17 November 2011
Alternate life :: after life :: back to the land
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Such characters in colour dim I mark’d
Over a portal’s lofty arch inscrib’d:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.
(via Phrases.org.uk)
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: New York City, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
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11 November 2011
Two deep thoughts on community from other people
I post these two passages side-by-side because they’re more connected than you might imagine.
First, a rant by the eminently make-fun-able (but still preeminent) music industry firebrand, Bob Lefsetz.
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Once upon a time, centuries ago, when we all lived in little villages, you had your fame. You were the blacksmith, the singer, the storyteller. You had a defined role and if you did it well, you received accolades, everybody in your hamlet knew who you were. As far as worldwide fame goes, most people had barely been to the next town, the concept of spreading your ideas far and wide didn’t even cross your mind.
And then came modern transportation and media and suddenly, you could reach everybody.
This was a thrill. Not only for the performer, but the audience. Instead of being restricted to the talent in your local burg, you could be exposed to others, with a different voice, a different viewpoint, in many cases with superior talent.
And by time we hit the era of network television, there were very few slots, and if you made it through, you’d truly made it. That was the goal, to make it.
Artists want to be heard by as many people as possible. If someone tells you they’re satisfied with a tiny audience, they’re lying. Art is expression. It foments understanding. You’re filling a hole inside yourself and the satisfaction comes when you realize you’re filling the same hole in others. And no matter how many holes you fill, you still feel empty, it’s the artistic temperament.
And then the filter was tightened even more, during the MTV era. It was harder to make it, harder to get your video on television, but if you did, you were instantly nationally famous. You achieved that goal of mass exposure overnight.
But now that’s impossible. Unless you stab or shoot someone, commit a crime. If you do something outrageous, there are Websites devoted to exposing you, never mind YouTube. But shy of that, it’s nigh near impossible to reach everybody.
And this has got all artists scratching their heads.
A next a passage from The Geography of Nowhere, the similarly excellent, albeit similarly ranty book by James Howard Kunstler.
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For all practical purposes, Schuylerville became a colonial outpost of another America. Its impoverishment is one of the untallied costs of the policy of limitless “growth.” The leading business establishments in Schuylerville these days are the two convenience stores, each operated by large chains — call them X and Y. The main east-west road through town, Route 29, has become a major “feeder” for Interstate 87, and the convenience stores were built to take advantage of that traffic. They sell gasoline, milk, beer, cigarettes, soda and snacks. Plenty of local dollars are spent at the X and Y stores too — at times, the whole population of town seems to subsist on Pepsi Cola and Cheez Doodles. Perhaps in the future people will look back at convenience stores with fond nostalgia, because they are the late twentith-century successors to the old general store that sold a little bit of everything. But there is one big difference — the X and Y stores are not owned by local merchants.
The X and Y corporations pay property taxes to operate their stores in Schuylerville, and a percentage of the county sales tax they pay is returned to the village via a rather abstruse political formula. The stores also furnish a handful of minimum-wage jobs. But what they take away contribute to the town is far less significant than what they take away: the chance for a local merchant to make a profit, to keep that profit in town, where it might be put to work locally, for instance, in the upkeep of a hundred-year-old shopfront building downtown, or a Greek Revival house on Pearl Street, or in the decent support of a family. But that profit does not stay in town. Instead, it is funneled directly into distant corproate coffers. The officers of the X and Y Corporations, who do not live in Schuylerville, have no vested interest in the upkeep of the 100-hundred-year-old shopfront buildings or the Greek Revival houses there. (They may not even know what they town looks like, or a single fact of its history.) Their success is measured strictly by the tonnage of Cheez Doodles and Pepsi Cola they manage to move off the shelves. Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Bob Lefsetz, James Howard Kunstler, Schuylerville, The Community Function, The Problem With Glamour
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12 October 2011
Lana Del Rey: Pros & Cons
PRO: Last night’s live debut on Jools Holland was not a trainwreck.
CON: The music that hasn’t gone super viral yet kind of sucks. So her major career risk may not be trainwreckage. It may be abortion.
PRO: She* Tweeted this on October 7th: “Just as Debussy had to leave the sea to be inspired by its beauty for his melodies- I too must leave you so that the songs remain sweet”
CON: On a deep level, I am 100% certain her whole act is fake and contrived.
PRO: Sometimes fake & contrived is exactly what the culture calls for.
CON: Those lips! It’s like her handler svengali conflated old school Phil Spector and new school Phil Spector as if they were the same person.
PRO: From a postmodern perspective, what’s wrong with conflating old school and new school Phil Spector as a way of evolving pop music into a new future.
PRO: The actual video for “Video Games” is even better.
The Pros have it! For now…
* = By “She” I am referring to a yet-unknown handler svengali.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Jools Holland, Lana Del Rey, Phil Spector, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
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7 October 2011
City Life
Just as I was getting used to nature, it’s back to city life again.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Denniston Hill, Photo, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem with New York City
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29 September 2011
Steve Albini on New York City
Sometimes the most fun to be had is just to quote someone verbatim. Such is the case of this interview of Steve Albini by Gothamist.
So this is an interview for Gothamist, which is a New York-centric website.
I believe you.
Do you have any New York stories that you’d care to share?
No.
You ridiculed New Yorkers pretty badly at your last Bell House show.
Well, there’s the thing about New York. New York is such a monolith that it’s pointless to have an opinion about it. It’s like bitching about the weather. It certainly won’t accomplish anything and it certainly won’t make you feel better about what you didn’t like. New York has a couple of characteristics that are undeniable and one of those is that it’s a magnet for assholes who couldn’t get any attention at home and decided that the problem wasn’t that they weren’t interesting but that there were all these squares around them in Dubuque or whatever and they need to go to some big cosmopolitan city like New York where people will appreciate them. So if you can imagine that scenario playing out within every city in North America and every one of those assholes with an opinion slightly outreaching his ability getting on a fucking Greyhound. You end up with a pretty good description of what’s annoying about New York is that it’s full of people whose self-image just ever-so-slightly outstrips their ability.
Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: All Tomorrow's Parties, Gothamist, Hardcore Punk, Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, New York City, Punk, Punks Not Dead, Steve Albini, The Problem With Glamour