. Not yet, at least. We can still hope. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:45:59 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List Rex writes, > There probably are some good candidates left to do, but for my tastes, it's > gotten a bit bandwagon-y and stunt-y. IODOT is not at all a bad idea, but > it was the first RH tour I skipped in many years, pretty much solely because > I'm bored with this concept. I confess, I don't understand. You think IODOT as a concert is not a bad idea, it's one of your favorite albums, but you skipped it because you are bored with the concept? That seems to me to be placing self-identification above actual happiness. I mean, it's your life, you can do what you want. I just honestly do not understand, it seems like...inviting crankiness into one's life for no good reason. Like those people who love something only until a certain number of other people start liking it too. I just don't get it. > Um... what? What other genres do I not know that I don't like? When did I > admit this? Why would I, since it's not true? I may be mistaken, then. I thought I recalled a discussion a few years back in which you admitted to not liking hip hop; and I don't recall ever seeing any hip hop on your favorite lists, or discussing any hip hop artists. Again, I may be wrong, it's been years on this List, and sometimes you confuse people and postings. > Also, what is an "80s group"? Is that a 12-step program or something? I am sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant to suggest that The Fall and REM were groups essentially born in the late 70s, rose to popularity in the 1980s, and are generally considered to have had their heydays in the 1980s. > I get a strong feeling here that you think you know more about me than you > do, and that it has something to do with your attachment to genre labels > that I don't follow, and some stereotype of '80's nostalgists that I don't > fit. I was only commenting on your 2008 favorites list, in which you listed only three albums, having commented that you never listened to any other new albums all the way through; furthermore, two of those three albums were by REM and The Fall. Hence my impression of, "You kids get off of my lawn!" I know you feel I am making massively large and unsupported judgments about you. But you yourself admitted it was a "painfully honest" list, and I for one cannot imagine having only listened to three new CDs all the way through in the course of a year. I found that striking, even remarkable, so I commented on it. I mean, after all -- we are on a music list. > But you don't really want to, unless you want to cherry-pick an > artist from that world to champion as legitimate just to show how very > open-minded and eclectic you are. Some people are like that. Sigh. Fair enough, Rex. We can stop this now, before we drag the List down into another idiotic spat fueled by my overwhelming, blind, hypocritical ego and your nasty, humorless petulance. I was tweaking your nose, so I suppose I deserved to get a more powerful jab back. I should have known better. The frog and the scorpion and all that. - --Quail PS: You gotta say, though -- have their ever been two people on a list that disliked each other more than me and Rex? Don't we get some kind of Webby award for that? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:46:45 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: All hail the American Night! On 1/16/09, Great Quail wrote: > I have to say -- it's one thing to criticize someone's poetry; it's another > to ridicule their self-identification as a poet. I have two volumes of > Morrison's verse -- it sits between Milton and Neruda on my poetry bookcase. > Is it as good as its alphabetically-determined siblings? No, of course not. > In fact, some of his verse is pretty wretched, even for a young man in the > 60s. > > However, some of it is surprisingly good. Some of it contains flashes of > brilliance. It's obviously inspired by the Beats, and is strongly > reminiscent of Kerouac's poetry at times. ("The sea is a Vagina which / may > be penetrated at any point." or, "The car rasps quiet. / Motor destroys > itself on rotten fuel. / The pump is ill. / The hose has a steel nozzle." or > "And when she exits bed, the barge / To bathe in ocean's tile & under / > surgeon's glare, blinking / I bask on the red floor of a Red Sea.") > > Moreover, he's been published (by Vintage no less!), read, and discussed. > That makes him a poet. Maybe not a great one; fine. But I simply think it's > more productive to actually critique his poetry or point out its > deficiencies than to simply label him a non-poet. I think Morrison occasionally came up with the striking line or image. But his problem - partly due to his times and circumstance, and probably due partly to his own tendencies - is there's no discipline, no sense of culling the bad from the good. Instead, one gets the impression he believed literally in a stream-of-consciousness...as if that approach would (to re-borrow a quote) burst "the doors of perception" and free his mind yadda-yadda-yadda. This weakness is not his alone, of course. I think Morrison could have been a pretty good poet...but being a rock star in the late sixties kind of got in the way of that. Being a pretentious asshole mighta been a problem as well. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:51:37 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: All hail the American Night! 2fs says: > I think Morrison occasionally came up with the striking line or image. > But his problem - partly due to his times and circumstance, and > probably due partly to his own tendencies - is there's no discipline, > no sense of culling the bad from the good. Instead, one gets the > impression he believed literally in a stream-of-consciousness...as if > that approach would (to re-borrow a quote) burst "the doors of > perception" and free his mind yadda-yadda-yadda. This weakness is not > his alone, of course. I think Morrison could have been a pretty good > poet...but being a rock star in the late sixties kind of got in the > way of that. > > Being a pretentious asshole mighta been a problem as well. since when did being a pretentious asshole get in the way of being an artist? xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:53:38 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List Quail says: > PS: You gotta say, though -- have their ever been two people on a list that > disliked each other more than me and Rex? Don't we get some kind of Webby > award for that? isn't that called an Ebby on this list? /* ducks */ xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:58:07 -0500 From: lep Subject: reap andrew wyeth, painter, 91: http://tinyurl.com/9fpr8k xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:58:33 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: reap Andrew Wyeth, 91. (Another one of those "I didn't realize he was still alive" deaths.) http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/16/andrew.wyeth.obit/index.html - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:12:38 -0600 From: "Sumiko Keay" Subject: Re: reap For me too. Sumi On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Christopher Gross wrote: > Andrew Wyeth, 91. (Another one of those "I didn't realize he was still > alive" deaths.) > > http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/16/andrew.wyeth.obit/index.html > > > --Chris > > ______________________________________________________________________ > Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. > chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:16:13 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: All hail the American Night! On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Great Quail wrote: >> I think The Doors biggest problem is that Morrison thought he was a poet >> (which was ludicrous), > > I have to say -- it's one thing to criticize someone's poetry; it's another > to ridicule their self-identification as a poet. I have no opinion about Morrison's verse. (I have *suspicions*, mind you, but I'm holding off on an actual opinion since I haven't actually read the stuff.) But I still have a comment! I've always thought it was weird that certain terms for artists are invested with value judgements like this. If you're a bad poet, apparently, you're not a poet at all, even if you write tons of verse. Likewise with actors and singers -- if you're really bad, you'll become a "singer" in scare quotes and your songs will feature "so-called singing." But on the other hand, hit drums for long enough and everyone will accept you as a drummer, even if a bad one; likewise with photographers and sculptors. Apparently some types of artist are defined by their actions, and others by the quality of their products. On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, lep wrote: >> Being a pretentious asshole mighta been a problem as well. > > since when did being a pretentious asshole get in the way of being an >artist? and >> PS: You gotta say, though -- have their ever been two people on a list >> that >> disliked each other more than me and Rex? Don't we get some kind of >> Webby >> award for that? > > isn't that called an Ebby on this list? To paraphrase Rex paraphrasing The Young People Today: Lauren FTW! - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:29:29 -0500 From: "Stewart Russell" Subject: reap John "Rumpole" Mortimer, 85 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:32:53 -0600 From: "Sumiko Keay" Subject: Re: reap No! Must tell my cousin: she loves mysteries too. Sumi On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Stewart Russell wrote: > John "Rumpole" Mortimer, 85 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:31:13 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: Re: All hail the American Night! > I think Morrison occasionally came up with the striking line or image. > But his problem - partly due to his times and circumstance, and > probably due partly to his own tendencies - is there's no discipline, > no sense of culling the bad from the good. Man, that really is the truth, right in a nutshell. I like to think that, if he lived longer, he would have been more circumspect in what got published or not. Bear in mind, his "published" books were largely compiled after his death, and they contain everything, with little discrimination. After all, he was a rock star. However, his later verse does show signs of maturity, and even -- gasp! -- editorial discrimination. But again, I think his work is too derivative of the Beats, and Kerouac in general. Hard to tell, though, without actual research, whether it was more a late/mid-century "it's in the air" thing or a direct influence. > I think Morrison could have been a pretty good > poet...but being a rock star in the late sixties kind of got in the > way of that. Perhaps -- but I tend to think he was, overall, a better rock star than a poet. > Being a pretentious asshole mighta been a problem as well. Let's hope Billy Corgan keeps his pen in his pants. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:34:35 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: Logocentrism sucks! Chris writes, > I have no opinion about Morrison's verse. (I have *suspicions*, mind you, > but I'm holding off on an actual opinion since I haven't actually read the > stuff.) But I still have a comment! I've always thought it was weird > that certain terms for artists are invested with value judgements like > this. If you're a bad poet, apparently, you're not a poet at all, even if > you write tons of verse. Likewise with actors and singers -- if you're > really bad, you'll become a "singer" in scare quotes and your songs will > feature "so-called singing." But on the other hand, hit drums for long > enough and everyone will accept you as a drummer, even if a bad one; > likewise with photographers and sculptors. Apparently some types of > artist are defined by their actions, and others by the quality of their > products. Man, I think that's an excellent observation. I would add, too, that novelists/writers usually get trapped in the former camp that includes poets, actors, and singers. If you look closer, it may be that artistry that relies on the expressed "word" seems to be different than that which is based on "nonverbal" performance. I am sure Derrida would have something incomprehensible to say about this. I mean, if he hadn't have died in a Paris bathtub at the age of 27. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:00:39 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: All hail the American Night! On 1/16/09, Great Quail wrote: > But again, I think his work is too derivative of the Beats, and Kerouac in > general. Hard to tell, though, without actual research, whether it was more > a late/mid-century "it's in the air" thing or a direct influence. Don't know. Then, that too might have changed over time. I mean, some poets wrote brilliant verse in their twenties...others wrote crap and didn't bloom until much later in life. Morrison, of course, didn't have the latter option. > > I think Morrison could have been a pretty good > > poet...but being a rock star in the late sixties kind of got in the > > way of that. > > > Perhaps -- but I tend to think he was, overall, a better rock star than a > poet. Yep. Although much of what he brought to "rock-starness" was rather unfortunate. You know the way some folks point at the Beatles and find a way to blame every bad thing in rock that's happened since then at them? You can do the same with Morrison - including the "being an asshole = being deep" thing (which, to be fair, seemed endemic in countercultural definitions of rebel manhood during that era - it's always been striking to me, watching films of that time, how often the main characters - with whom we are, presumably, meant to empathize with or even identify with - are, by current standards, such incredible jerks), the self-destruction is cool thing...hell, even the leather pants and here's my dick thing. > > Being a pretentious asshole mighta been a problem as well. > > > Let's hope Billy Corgan keeps his pen in his pants. A couple of years ago there was an announcement that Corgan was going to write a book of poetry (rummages in blog archives - ah, here 'tis: ). I don't recall that anything ever came of that. Gods be thanked. Oh - and of course Lauren is correct on the being an asshole never got in the way of being an artist thing ("not in New York"...) - I don't know *what* I was thinking. - -- ...Jeff Norman, drivin' down the street in his Eldorado The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #14 *******************************