This is a brief response to a well-ranted Facebook comment (found here: http://www.facebook.com/JessieBoulanger/posts/2152140888158?ref=notif¬if_t=feed_comment_reply).
This post notably makes reference to 'real music', '[art]', & '[culture]' as opposed to 'processed crap' which I'll interpret as unreal, or manufactured, for the sake of this response. This is the argument of real v manufactured (i.e. unreal). My point will reduce to the idea that music videos (read 'Old MTV') are more real than reality shows (read 'Current MTV').
The first thing to note is how Reality Shows, in truth, are not "reality." They are, at best, a type of manufactured reality (which is no reality at all?). This is indicated by several things. Firstly, the characters are "acting" or playing for the camera and the result is a reality that is only real to the camera. It is not real to real life however, which is the reality they are purporting to show. Other indicators are that scenes are re-shot and the strange absence of cameras in the final product.
Music videos, which (generally) do not in any way pretend to be real are, conversely, much more real. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but suffice it to say that they an exaggeration of a feeling or an idea and it is clear to the viewer that an exaggeration is happening.
As as example I will compare Fox News (as 'Reality Shows', sorry conservatives) to 'The Daily Show' (as music video). Between the two, Fox News is the only one that presents itself as real news. 'The Daily Show' is very clearly (or should clearly be seen as) a satire. With Fox News, viewers assume they are getting the truth, what is real. With 'The Daily Show' the veneer is so thin, that no one mistakes as real news. Ironically, because the satirical veneer is so thin, the viewer actually gets a better idea of what is 'real'.
At the level beneath this one we could consider that nothing is real, but for that read 'Simulacra and Simulation' by Jean Baudrillard (to which this blog is heavily indebted) ...
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
But Why is the Rum Gone? Or 3/5 Mile in Ten Seconds?
I decided it was time for another blog, but I have no idea where to take this thing. As such, I'll begin with what I'm doing right now (or was doing before I stopped to type): (1) listening to KMFDM, (2) reading 'The Rum Diary', (3) playing with Play-Doh, and (4) being thankful I have rum and ice.
(1) KMFDM: More people should listen to industrial music. It's very danceable and, often, very funny. Plus it has the sociopolitical commentary you find in punk music (aside: the Sex Pistols are the, note the definite article, punk band).
(2) The Rum Diary: I haven't read this in a while and I cannot get over how incredible well written this is. It makes me feel very small indeed. The more apropos point is that I have been thinking about opening sentences and how tough they can be. The opening lines I write tend to be self referential (see above). The one real exception is when I fail at writing poems. There is only one opening bit I've ever written that I really like, but it's much too obscene for this venue.
(3) Play-Doh: In making a Halloween basket for my niece I decided to include Play-Doh because I didn't want it to be all diabetes inducing fare; I did include some M&Ms though. Overpriced Dora the Explorer stickers also made it in basket. Which leads me to wonder: does Lou Dobbs go mad with rage whenever he hears of Dora? I was working with black, white, & purple which, when combined, can create some very interesting abstract-expressionist-esque results. Maybe I'll post pictures...
(4) Rum & Ice: The only germane beverage when reading 'The Rum Diary' would be rum & ice, wouldn't it?
Now that I've written this little bit I have two ideas for future blogs: (1) the necessity of suffering for human identity/pleasure and (2) an idea that has failed to catch the train to long term memory. I'm not really sure if anyone reads this, but please goad me if you do (& find them of some value). Please direct any notice of typos or grammatical errors to the Rum...
(1) KMFDM: More people should listen to industrial music. It's very danceable and, often, very funny. Plus it has the sociopolitical commentary you find in punk music (aside: the Sex Pistols are the, note the definite article, punk band).
(2) The Rum Diary: I haven't read this in a while and I cannot get over how incredible well written this is. It makes me feel very small indeed. The more apropos point is that I have been thinking about opening sentences and how tough they can be. The opening lines I write tend to be self referential (see above). The one real exception is when I fail at writing poems. There is only one opening bit I've ever written that I really like, but it's much too obscene for this venue.
(3) Play-Doh: In making a Halloween basket for my niece I decided to include Play-Doh because I didn't want it to be all diabetes inducing fare; I did include some M&Ms though. Overpriced Dora the Explorer stickers also made it in basket. Which leads me to wonder: does Lou Dobbs go mad with rage whenever he hears of Dora? I was working with black, white, & purple which, when combined, can create some very interesting abstract-expressionist-esque results. Maybe I'll post pictures...
(4) Rum & Ice: The only germane beverage when reading 'The Rum Diary' would be rum & ice, wouldn't it?
Now that I've written this little bit I have two ideas for future blogs: (1) the necessity of suffering for human identity/pleasure and (2) an idea that has failed to catch the train to long term memory. I'm not really sure if anyone reads this, but please goad me if you do (& find them of some value). Please direct any notice of typos or grammatical errors to the Rum...
Sunday, October 16, 2011
An attempt at Craft (aka Crap)
A Work in Progress (Reflections)
The Soul's mirror
Is an image that I
Cannot breach or
Break to find
To find my Aleph*
Would not it
Break to
Show me just
A glimpse...
Same but with a different structure (& probably better)
The Soul's mirror
Is an image that
I cannot breach
Or break to find
To find my Aleph*
Would not it break
To show me just
A fleeting glimpse...
*an artifact that can reveal the entire universe at once
The Soul's mirror
Is an image that I
Cannot breach or
Break to find
To find my Aleph*
Would not it
Break to
Show me just
A glimpse...
Same but with a different structure (& probably better)
The Soul's mirror
Is an image that
I cannot breach
Or break to find
To find my Aleph*
Would not it break
To show me just
A fleeting glimpse...
*an artifact that can reveal the entire universe at once
Thursday, October 13, 2011
[Insert Pretentious/Hipster Title]
a.k.a. Two Things I Hate & One Thing I Like
To Google, Facebook, et al.
Screw you. Life is not one giant threaded conversation. Let each conversation exist on it's own.
To movies where the 'lovable loser' falls for his second choice 'or the girl that's always really loved him'.
You suck.
Okay, enough bitching and onto things that I like. Namely: style. Not clothing style, or hair style, or who-knows-what-else style, but writing style. Finding a writer whose style I like is ... one of those ineffable things that I love more than so much else. It's sinister.* It's not hard to come up with an interesting story idea (unless your Hollywood) and anyone with a hammer and sickle can pound away till they harvest 200 pages of something. To develop a writing style, however, is not easy. It's hard enough to break past your influences and you have to wallow in them for a while anyway until something new is birthed.
I thought I saw some signs of a new style tonight (not in my writing ... it's still soaked in placenta) which is exciting.
As I've rambled a bit about style, I should list some of my style heroes. In no particular order they are Jorge Louis Borges, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, & Kurt Vonnegut. The ampersand is from HST and the ellipses from WSB. The scary thing about studying your favorite writers is that you see what they are and that can be a bit unsettling. In order, my style heroes are: normal (at least there's one!), drug addict trapped in a fictional creation of himself, pan-sexual heroin addict who accidentally killed his wife, & a smoker who was in Dresden when the bombs fell. Nothing I really aspire to. There is no Heroin chic.
Style reminds me what is so great about the world in the first place; and that is ... **** if i know. Ho Ho. Semi-colon used in remembrance of Kurt Vonnegut.
This is getting long and not getting anywhere so let's end it.
Addendum 1: If I could be anyone else it would be Richard Ashcroft.
Addendum 2: I'm not the only one who's paranoid (write word) of going blind?
Addendum 3: Bad puns are my father's fault.
*This is a reference to both Allen Ginsberg and an unnamed artist.
To Google, Facebook, et al.
Screw you. Life is not one giant threaded conversation. Let each conversation exist on it's own.
To movies where the 'lovable loser' falls for his second choice 'or the girl that's always really loved him'.
You suck.
Okay, enough bitching and onto things that I like. Namely: style. Not clothing style, or hair style, or who-knows-what-else style, but writing style. Finding a writer whose style I like is ... one of those ineffable things that I love more than so much else. It's sinister.* It's not hard to come up with an interesting story idea (unless your Hollywood) and anyone with a hammer and sickle can pound away till they harvest 200 pages of something. To develop a writing style, however, is not easy. It's hard enough to break past your influences and you have to wallow in them for a while anyway until something new is birthed.
I thought I saw some signs of a new style tonight (not in my writing ... it's still soaked in placenta) which is exciting.
As I've rambled a bit about style, I should list some of my style heroes. In no particular order they are Jorge Louis Borges, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, & Kurt Vonnegut. The ampersand is from HST and the ellipses from WSB. The scary thing about studying your favorite writers is that you see what they are and that can be a bit unsettling. In order, my style heroes are: normal (at least there's one!), drug addict trapped in a fictional creation of himself, pan-sexual heroin addict who accidentally killed his wife, & a smoker who was in Dresden when the bombs fell. Nothing I really aspire to. There is no Heroin chic.
Style reminds me what is so great about the world in the first place; and that is ... **** if i know. Ho Ho. Semi-colon used in remembrance of Kurt Vonnegut.
This is getting long and not getting anywhere so let's end it.
Addendum 1: If I could be anyone else it would be Richard Ashcroft.
Addendum 2: I'm not the only one who's paranoid (write word) of going blind?
Addendum 3: Bad puns are my father's fault.
*This is a reference to both Allen Ginsberg and an unnamed artist.
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