So long 20-teens, eh? I don't know what to make of them. Whether it's a matter of my age or of a stagnating popular culture, I don't see it as much differentiated from the previous decade.
Ten years ago I posted about finishing a revision of what would be my third novel Misspent Youth; a book review of Cloud Atlas; a visit I made to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; an appreciation of John Hughes who had just died; some observations about purchasing a new car; and a link to Mr. Plinkett's now infamous seven-part take down of the Phantom Menace (before Disney took him down for copyright infringement).
None of it would be out of place today. I just finished a second revision of my next book, tentatively entitled The Hawk Sahib; the status of my reading is below; my car is doing fine although getting a little obsolete, it'll be a few years before it's that time again; I still make random cultural observations.
Perhaps I'm the one stagnating. Or perhaps I just like my life the way it is.
[Music, Rant] Background Music
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Movies] Flick Notes
Friday, February 07, 2020
[Music, Rant] Background Music
I never truly listen to music anymore. Oh I have music on very often, but almost always to accompany some other activity. When driving I cycle through my XM presets. At the gym I have Amazon Music playlists. Running I have my little SanDisk on shuffle. Before bed I usually troll Ted Gioia's annual 100 best lists to find something to read by. About the closest I come to paying close attention to music is when a band on Austin City Limits catches my ear (recently Cage the Elephant).
It was not always so throughout my teens and early twenties I often spent time with headphones on just focusedly listening to music. And while it's easy to pass this off as a change of aging, it's also possible that there was more to it.
The tone of this article is annoying, but it's basically correct. The thesis is that 1980, the year of London Calling by The Clash and The River by Bruce Springsteen, was the end of rock and roll as a cultural force. This is very hard to disagree with. To be clear, I don't mean the end of rock music, nor do I mean the end of good rock music. Good rock and roll is being made to this day. It's hard to find, but it's out there. I mean the end of it as a vibrant cultural force. The end of it really mattering in any way.
40 years ago -- dead longer than alive. It was a great run: 1955-1980. What cultural relevance that remained in music went to Rap and Hip-Hop. Now even that has long passed its era of importance. Music has virtually no cultural weight at all.
What was lost in 1980 -- what best selling music no longer has -- was a certain sense of authenticity. Musicians formed or self-organized into bands that played proper musical instruments. It was probably mostly a pretense of authenticity, but at least it was honored. The kid with a guitar shows talent and makes it. As weird and hedonistic as the rock musicians could be, they also kept in touch with the fantasy.
Everything since has pretty much eschewed the image of organic success. Rappers, boy bands, American Idols, howling diva twerk-bots, have all fully embraced their own manufacturing. They are the products of marketing formulas as much as talent, if not moreso, and they don't try to hide it.
Of course, I always have to qualify my opinions these days because I am as susceptible as anyone my age to yelling at clouds. Kids, and some adults, still get enthusiastic about music. It still sells, especially if it is attached to a Disney animated film. (I should qualify that: it still reaches a large audience, whether it "sells" depends how you view streaming revenue.) But I just don't think it means as much to them as it did to us. In my adolescence I could put on a LP and a pair of headphones and find the strength to live in hope for one more day. Today they put in their earbuds and dream of the Tik Tok likes their lip synch will bring.
Good for them. Maybe they don't need music for hope. Maybe they have something better. Maybe -- almost certainly -- I really just miss the ability to feel that sort of life-giving enthusiasm for something. Wisdom exacts a toll that nostalgia can't replenish.
It was not always so throughout my teens and early twenties I often spent time with headphones on just focusedly listening to music. And while it's easy to pass this off as a change of aging, it's also possible that there was more to it.
The tone of this article is annoying, but it's basically correct. The thesis is that 1980, the year of London Calling by The Clash and The River by Bruce Springsteen, was the end of rock and roll as a cultural force. This is very hard to disagree with. To be clear, I don't mean the end of rock music, nor do I mean the end of good rock music. Good rock and roll is being made to this day. It's hard to find, but it's out there. I mean the end of it as a vibrant cultural force. The end of it really mattering in any way.
40 years ago -- dead longer than alive. It was a great run: 1955-1980. What cultural relevance that remained in music went to Rap and Hip-Hop. Now even that has long passed its era of importance. Music has virtually no cultural weight at all.
What was lost in 1980 -- what best selling music no longer has -- was a certain sense of authenticity. Musicians formed or self-organized into bands that played proper musical instruments. It was probably mostly a pretense of authenticity, but at least it was honored. The kid with a guitar shows talent and makes it. As weird and hedonistic as the rock musicians could be, they also kept in touch with the fantasy.
Everything since has pretty much eschewed the image of organic success. Rappers, boy bands, American Idols, howling diva twerk-bots, have all fully embraced their own manufacturing. They are the products of marketing formulas as much as talent, if not moreso, and they don't try to hide it.
Of course, I always have to qualify my opinions these days because I am as susceptible as anyone my age to yelling at clouds. Kids, and some adults, still get enthusiastic about music. It still sells, especially if it is attached to a Disney animated film. (I should qualify that: it still reaches a large audience, whether it "sells" depends how you view streaming revenue.) But I just don't think it means as much to them as it did to us. In my adolescence I could put on a LP and a pair of headphones and find the strength to live in hope for one more day. Today they put in their earbuds and dream of the Tik Tok likes their lip synch will bring.
Good for them. Maybe they don't need music for hope. Maybe they have something better. Maybe -- almost certainly -- I really just miss the ability to feel that sort of life-giving enthusiasm for something. Wisdom exacts a toll that nostalgia can't replenish.
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
Michigan okayed recreational sale of marijuana. Here is a list of places where you can buy it. You may notice, it's rather Ann Arbor-heavy. This is perhaps not surprising for the town that has hosted the Hash Bash for nearly half a century. It is the place that for years and years had a $5 fine for possession of pot since the early '70s, only raising it to $25 in the '90s, presumably for the sake of covering the administrative costs of writing tickets more than deterrence. So yes, Ann Arbor has half a dozen or so pot shops -- more than double any other Michigan city.
Upon legalization, many cities rushed to pass laws forbidding pot shops. Others left the door open and just shot down any application. This has triggered two reactions; a silly one: cities that allow weed shops complaining about cities that deny weed shops still getting a share of the revenue, and a natural one: people driving hours to get to their nearest shop then finding enormous lines. There is one near my gym, which may be the closest one to Detroit, that has had lines outside around the block in the dead of a Michigan winter. (Note -- shortly after I wrote this two more opened up closed to Detroit and the lines have dwindled.) Folks love their weed. Another reaction is copious complaints about how this legal weed is waaaay overpriced. For the moment, supply-and-demand may force some people back to the behoodied folks on Eight Mile.
More interesting is the fact that it is still a federal crime. So even though the State of Michigan is OK with it, any involvement with it is technically an opportunity for the Feds to get you. As a result, it is for the moment an entirely cash business. And I don't just mean the customers have to hit the ATM before a visit. I mean the dispensaries, which take in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, in cash, can't even put it in the bank. I honestly don't know to what extent this reaches. Do they have to pay their rent in cash? Do the employees get paid in cash? How do they secure all that cash from theft?
Note: the reason cash businesses are a problem is because of 9/11, which begat the Patriot Act, which made it no longer acceptable to do business transactions without verifying first that the party you are doing business with is on the up-and-up. So a bank can longer set up an account with a business without first verifying they are legal, or a payroll service can't take on a client without a background check. Personally, I think the downstream effects of the Patriot Act have yet to be fully realized or appreciated.
It's a bizarre situation. Metaphorical mattresses must be stuffed with currency at this point and something somewhere is going to have to give. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be through a "test case" where the Feds arrest some poor schmuck and he gets to be the sacrificial lamb while the lawyers sort everything out. Who imagined recreation could be so complicated? The behoodied guy on Eight Mile is looking better.
Addendum: Now we have the first attempt at making hallucinogens legal in Ann Arbor. Reach for that star.
Upon legalization, many cities rushed to pass laws forbidding pot shops. Others left the door open and just shot down any application. This has triggered two reactions; a silly one: cities that allow weed shops complaining about cities that deny weed shops still getting a share of the revenue, and a natural one: people driving hours to get to their nearest shop then finding enormous lines. There is one near my gym, which may be the closest one to Detroit, that has had lines outside around the block in the dead of a Michigan winter. (Note -- shortly after I wrote this two more opened up closed to Detroit and the lines have dwindled.) Folks love their weed. Another reaction is copious complaints about how this legal weed is waaaay overpriced. For the moment, supply-and-demand may force some people back to the behoodied folks on Eight Mile.
More interesting is the fact that it is still a federal crime. So even though the State of Michigan is OK with it, any involvement with it is technically an opportunity for the Feds to get you. As a result, it is for the moment an entirely cash business. And I don't just mean the customers have to hit the ATM before a visit. I mean the dispensaries, which take in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, in cash, can't even put it in the bank. I honestly don't know to what extent this reaches. Do they have to pay their rent in cash? Do the employees get paid in cash? How do they secure all that cash from theft?
Note: the reason cash businesses are a problem is because of 9/11, which begat the Patriot Act, which made it no longer acceptable to do business transactions without verifying first that the party you are doing business with is on the up-and-up. So a bank can longer set up an account with a business without first verifying they are legal, or a payroll service can't take on a client without a background check. Personally, I think the downstream effects of the Patriot Act have yet to be fully realized or appreciated.
It's a bizarre situation. Metaphorical mattresses must be stuffed with currency at this point and something somewhere is going to have to give. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be through a "test case" where the Feds arrest some poor schmuck and he gets to be the sacrificial lamb while the lawyers sort everything out. Who imagined recreation could be so complicated? The behoodied guy on Eight Mile is looking better.
Addendum: Now we have the first attempt at making hallucinogens legal in Ann Arbor. Reach for that star.
[Books] What I've Been Reading
Spring Snow -- Yukio Mishima. Still slow going but I haven't given up. Still not sure what Mishima is driving at for the most part. The exploration of subtle motivations is elaborate and mildly fascinating to the point where I'm wondering where it will go. If it goes nowhere I will feel like a tool.
Rings of Saturn -- W.G. Sebald. This a book that garnered effusive praise from a number of big name writers. Hailed as an inventive masterpiece and blurbed endlessly by those who are spoken of breathlessly in high-toned literary journals. I gave up after about 90-ish pages. Sebald was a wonderfully skilled writer who can form a poetic sentence seemingly out of nothing. But the poetry of nothing is still nothing.
Sebald was German (born in 1944 and died in 2001 -- the prototypical lived-and-died-through-the-Cold-War life), so what we have is a translation which is always a bit of a wildcard. Ostensibly a novel following a troubled fellow as he travels along the eastern coast of England, although at times it seems clear that Sebald is writing autobiographically. What follows is a sort of stream of consciousness woven into an intricate web of factual and sentimental relationships. There is no observation too minor from which to build a florid allegory. Given the chance, he would take a random patch of gravel and turn it into an analogy for the sorrow of impermanence. He will sit on a park bench and intensely introspect on the gray skies which will remind of literary reference which caused him to intensely introspect on something similar in the past. He will encounter a piece of ephemera and be reminded of a historical reference hundreds of years in the past that caused him to wring his hands over something or other. Perhaps it is all just very German. The only overall sensation of it all was one of decay. Weird, that someone born into the ashes of post-WWII Germany who lived to see the Berlin Wall fall would be attached to the zeitgeist of decay, but there it is.
There is just so much pretentiousness one can take. The tortured ruminations, the reading of profound meaning into trivialities, the attachment to societal decline -- even the mechanics of it: Sebald will rarely drop a paragraph on you to take a breath, he just keeps going. But Kerouac, he ain't. His thoughts, though genuine I'm sure, don't have enough energy to sustain that. Woefulness does not create energy, it saps it. As I said, the praise from what I will sneeringly call the writerly community is effusive. Which makes sense, because it's written for them; it matches their own pretensions to a tee.
Still, I might be judging unfairly. It is possible that had I stuck it out all the superfluous decoration and sorrowful images would have gelled into something insightful and timeless. If so, it would have been nice to have a hint of it in less than 100 pages. I'm moving on.
Last and First Men -- Olaf Stapledon. A "future history" from back in 1931. It appears to be a vision of the future from the time immediately post-WW1 to some point wherein humanity evolves to its final form. Highly valued by many. I've only just started it but I am deeply impressed by the formal, yet completely readable prose. The subject matter seems kind of an odd mish-mash. He spends a long time speculating about various cultural forces and how they in combination with human nature and happenstance lead to war and it seems like some keen insights might be coming. Then he goes full on I-am-14-and-this-is-deep level fantasizing.
Fair warning: there are deeply racist and anti-Semitic sections. And the Americans are kind of the bad guys. I'm not sure he doesn't fall into the trap of making his future vision really about his opinions on the present. We'll see.
Rings of Saturn -- W.G. Sebald. This a book that garnered effusive praise from a number of big name writers. Hailed as an inventive masterpiece and blurbed endlessly by those who are spoken of breathlessly in high-toned literary journals. I gave up after about 90-ish pages. Sebald was a wonderfully skilled writer who can form a poetic sentence seemingly out of nothing. But the poetry of nothing is still nothing.
Sebald was German (born in 1944 and died in 2001 -- the prototypical lived-and-died-through-the-Cold-War life), so what we have is a translation which is always a bit of a wildcard. Ostensibly a novel following a troubled fellow as he travels along the eastern coast of England, although at times it seems clear that Sebald is writing autobiographically. What follows is a sort of stream of consciousness woven into an intricate web of factual and sentimental relationships. There is no observation too minor from which to build a florid allegory. Given the chance, he would take a random patch of gravel and turn it into an analogy for the sorrow of impermanence. He will sit on a park bench and intensely introspect on the gray skies which will remind of literary reference which caused him to intensely introspect on something similar in the past. He will encounter a piece of ephemera and be reminded of a historical reference hundreds of years in the past that caused him to wring his hands over something or other. Perhaps it is all just very German. The only overall sensation of it all was one of decay. Weird, that someone born into the ashes of post-WWII Germany who lived to see the Berlin Wall fall would be attached to the zeitgeist of decay, but there it is.
There is just so much pretentiousness one can take. The tortured ruminations, the reading of profound meaning into trivialities, the attachment to societal decline -- even the mechanics of it: Sebald will rarely drop a paragraph on you to take a breath, he just keeps going. But Kerouac, he ain't. His thoughts, though genuine I'm sure, don't have enough energy to sustain that. Woefulness does not create energy, it saps it. As I said, the praise from what I will sneeringly call the writerly community is effusive. Which makes sense, because it's written for them; it matches their own pretensions to a tee.
Still, I might be judging unfairly. It is possible that had I stuck it out all the superfluous decoration and sorrowful images would have gelled into something insightful and timeless. If so, it would have been nice to have a hint of it in less than 100 pages. I'm moving on.
Last and First Men -- Olaf Stapledon. A "future history" from back in 1931. It appears to be a vision of the future from the time immediately post-WW1 to some point wherein humanity evolves to its final form. Highly valued by many. I've only just started it but I am deeply impressed by the formal, yet completely readable prose. The subject matter seems kind of an odd mish-mash. He spends a long time speculating about various cultural forces and how they in combination with human nature and happenstance lead to war and it seems like some keen insights might be coming. Then he goes full on I-am-14-and-this-is-deep level fantasizing.
Fair warning: there are deeply racist and anti-Semitic sections. And the Americans are kind of the bad guys. I'm not sure he doesn't fall into the trap of making his future vision really about his opinions on the present. We'll see.
[Movies] Flick Notes
John Wick 3 -- This, along with the previous entry in the series (which will be at least 4), suffer from trying to impose a rational and institutional justification on what was, in the first movie, an expression of existential emotion. Like 2, it is wall-to-wall fight scenes, often gorey. The writers overwrite and the actors overact in an attempt to make the oddball supporting characters become iconic. All fail. The motivations are manufactured. Much emphasis is put on a ragged looking Keanu Reeves ruefully responding in monosyllables, like it's totally badass. In sum, it's a decent film to shut your brain off to, but it's a mere shadow of the one where a guy got revenge on the people who stole his car and killed his dog.
Godzilla: King of Monsters -- awful. Made even more awful as it is theoretically a remake of one of the most amazing cult films of all time: Gidorah, the Three Headed Monster. I wrote about the original 5 or so years ago:
I'm sure there are more sequels in the works. It's clear Universal Pictures needs to invest in a robust supply of hallucinogens.
Godzilla: King of Monsters -- awful. Made even more awful as it is theoretically a remake of one of the most amazing cult films of all time: Gidorah, the Three Headed Monster. I wrote about the original 5 or so years ago:
Then came Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster, a movie that simply could not have been made without the consumption of untold quantities of LSD.The remake does away with the flights of imagination. The bad guys are environmental terrorists not mysterious black-suits, the singing fairies are replaced with some sort of sonic frequency generator, and so forth. It would be fine if they truly attempted to make a movie about how the world would deal with such a threat, but they didn't. The actions are almost uniformly poorly motivated and incoherent. That is to say, nothing anybody does makes sense even after you have suspended disbelief about giant monsters. An incoherent movie that aims for realism fails. To do an incoherent movie properly, you need to add madness for it to make sense.
To wit: A south seas island whose natives worship an enormous and deeply creepy-looking caterpillar. Twin fairies, about a foot tall, who speak in unison, can summon the caterpillar via song, and live in a what appears to be a modified make-up kit. An androgynous woman who is clairvoyant and claims to be from Mars, but may actually be the resurrection of a human princess. (In the original Japanese version she was from Venus. They changed it to Mars for the US release for reasons that I'm sure it made sense when they were tripping.) A group of assassins in black suits from the princess' homeland; these men are referred to as "the killers". And lastly Ghidorah itself, a three-headed, two-tailed dragon from outer space that shoots lightning out of its mouths and has no purpose other than wanton destruction.
The events are surreal. At one point the twin fairies appear on a sort of TV talk show and are challenged by some wise-ass kid to sing to the caterpillar. The androgynous woman is heckled by a crowd and told to do a striptease. The caterpillar has to convince Godzilla and Rodan to stop fighting and team up against Ghidorah by imploring them not to be "bullheaded". Pause to consider that one: A giant caterpillar called a giant bird and a giant reptile "bullheaded" as translated by twin telepathic foot-tall fairies speaking in unison. The mind reels.
Then there is the three-headed monster itself. It appears to have no purpose other than malevolence. It doesn't eat, sleep, breed, or do anything but break things and kill people. Visually it is actually quite disturbing. It's three heads fly about haphazardly in all directions firing lighting wantonly, without any targeting intent. It emits an earsplitting shrill mechanical sort of shriek without pattern. It's a Lovecraftian vision of unfeeling, meaningless destruction. If I had to fight Cthulhu I would sick Ghidorah on him. It's clear at least one of the special effects team must have gotten a bad tab of acid.
I'm sure there are more sequels in the works. It's clear Universal Pictures needs to invest in a robust supply of hallucinogens.
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