Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Living Lately...
I went out the past couple nights and was supposed to go see Anthony and the Johnstons last night but the party filled up before me and moe could get ready. I thought that was why people RSVP'ed but I've totally been that guy who finagled his way in and took some other guy's spot so its no big deal. Its good though since I don't really have the funds to be going out like that and I was kind of in a shitty mood to begin with. I also remembered on the way there that I don't even like their overrated music anyway. Its straight up goofy and that voice bugs me. Plus they only played one(no doubt overrated)song anyway.
However, I fucking dug the shit out of the two shows I actually saw last week: The Sin Destroyers at Black Betty on Tuesday and Birdy Nam Nam at the Knitting Factory on Wednesday. I'm broke but I usually find myself spending money when I don't have any and sitting on my paper when it's stacked. I was out of the city for a week so I was ready to rock on my return. Plus I had job interviews on Monday and Tuesday and totally added those to my excuse list.
For quite some time now, I've been hearing about the Tuesday night Hot Rocks parties at Black Betty's on Metropolitan and Havermeyer. However, no sooner did I make it out to one than the last ever. Oh well, if that night was any evidence, we all missed out.
My homey Jesse BallGame from Savlas is the drunken/ed MC/Host and he's always raving about the comfortably understated hipster crowd. These kids are totally my scene and my reason for choosing Williamsburg: they don't try so hard like most of these motherfuckers with aspirations (Ha, we can't all be rock stars you know). Everyone looks and probably is pretty cool. They just aren't predisposed to cutting off circulation with confusingly expensive and naively tight (or the other way around) designer dungarees like their LES counterparts. Yeah, yeah, there are some fashion fools in the burg but like I'm saying: not these guys. These guys are cool and know how to have fun. Especially when the main event is mock christian metal.
Enter the Sin Destroyers.
I walked in mid set since we'd been at the wine bar across the street acting fruity and drinking overpriced beers from quite possibly the largest selection in williamsburg. Aftering creepy in the back door and pulling out my smuggled pint of cheap whiskey, i almost did a 80s movie spit take when i saw the stage. well, i guess you guys have the picture up top but that is a weak representation: they dress straight out of hot topic and priest surplus catalogs. i once spent an entire mass waiting my turn to do a reading flipping pages in disbelief and horror. they sell everything from purple lenten collars to holy chalices that make me question where my collection money goes (or went when i went to church). but my school mass antics and perpetual nemesis sister pat are far different stories that have little to do with destroying sin. The singer wears the full satan priest get-up: black pants, long-sleeve black button-up, geeky black-leather belt (the kind you'd notice your priest wearing during a pre-confirmation pep talk and instantly lose the last remaining shards of respect you'd been saving for him), combat boots, black leather biker gloves, and matching mall punk/auntie anne's employee stlye spike bracelets. The ouftit coupled with 'i don't care' metal guy hair made him look raw; but in a convincingly religous way. And backing him up were four equally metal dudes wearing black muscle tees with bling encrusted crosses over their chests. But i kinda stopped laughing when i realized the rest of the crowd was taking them seriously!
With song titles like "Holy Mother of God" and "Jesus is My Drug," you know they're in on the fun. Take the former for instance: it starts off with a subtle yet evil bass line followed by a def leppard riff blazing all 'dahnn digada dahnn digada...nainihnih nainihih' and then the signer starts off with 'married to joseph but he kept his old hands off and kept it all kosher...HOLY...MOTHER...OF GOD' danh digada danh digada.' Bad ass. The crowd seemed to know all the words and cheered after they announced each upcoming song. While they may have been smiling, they weren't laughing like I was: I was fucking shitting myself and turning to all my friends to make sure they were laughing as hard. Yeah, it was funny as shit and religous and all (to the point where I'm sure plenty of people aren't sure if they're kidding or not. but i am: they are.) but fuck the wine bar next time: i'll be front rowwing it hard. Jesus is my drug indeed.
As for Birdy nam nam, you really need to check out the web site www.birdynamnam.com
and watch the video. its four french djs that play a different instrument on each turntable and come out sounding like DJ Shadow showing off for scandinavian chicks. 'look baby, i can dig jazz. heres my low end.' but in the case of birdy nam nam, crazy b is the low end. i kept yelling his name the entire show. literally, at like crazy out-of-the-way moments too when it was all quiet. 'this next song is about the unemployment rate and how it killed my father. you know new york, you guys...(YEAH CRAZY B! YOU MY MOTHERFUCKER! HELL YEAH)... so much harder than LA.
Then into some more ambient beats with two rhythm guys and two solo guys that just kept doing crab walks and other invisible skratch piklz type shit. I don't want to hate and all but i dont know how much i'd enjoy the album. I really dug the show and was hopping up and down yelling the whole time but i think it was just the whole 4 turntable gimmick. you probably cant even tell the difference on record. but i dug it. i dug it hard. later nam nam.
Monday, March 20, 2006
caps and jones rip it corporate (complete with metal and house)
While I don't want everyone to think that I only blog about artists I know, I gotta give all mad props to the new Illegible Dj Caps and Pandemonium Jones mix tape. I went over there the day they got the assignment from Caroline Distro and along with the job came about 100 brand new Caroline discs. We all sat there at Creely's place in Greenpoint drinking stiff Polish beer and sorting through the stash.
'You don't have to use all of these, do you?'
'Yeah, just about.'
'But you get to pick the track though, right?'
'No, not exactly. They have singles picked out.'
''Well shit. That blows. So wait, you're telliing me that they're gonna pick which Misfits song you can use? That's absurd.'
'No no. We get to pick out the Misfits track. Thank God.'
'Oh, well you're gonna use 'One Last Caress,' right?'
'Oh yeah, of course.'
As the proud indie rocker, I originally felt bad for my boys and how those suits over at Caroline (come on, they are hardly an indie these days) had sucked the creative life force from the best DJs in Brooklyn. I'm not sure what they would have done with such a huge catalog on their own, but they played by the rules and came out with a banger. When the guy paying you tells you he wants a 61 song mix tape composed of exclusively singles, intelligent people swallow their pride and content themselves on the fact that they at least get to play 'One Last Caress' and that raw Broken Social Scene single. And the result is some of their best work.
Without the typical esoteric-north-BROOKLYN-nyu-alumni-cool-guy pressure to find the obscure dust gems, they are free to create a mix that just wants to make ya'll shake that ass. I mean, these cats would never think to use the melvins on a mix and that track just starts the mix off so proper. Its the musical equivalent of making all your party guests drink 3 jager bombs when they show up at yur front door. 'Alright motherfuckers, now we party.' The real beauty part for capsandjones fans is that we get to listen to lacuna coil rip through a song inexplicably titled 'heaven is a lie' followed by an equally cryptic one called 'all my friends are dead' and then just as we're laughing and headbanging, 'one last caress' makes it all seem so impenetrably high-brow. Or to put it in another way, we get to listen to catchy pop rock ballads without feeling like turds cause we know there is gonna be a caberet voltaire or can song coming up soomewhere. its like a free pass to listen to my chemical romance.
Another clutch aspect is how rapidly the metal gives way to backpacker hip-hop
like only caroline can produce. So when you're sitting on broome street waiting to get over the tunnel to go to philly or b-more and jealous rich people stare at you for listening to 'black music', don't worry: they are gonna pray for the thugs bumping biggie when they hear how a cranked system pushes out caroline's brand of metal. Ahh man, I just want to rewind to that melvins song again and I keep repeating 'heaven is a lie' over and over again in my head. That shit is so loud in the car too. Damn. And don't even get me started on the fiendish house music.
We all need to lose our inhibitions and loosen our jeans every once in a while. If you have hipster neighbors or somethng, just do it when you're alone in the shower one morning and try to keep the sing-alongs to a minimum. Or tell that dude to step his game up cause everyone knows james murphy name-drops lacuna coil whenever he gets the chance. I know you can download this mix from caroline and its probably going to be free (with purchase of a regularly priced caroline cd, that is) at your local record store pretty soon. So grab it and listen to it at full volume. Because you know what? You don't have to be cool all the time so relax. Then come to Savalas on saturdays and geek out with us.
'You don't have to use all of these, do you?'
'Yeah, just about.'
'But you get to pick the track though, right?'
'No, not exactly. They have singles picked out.'
''Well shit. That blows. So wait, you're telliing me that they're gonna pick which Misfits song you can use? That's absurd.'
'No no. We get to pick out the Misfits track. Thank God.'
'Oh, well you're gonna use 'One Last Caress,' right?'
'Oh yeah, of course.'
As the proud indie rocker, I originally felt bad for my boys and how those suits over at Caroline (come on, they are hardly an indie these days) had sucked the creative life force from the best DJs in Brooklyn. I'm not sure what they would have done with such a huge catalog on their own, but they played by the rules and came out with a banger. When the guy paying you tells you he wants a 61 song mix tape composed of exclusively singles, intelligent people swallow their pride and content themselves on the fact that they at least get to play 'One Last Caress' and that raw Broken Social Scene single. And the result is some of their best work.
Without the typical esoteric-north-BROOKLYN-nyu-alumni-cool-guy pressure to find the obscure dust gems, they are free to create a mix that just wants to make ya'll shake that ass. I mean, these cats would never think to use the melvins on a mix and that track just starts the mix off so proper. Its the musical equivalent of making all your party guests drink 3 jager bombs when they show up at yur front door. 'Alright motherfuckers, now we party.' The real beauty part for capsandjones fans is that we get to listen to lacuna coil rip through a song inexplicably titled 'heaven is a lie' followed by an equally cryptic one called 'all my friends are dead' and then just as we're laughing and headbanging, 'one last caress' makes it all seem so impenetrably high-brow. Or to put it in another way, we get to listen to catchy pop rock ballads without feeling like turds cause we know there is gonna be a caberet voltaire or can song coming up soomewhere. its like a free pass to listen to my chemical romance.
Another clutch aspect is how rapidly the metal gives way to backpacker hip-hop
like only caroline can produce. So when you're sitting on broome street waiting to get over the tunnel to go to philly or b-more and jealous rich people stare at you for listening to 'black music', don't worry: they are gonna pray for the thugs bumping biggie when they hear how a cranked system pushes out caroline's brand of metal. Ahh man, I just want to rewind to that melvins song again and I keep repeating 'heaven is a lie' over and over again in my head. That shit is so loud in the car too. Damn. And don't even get me started on the fiendish house music.
We all need to lose our inhibitions and loosen our jeans every once in a while. If you have hipster neighbors or somethng, just do it when you're alone in the shower one morning and try to keep the sing-alongs to a minimum. Or tell that dude to step his game up cause everyone knows james murphy name-drops lacuna coil whenever he gets the chance. I know you can download this mix from caroline and its probably going to be free (with purchase of a regularly priced caroline cd, that is) at your local record store pretty soon. So grab it and listen to it at full volume. Because you know what? You don't have to be cool all the time so relax. Then come to Savalas on saturdays and geek out with us.
Monday, March 13, 2006
vhs or beta
its so weird that vhs or beta played instrumentals for almost ten years before they realized that guitarist craig pfunder had pipes like that. always the frontman by way of attire and stage presence, pfunder makes it offical with the new role of vocalist on their latest record, 'night on fire.' maybe he was just saving his voice for the right time, nevermind the fact that it would have been sometime last year. while these lousiville boys may have waited just a tad too long to unleash their secret weapon, they are much more authentic than those brave but kill-ed schmucks. instead of sounding like some makeup clad deuschebag trying to impress critics with how much he sounds like killing joke, pfunder and vhs or beta actually sound like they made this record with futuristic technnology 20 years ago. to my knowledge, there has honestly never been such a fully realized attack of simon le bon-ness since the Good himself stalked models in the 80s.
while they've added vocals and pop hooks to this record, their sound is still rooted in drummer mark guidry's thumping electro dance beats coupled with dueling joe satriani guitars (you know, the kind of guitar noodles that just sound like they were recorded on funny shaped instruments) and bouncy bass rhythms courtesy of mark palgy. but now with the Georgian (Boy, that is) vocals and pop hooks peppering the tracks like woah, vhs or beta occupy a more important and far more original place in the cool guy music genre. they are no longer a band that tries too hard to sound french and pretentious but comes up short. now they sound mad poppy and even radio-friendly. with tracks like 'the melting moon' and 'you got me,' they draw a line in the indie sand and jump ship. the devastatingly catchy emo-inflected choruses and cheesy lyrics like 'And tonight we’re not alone, we pull the sky down by our side And I’m not leavin’ you anymore Standin’ in the sand, starin’ at the sun, twistin’ into sound And I’m not leavin’ you anymore,' its pretty obvious that they sounded far more cerebral when they used to keep their mouths shut. but its dance music and they're allowed to sound cheesy and feature six minute songs that say no more than 'forver baby, forever all night long.' basic elemental lyrics are almost a necessity in this type of surging, balls to the wall dance music. when you stop wondering what the singer is bithcing about and are permitted to just simply dig his vibe, you free up the mental urgency and let the music just take you to the top. i know i sound a hippie or an e-head or something but if you just 'shout shout shout shout shout to cure the silence' and 'sing la la la la la,' its pretty easy to get that weird, almost euphoric end result that new order or french role models daft punk and air grasp at during their better moments. i know you know what i'm talking about too: when music is just so bittersweet that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up with goosebumps and shit. if you've never experienced this than i feel very sorry about that and urge you to smoke more pot and listen to more early morning music in the shower or something. that should produce the desired effect. while i'm not really sure this happened to me yet with this particular albumyet, i'm just saying that this is the type of music that is prone to that type of occurence.
plus it is bouncy radio dance rock without the grit or distortion most bands rely on to get crunk. critics and fans love to over-emphasize the fact that a couple shitty bands on the radio last year sounded a little new wavey. yeah, i guess you could kind of hear the strained attempt to sound like the cure. it was kind of hard though with all the distortion and yelling and such. no matter how hard those bands try to leave fat wreckchords out of their interviews, their music is always going to sound filtered through a childhood spent listening to skate-punk. i mean, there's nothing wrong with that. shit, i was a skate-punk for years, hanging out with all the other hyphenated-punk rockers. its just that vhs or beta were never part of that scene and i know that for a fact. craig, the marks and and guitarist zeke buck were always cooler than that.
i grew up all over the place because of my pop's job and ended up living in louisville in 1998 and 1999. it sucked changing schools in the middle of high school but whatever. i was confident in myself and things worked out fine. but you know how high schools are, especially all boys schools in hick towns like louisville, the music you like is an extension of your lifestyle. while i played football and swam and met a lot of people right away, i was a punk and found my lunch table with the other anti-society types. hyphenated punks, like i said, but we were all pretty smart kids and certainly knew we were above the average redneck. fuck it, i said it. fucking scum of the earth those people. jesus christ. but i'm sure the members of vhs or beta, st. x alumni or otherwise, felt the same way coming of age in lousiville with their tastes intact.
but anyway, we went to shows all the time. mostly of the all ages variety at a pizza place or an arcade or something like that. it was a lot of fun and some of the bands were pretty good. a typical five dollar show would have at least five bands playing anything from punk to ska to hardcore to some combination of the three. the good thing about living in a town as small as lousiville is that you can stay up on practically every gigging band in the city. this was even easier when you were 16 and could only go to limited shows. i mean, if it was a really big show like modest mouse or something we could sneak in. but its not like we had a prayer of getting into a vhs or beta show at some bar downtown. which is where i always remember them playing when i was there. they never shared the stage with the bands i saw and played in during high school, composed of high schoolers.
eventually i began to yearn for a fifth chord and started trying harder to get into the cooler shows. it all kind of happened when the FUCK (first unitarian church of kentucky) church opened its doors to the proto-hipsters of lousiville, what we used to call scenesters. since they were now running the shows and not some grimy promoter, shows went on all day and it was not uncommon for a 10 hour saturday in this basement. with so much time on the bill, my familiar punk bands now played with artsier types and indie bands. we got to hang out with the older scenesters like the assaee lake and the national acrobat and sometimes vhs or beta. i'm not sure if they ever played any shows there, but i definitely remember seeing them around at least once or twice. finally, i managed to sneak into an 18 and up show and saw them. from what i remember, it was a lot more experimental and noisy but the electro undertones were definitely there. they were always coming from that angle. they didn't just switch sides when the national opinion callled for it like some other posers hogging their would-be time on mainstream radio. plus they had the look down even way back then in 98. other scenesters wore tight jeans and leather, but no one had tighter jeans and shinier leather than vhs or beta. holy shit.
while the sucessful incorporation of vocals is certainly the biggest accomplishment of 'night on fire,' the steps forward in pop sensibility are definitely significant as well. 'le funk' had some grooves on it and the shit was pretty catchy but not like this effort. this time, they took all the best parts of beach boys bubblegum pop and new wave's sheer likeability and parked it in front of their churning electro rave rollercoaster. while i hesitated to use such a hardy description, their music has always invoked the feeling of a rollercoaster. with all the ups and downs and gaps and breakdowns/beats, you feel shook sometimes. the music has an interactive feel now more than ever that is rarely accomplished in the realm of cool guy indie music. excuse the excessive metaphor, but its like the romping drums are the constrictive tracks that the snappy bass and tricky guitars guide you over. and nowadays, pfunder acts like that crazy kid announcing the safety precautions, a little too happy with the sound of his voice over the PA. but the ride works. the music is finally all in together now and ready to rock at excessive, goosebumping volumes. holla indeed.
while they've added vocals and pop hooks to this record, their sound is still rooted in drummer mark guidry's thumping electro dance beats coupled with dueling joe satriani guitars (you know, the kind of guitar noodles that just sound like they were recorded on funny shaped instruments) and bouncy bass rhythms courtesy of mark palgy. but now with the Georgian (Boy, that is) vocals and pop hooks peppering the tracks like woah, vhs or beta occupy a more important and far more original place in the cool guy music genre. they are no longer a band that tries too hard to sound french and pretentious but comes up short. now they sound mad poppy and even radio-friendly. with tracks like 'the melting moon' and 'you got me,' they draw a line in the indie sand and jump ship. the devastatingly catchy emo-inflected choruses and cheesy lyrics like 'And tonight we’re not alone, we pull the sky down by our side And I’m not leavin’ you anymore Standin’ in the sand, starin’ at the sun, twistin’ into sound And I’m not leavin’ you anymore,' its pretty obvious that they sounded far more cerebral when they used to keep their mouths shut. but its dance music and they're allowed to sound cheesy and feature six minute songs that say no more than 'forver baby, forever all night long.' basic elemental lyrics are almost a necessity in this type of surging, balls to the wall dance music. when you stop wondering what the singer is bithcing about and are permitted to just simply dig his vibe, you free up the mental urgency and let the music just take you to the top. i know i sound a hippie or an e-head or something but if you just 'shout shout shout shout shout to cure the silence' and 'sing la la la la la,' its pretty easy to get that weird, almost euphoric end result that new order or french role models daft punk and air grasp at during their better moments. i know you know what i'm talking about too: when music is just so bittersweet that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up with goosebumps and shit. if you've never experienced this than i feel very sorry about that and urge you to smoke more pot and listen to more early morning music in the shower or something. that should produce the desired effect. while i'm not really sure this happened to me yet with this particular albumyet, i'm just saying that this is the type of music that is prone to that type of occurence.
plus it is bouncy radio dance rock without the grit or distortion most bands rely on to get crunk. critics and fans love to over-emphasize the fact that a couple shitty bands on the radio last year sounded a little new wavey. yeah, i guess you could kind of hear the strained attempt to sound like the cure. it was kind of hard though with all the distortion and yelling and such. no matter how hard those bands try to leave fat wreckchords out of their interviews, their music is always going to sound filtered through a childhood spent listening to skate-punk. i mean, there's nothing wrong with that. shit, i was a skate-punk for years, hanging out with all the other hyphenated-punk rockers. its just that vhs or beta were never part of that scene and i know that for a fact. craig, the marks and and guitarist zeke buck were always cooler than that.
i grew up all over the place because of my pop's job and ended up living in louisville in 1998 and 1999. it sucked changing schools in the middle of high school but whatever. i was confident in myself and things worked out fine. but you know how high schools are, especially all boys schools in hick towns like louisville, the music you like is an extension of your lifestyle. while i played football and swam and met a lot of people right away, i was a punk and found my lunch table with the other anti-society types. hyphenated punks, like i said, but we were all pretty smart kids and certainly knew we were above the average redneck. fuck it, i said it. fucking scum of the earth those people. jesus christ. but i'm sure the members of vhs or beta, st. x alumni or otherwise, felt the same way coming of age in lousiville with their tastes intact.
but anyway, we went to shows all the time. mostly of the all ages variety at a pizza place or an arcade or something like that. it was a lot of fun and some of the bands were pretty good. a typical five dollar show would have at least five bands playing anything from punk to ska to hardcore to some combination of the three. the good thing about living in a town as small as lousiville is that you can stay up on practically every gigging band in the city. this was even easier when you were 16 and could only go to limited shows. i mean, if it was a really big show like modest mouse or something we could sneak in. but its not like we had a prayer of getting into a vhs or beta show at some bar downtown. which is where i always remember them playing when i was there. they never shared the stage with the bands i saw and played in during high school, composed of high schoolers.
eventually i began to yearn for a fifth chord and started trying harder to get into the cooler shows. it all kind of happened when the FUCK (first unitarian church of kentucky) church opened its doors to the proto-hipsters of lousiville, what we used to call scenesters. since they were now running the shows and not some grimy promoter, shows went on all day and it was not uncommon for a 10 hour saturday in this basement. with so much time on the bill, my familiar punk bands now played with artsier types and indie bands. we got to hang out with the older scenesters like the assaee lake and the national acrobat and sometimes vhs or beta. i'm not sure if they ever played any shows there, but i definitely remember seeing them around at least once or twice. finally, i managed to sneak into an 18 and up show and saw them. from what i remember, it was a lot more experimental and noisy but the electro undertones were definitely there. they were always coming from that angle. they didn't just switch sides when the national opinion callled for it like some other posers hogging their would-be time on mainstream radio. plus they had the look down even way back then in 98. other scenesters wore tight jeans and leather, but no one had tighter jeans and shinier leather than vhs or beta. holy shit.
while the sucessful incorporation of vocals is certainly the biggest accomplishment of 'night on fire,' the steps forward in pop sensibility are definitely significant as well. 'le funk' had some grooves on it and the shit was pretty catchy but not like this effort. this time, they took all the best parts of beach boys bubblegum pop and new wave's sheer likeability and parked it in front of their churning electro rave rollercoaster. while i hesitated to use such a hardy description, their music has always invoked the feeling of a rollercoaster. with all the ups and downs and gaps and breakdowns/beats, you feel shook sometimes. the music has an interactive feel now more than ever that is rarely accomplished in the realm of cool guy indie music. excuse the excessive metaphor, but its like the romping drums are the constrictive tracks that the snappy bass and tricky guitars guide you over. and nowadays, pfunder acts like that crazy kid announcing the safety precautions, a little too happy with the sound of his voice over the PA. but the ride works. the music is finally all in together now and ready to rock at excessive, goosebumping volumes. holla indeed.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
philly town, represent
Alright...so my life post shitty job has been nice and fulfilling. I mean, when I
think that I was only making 80 dollars a day, i don't miss that shit too much. I mean, I can make that straight up hustling. or even fucking day laboring.
ahh, i gotta bounce....i'm in philly so that means i take shit from my chocolate fountain employer andrew when i'm here. and he says we gotta bounce. so i'll be back in a bit and finish.
alright, i'm back...weak ass lunch at the counter on spring garden where andrew accused me of chinsing out on tip. i'm pretty sure i didn't unless they overcharged us but whatever.
the ride down here was pretty quick once i got over the tunnel. it took me like an hour to get from my house to hoboken but i ripped it all down the turnpike and ending up pushing an hour, 15. while i only had two cigarettes to get me through what is usually a five cig trip, i had just gone through a raw download session. after taking forever to get all my dirty laundry and snowboard gear together in two bags,
i finally left my block trying to get down with the daniel johnston tribute album i had just burned. i don't know the real track listing so i just burnt it with the original songs first and the covers afterwards. but in retrospect, i really should have put the covers first. a cover by an already accepted band is always easier to swallow. having never really listened to johnston aside from a few random tracks on compilations, i knew it would be an upward battle enjoying this album.
his ultra-quirky, old-timey folk songs are the type of material that really has to catch me in a good mood to get a fair shake. i mean, listening to it now as i write this the next day, i'm really enjoying the rawness and sincerety and unrequited hopefulness and all those other pretentious reasons for liking a singer who's voice cracks for emphasis. if you've never heard him before, think about an orgnan grinder or a 1930s ragtime record or something along those lines. his songs sound like he's singing into a coke can while showering with his clothes on. usually only accompanied by accordions, guitars and someone stomping their feet and clapping, johnston sings songs from the perspective of a loner who tries real hard but doesn't ever seem to succeed at anything worthwile. the man is trying to keep him down and women keep leaving him. however, on the positive side, it doesn't seem like its just one chick and on the occasional rock-outs, he seems to remember and celebrate the good times.
in fact, i really like this now. and now that i remember, i'm pretty sure i told myself i wasn't in the mood yesterday when i really was getting into it. i got in the car and tossed ths disc on (i had put it on cd because its length meant it would have been a big pain in the ass to clear space for on a stacked 20 gigger) with the intention of only listening while i hooked up the fm transmitter and scrolled around. i had it on for the first three or four tracks until i settled on the recently aquired hot chip album to replace it. 'nah, i'm not trying to listen to this shit now,' i told myself. 'i need something where i don't have to try, something easy; i'm driving for shits sake. uhh,l give me something british, give me hot chip.'
so i preemptively took the johnston cd out, not to be re-visited til this afternoon. i've since listened to all the original johnston songs and i've definitely enjoyed it. in fact, it wasn't even the hard sale and sketchy 'mood music' i promised myself it would be. all the reasons why i told myself i wasn't going to dig it yesterday have made me dig it today. plus, i've discovered that its all those characteristics that put shit on the fence, plus it tends to rock too. its got a total bill haley chuck berry vibe to all the songs with a real band. they are the type of songs i get drunk and claim i want to make one day: total pre-elvis bangers with sentiment. now wait til i get to the covers. then i'll really have some respect for this dude. as for hot chip...lets give it another listen before i judge. i'm about to go delvier food all night so i'll have plenty of time to digest my new pick-ups. later.
think that I was only making 80 dollars a day, i don't miss that shit too much. I mean, I can make that straight up hustling. or even fucking day laboring.
ahh, i gotta bounce....i'm in philly so that means i take shit from my chocolate fountain employer andrew when i'm here. and he says we gotta bounce. so i'll be back in a bit and finish.
alright, i'm back...weak ass lunch at the counter on spring garden where andrew accused me of chinsing out on tip. i'm pretty sure i didn't unless they overcharged us but whatever.
the ride down here was pretty quick once i got over the tunnel. it took me like an hour to get from my house to hoboken but i ripped it all down the turnpike and ending up pushing an hour, 15. while i only had two cigarettes to get me through what is usually a five cig trip, i had just gone through a raw download session. after taking forever to get all my dirty laundry and snowboard gear together in two bags,
i finally left my block trying to get down with the daniel johnston tribute album i had just burned. i don't know the real track listing so i just burnt it with the original songs first and the covers afterwards. but in retrospect, i really should have put the covers first. a cover by an already accepted band is always easier to swallow. having never really listened to johnston aside from a few random tracks on compilations, i knew it would be an upward battle enjoying this album.
his ultra-quirky, old-timey folk songs are the type of material that really has to catch me in a good mood to get a fair shake. i mean, listening to it now as i write this the next day, i'm really enjoying the rawness and sincerety and unrequited hopefulness and all those other pretentious reasons for liking a singer who's voice cracks for emphasis. if you've never heard him before, think about an orgnan grinder or a 1930s ragtime record or something along those lines. his songs sound like he's singing into a coke can while showering with his clothes on. usually only accompanied by accordions, guitars and someone stomping their feet and clapping, johnston sings songs from the perspective of a loner who tries real hard but doesn't ever seem to succeed at anything worthwile. the man is trying to keep him down and women keep leaving him. however, on the positive side, it doesn't seem like its just one chick and on the occasional rock-outs, he seems to remember and celebrate the good times.
in fact, i really like this now. and now that i remember, i'm pretty sure i told myself i wasn't in the mood yesterday when i really was getting into it. i got in the car and tossed ths disc on (i had put it on cd because its length meant it would have been a big pain in the ass to clear space for on a stacked 20 gigger) with the intention of only listening while i hooked up the fm transmitter and scrolled around. i had it on for the first three or four tracks until i settled on the recently aquired hot chip album to replace it. 'nah, i'm not trying to listen to this shit now,' i told myself. 'i need something where i don't have to try, something easy; i'm driving for shits sake. uhh,l give me something british, give me hot chip.'
so i preemptively took the johnston cd out, not to be re-visited til this afternoon. i've since listened to all the original johnston songs and i've definitely enjoyed it. in fact, it wasn't even the hard sale and sketchy 'mood music' i promised myself it would be. all the reasons why i told myself i wasn't going to dig it yesterday have made me dig it today. plus, i've discovered that its all those characteristics that put shit on the fence, plus it tends to rock too. its got a total bill haley chuck berry vibe to all the songs with a real band. they are the type of songs i get drunk and claim i want to make one day: total pre-elvis bangers with sentiment. now wait til i get to the covers. then i'll really have some respect for this dude. as for hot chip...lets give it another listen before i judge. i'm about to go delvier food all night so i'll have plenty of time to digest my new pick-ups. later.
Monday, March 06, 2006
man, i am so into this
i don't know what i was doing this whole time while everyone else was blogging their little hearts out. i have tons to say to the world, dammit. i guess i was just busy and all before.
so i've done a good bit of introducing myself and where i'm coming from so far. i've been dropping the literary bombs and been rocking the depression tip with all my ailments and coincidences (brian just told me that he found a coince for me-i was watching all these history channel things on the deveil last night and it turns out that yesterday was 3-6, 3-6 mafia won an oscar, and the PA lottery number was 666. while this doesn't usually qualify, i figured i'd throw it up anyway). by the way, you don't really have to read all those college essays i put up. those were mainly just to prove that i kinda know what i'm talking about when it comes to early 20th century literary philosophy.
but i've done enough of that and i want to get to music now. you people deserve to hear about what i've been listening to. i should probably start with publishing a list of everything floating around my computer. it would be ridiculous, of course, but it might also paint a better picture of my tastes before i start writing. damn, i wish i had that list for every music journalist i've encountered. stay tuned for that and, i promise, i'll finally start writing about music. it'll probably be something i downloaded today: she wants revenge, vhs or beta, hot chip, the editors, leftover crack, of montreal's latest, or this daniel johnston tribute. and you'll love it and be informed. so bip bip bop blah.
so i've done a good bit of introducing myself and where i'm coming from so far. i've been dropping the literary bombs and been rocking the depression tip with all my ailments and coincidences (brian just told me that he found a coince for me-i was watching all these history channel things on the deveil last night and it turns out that yesterday was 3-6, 3-6 mafia won an oscar, and the PA lottery number was 666. while this doesn't usually qualify, i figured i'd throw it up anyway). by the way, you don't really have to read all those college essays i put up. those were mainly just to prove that i kinda know what i'm talking about when it comes to early 20th century literary philosophy.
but i've done enough of that and i want to get to music now. you people deserve to hear about what i've been listening to. i should probably start with publishing a list of everything floating around my computer. it would be ridiculous, of course, but it might also paint a better picture of my tastes before i start writing. damn, i wish i had that list for every music journalist i've encountered. stay tuned for that and, i promise, i'll finally start writing about music. it'll probably be something i downloaded today: she wants revenge, vhs or beta, hot chip, the editors, leftover crack, of montreal's latest, or this daniel johnston tribute. and you'll love it and be informed. so bip bip bop blah.
look how hot my girl is
san francisco in the background too. road trip
we had a blast there. after driving straight up the coast and stopping through santa cruz and big sur, we rolled into san fran around midnight and started looking for a hotel. too bad them shits are all way too expensive on the peninsula. plus we had never been there and had no idea where to look. our guide book, the let's go guide to the usa on a shoestring (which i had snagged while interning at rolling stone), for some reason didn't have anything in our price range or non-hostel. everything was at least over a 150 any place halfway decent. eventually, we followed some homeless people to a travelodge that was like 100 after taxes and all. as we were unloading our bags, they were all like 'yeah, this is the party spot, the travelodge.' yeah, alright, its a party so i'll go get beer. but a sketchy beer run later proved frutiless and i mixed up my last bit of trader joes vodka in bed.
this pictue is from the park our friend christina from school showed us the next day where you can see the entire city. we took all kinds of 360 degree photos and shit. it was mad cheesy. i ended up really digging the city and said i could definitely live there if necessary. its got that laid back west-coast thing but also mad urban and kinda raw.
when we got there, christina had told us a about a rough bar fight she had gotten into the night before. there had been broken glass and some hair pulling with the whole bar jeering along. unbeknowst to us, we stumbled upon the same spot after leaving our hotel and walking up some hill. the bar, zeitgeist, ended being all outdoors with picnic tables and a dope selection of cheap beers. we end up getting wickedly stoned with some aged metal heads and blacking out on the walk home
the city feels mad euro because of all the crazy street signs and pay toilets and gay people. haight-ashbury has a gap, a ben and berry's, and some other equally corporate establishment one all four corners. oh well, what do i care about hippies anyway.
poetry class, sophmore year.
well, i dug this up. its some more shit about the collective unconsciousness. i haven't read it in a while but i got an A on it. hear ya go...
The Concept of Tradition in the Work of Auden and Eliot
As poets of the early twentieth century began to examine their work and ideals involved in its conception, some began to see themselves in light of their predecessors as the next step in a literary tradition. Two poets who have regarded their place in modern poetry as a direct result of their poetic lineage are W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot. In prosaic writing, Auden and Eliot explore the extent of their dependence upon past writing and literary traditions as well as contemplate their own role in the formation of poetry. The poets do not proclaim identical ideas about how their individual poetry is conjured; however, they do express a similar interest in allowing the influence of their poetic ancestors to guide their work. As he expresses in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot believed that poets should aspire to an ideal of aesthetic impersonality and not romantic self-expression. Similarly, Auden discusses the negative ramifications that arise when a poet is too obsessed with a desire to be loved for himself alone in his collected teachings, “Writings.”. The poets, in both their prose and poetry, engage in an evaluation of their sources and an interpretation of the influence each of them had to bear on their writing. In a truly modern fashion, against the backdrop of a collective European history, Auden and Eliot describe their poetry as the culmination of the unconscious amassing of ideas, emotions, and insights intermixed with the personal rationality of the poet who puts the work together.
For W.H. Auden, the art of writing a poem has much to do with the invocation of a muse and the subsequent forays into the cultural collective it brings with it. He states that “It is true that, when he is writing a poem, it seems to a poet as if there were two people involved, his conscious self and a Muse whom he has to woo or an Angel with whom he has to wrestle” (Auden, 1002). Through the conscious act of wrestling or wooing your inspiration, Auden feels that poets retain a conscious participation in their work while accepting the insight of generations of artists. As he expresses in “Writing,” Auden is very critical of the poet who claims that his work is induced purely by a trance state. He feels that by accepting such “inspired” truths wholeheartedly, one leaves themselves open to the possibility of recounting nonsensical ideas in the form of a poem. In a poem like “Musee des Beaux Arts,” the inspiration of old works of art is transformed by the poet. He draws his own conclusions on the “Old Masters” by placing their work in the context of a museum and its observers (“Musee des Beaux Arts” 2). Auden also introduces the idea of an internal “Censorate” composed of “a sensitive only child, a practical housewife, a logician, a monk, an irreverent buffoon and even, perhaps, hated by all others and returning their dislike, a brutal, foul-mouthed drill sergeant who considers all poetry rubbish” (Auden 1002-03). By describing the writing process as both a battle with external influence in the form of the muse and an internal battle with one’s own ideas about the rationality of man that takes place before the “Censorate,” Auden recognizes the balance of power at work in the creation of poetry. Similarly, Eliot respects the personal influence a poet wields in the creation of his work but chooses to emphasize the fact that the process is made possible by the “tradition” placed before the poet.
While Eliot’s perception of the writing process places more emphasis on the literary “tradition” and external influences necessary for the creation of a poem, he does not distance the self totally from the formation of valid work. In order to prove his statement in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” that “if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should be positively discouraged,” Eliot introduces the modern concept of a “historical sense” that is be engaged when writing (Eliot 942). Eliot states that if a writer writes from the historical sense, he is embracing the experiences of the whole of European literature in order to make him more traditional and more conscious of his place in time. “The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order,” is Eliot’s summary of the usage of the historical sense (Eliot 942). In works like The Waste Land, Eliot touches on the majority of European literature to the date through allusion and symbolism. This poem showcases his ability to embrace the entire tradition leading up to his time. He expands upon this idea by addressing the fact that no artist has his complete meaning alone. Eliot writes that a poet’s significance “is the appreciation of his relation to dead poets and artists” (Eliot 942). In order to explain his definition of the poet’s work, he utilizes the analogy of the catalyst. During a chemical reaction between two gases, the presence of a filament of platinum will have an effect on the gases and force them to combine. He likens the platinum to the poet as he affects the change but he himself is not changed. Poets utilize their mind as a “receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together” (Eliot 945). Published in 1919 in a period when much of European scholarship was devoted to assessing how the continent had managed to sink to such a low point as the mass destruction in World War I, his “Tradition and the Individual Talent” represents a modern revelation and concept: “the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past” (Eliot 943). While tensions in European culture may have previously been isolated from the whole of European history, the fact that they resulted in an all-encompassing war at the time of this publication makes it necessary for scholars to look back on these tensions in a different light. Just as history is re-written after a landmark event such as the First World War, the existing monuments of poetic art must be re-evaluated after the introduction of a particularly important piece of poetry. By drawing such a conclusion, Eliot gives credence to the work of the individual poet without taking anything away from the strong tradition that he used to write the poem.
Both Auden and Eliot have a sense of the pressure many writers feel to maintain a creative voice in the modern age when it appears as if every human idea has already been over-used. Eliot discusses this dilemma in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” when he moves towards examining the individual’s place in his poetry on page 946. While he discredits the poetic search for new emotions, he maintains that “The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all” (Eliot 946). In his “Gerontion,” Eliot expresses commonly held emotions such as fear of urban decay and forgiveness. However, the overall feeling of the poem is far more elaborate that these simple emotions. By adding his own poetic touch through imagery and other poetic devices, he transforms the work into something original. Earlier in his essay, Eliot touches on a topic similar to that of new emotions when he describes the commonly used method of choosing to bestow praise upon an author for the sections of his work that least resemble anyone else’s poetry. Since praise is given based upon this sense of originality, many writers seek to distance themselves from past traditions at the risk of organizing an incoherent piece of literature. While “We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors,” Eliot claims that a different perspective on the work can be taken when it is looked at without searching for peculiarities in the author’s voice (942). He states that “if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (942). Poets need not be concerned with depicting a foreign or antiquated emotion if they are able to embrace the “tradition” of writing.
Similarly, Auden considers the pressures of writers to strive for originality, which he deems as completely unimportant. By comparing authenticity with originality, Auden sheds light on the subject of considering what is valuable about a good piece of poetry. Claiming that many writers confuse authenticity with originality, Auden uses the metaphor of avant-garde art to shed light on the subject. He says that “There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior; what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act” and then finishes the paragraph by comparing this notion to the majority of avant-garde art. It is apparent from this paragraph that Auden, like Eliot, values the integrity of the work as a whole and does not choose to isolate sections of it that are particularly “original.” One’s work can be highly reminiscent of Yeats but still remain authentic in that it is “intrinsically admirable” and draws together the poet’s internal thinking based upon an influence from the work of Yeats.
For Auden, the idea of combining the external traditions of literary work with his own personal reflections upon the subject matter is showcased in the poem “Spain.” In this poem, he connects the history of European civilization to the present day occurrences in revolution era Spain. The poem moves through three different phases dealing with “Yesterday,” “to-day,” and “to-morrow.” He begins each stanza in the first section with the repeated usage of “Yesterday…” followed by a practice of the past. In this section, he emphasizes the cultural events of the past such as the expansion of trade with Asia or the trials of heretics that he sees as responsible for Spain’s present day circumstance. Following the model put forth by Eliot in the previous generation, Auden aims at dealing with the state of present day emotions connected with Spanish revolution while emphasizing the traditions of the past. The final three stanzas of this section (lines 13-24) bridge the gap between the past and present by ending with a reference to “to-day.” The refrain of “but to-day the struggle” places Auden’s emotions in line with the current plight of the Spanish without distancing “the struggle” from the larger history of Europe. As the poem moves into the second section, the present tense takes over and Auden deals with particular vignettes of wartime Spanish life. However, it is important to note when dealing with the Auden’s usage of the past traditions ingratiating themselves into modern emotions that this section also clings to shards of the past. The philosophy of Plato, commonly seen as the father of Western thought, comes through in line 53. Also visible in the section is the Christian symbolism in lines 43 and after, the major theme of medieval literature. Finally, moving into the third section, Auden contrasts the possibilities of “to-morrow” with the realities of “to-day.” In his idea of tomorrow, Auden includes trends from the past such as “the rediscovery of romantic love” in line 81 but clarifies that these are only possibilities to be entertained until the war is over. He repeatedly brings up images of the harsh reality of war and contrasts them with the pleasantries available after a resolution. The poem eventually ends with the lines “We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and/History to the defeated/May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon” (“Spain” 103-05). This line emphasizes the interconnectivity of all past occurrences with the present day events by bringing to mind how the war will be looked upon by people of subsequent generations.
Eliot’s poetry as a whole highlights the concept of using past traditions combined with modern occurrences in order to make sense of the subject matter. Throughout all of his poems, we see that he is indebted to the monumental literature that paved the way for his work. As he sees modern poetry as being a direct result of all the styles before it, his verse is littered with allusions to everything from Greek and early Christian writing as in the Christ imagery in “Gerontion” and the Greek language from Agamemnon that appears as a prelude to “Sweeney among the Nightingales,” to the work of Dante and English romantics that is in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In his signature complexity that he deems the hallmark of the modern age, Eliot utilizes allusions to multitudes of literary movements and cultural references while expressing his major themes of destruction and infertility in The Waste Land. Eliot deems these the major problems of Europe in the post World War I era and explores their origin throughout most of the poem. Each page of the poem is littered with footnotes citing references to the majority of literary movements before the twentieth century. As it states in the poem’s introduction, Eliot saw the balance between citing historical/literary references and modern occurrences as being “a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility which is contemporary history” (Ramazani 472). By placing prominent characters of the past into the contemporary Europe of his day, Eliot is able to explore the present dilemmas from an objective point of view. In “The Fire Sermon”, the narrator becomes the ancient combination of man and woman known as Tiresias. Through the eyes of this careful observer, Eliot deals with the infertility and sexual dysfunction of man that reflects the infertile landscape of war torn Europe. This objective narrator notes the sexual encounter between a man and a woman in lines 220-256 and sheds light on why the scenario is so dysfunctional. Tiresias highlights the “indifference” that the man and the woman feel towards their sexual moment by pointing out how little the participants actually care for each other. He notes the abrupt departure of the male afterwards and the sense of relaxation the female feels after completing her sexual duty. By using the ancient Tiresias as the objective sexual character to depart insight on current dilemmas, Eliot showcases his idea of past literature figuring prominently into his own poetry.
After T.S. Eliot published his works in the early part of the twentieth century, he became recognized as perhaps the most influential poet of his generation. His ideas have been disseminated throughout modern and contemporary poetry so much that it seems impossible to read a poem since Eliot that rejects his ideas entirely. W.H. Auden, himself an avid fan of Eliot, hints at his ideas throughout his poetry. Coming in the next generation of poets, Auden looks at the present dilemmas of his time including the Spanish Revolution and Second World War. He utilizes Eliot’s sense of tradition in much of his work and even traces the dilemma of World War II back throughout European history in his poem “September 1, 1939.” In this poem, he also includes references to Greek mythology and even utilizes the character Thucydides in much the same fashion as Eliot uses Tiresias. Already, the poetry after Eliot reflects his landmark ideas. Auden’s poetry utilizes the past traditions and even has the first generation of twentieth century poets to further his concept of a literary past. Auden draws his own conclusions from the writing of Eliot and one sees the influence of the great poet. But as Eliot advises, Auden does not limit his tradition to the previous generation alone.
By confronting the occurrences of the twentieth century with the amassed knowledge European history, Eliot and Auden find it easier to deal with current
problematic states. The work of the past is able to shed light on the present. While one must strive to comprehend the literary and historical traditions of the past, doing so opens up infinite windows of poetic opportunity. Looking at themselves as a result of the European “tradition,” Auden and Eliot present a modern view of literature that sees the present in light of the past. Their amassed knowledge undergoes a reaction when it connects with a present day idea that infiltrates the mind, resulting in their poetry which strengthens the past tradition while examining the present.
Works Cited
Auden, W.H. “Writing”. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. New York: Norton,
2003. 1000-1010.
Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent”. The Norton Anthology of Modern
Poetry. 941-947. New York: Norton, 2003. 941-947.
The Concept of Tradition in the Work of Auden and Eliot
As poets of the early twentieth century began to examine their work and ideals involved in its conception, some began to see themselves in light of their predecessors as the next step in a literary tradition. Two poets who have regarded their place in modern poetry as a direct result of their poetic lineage are W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot. In prosaic writing, Auden and Eliot explore the extent of their dependence upon past writing and literary traditions as well as contemplate their own role in the formation of poetry. The poets do not proclaim identical ideas about how their individual poetry is conjured; however, they do express a similar interest in allowing the influence of their poetic ancestors to guide their work. As he expresses in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot believed that poets should aspire to an ideal of aesthetic impersonality and not romantic self-expression. Similarly, Auden discusses the negative ramifications that arise when a poet is too obsessed with a desire to be loved for himself alone in his collected teachings, “Writings.”. The poets, in both their prose and poetry, engage in an evaluation of their sources and an interpretation of the influence each of them had to bear on their writing. In a truly modern fashion, against the backdrop of a collective European history, Auden and Eliot describe their poetry as the culmination of the unconscious amassing of ideas, emotions, and insights intermixed with the personal rationality of the poet who puts the work together.
For W.H. Auden, the art of writing a poem has much to do with the invocation of a muse and the subsequent forays into the cultural collective it brings with it. He states that “It is true that, when he is writing a poem, it seems to a poet as if there were two people involved, his conscious self and a Muse whom he has to woo or an Angel with whom he has to wrestle” (Auden, 1002). Through the conscious act of wrestling or wooing your inspiration, Auden feels that poets retain a conscious participation in their work while accepting the insight of generations of artists. As he expresses in “Writing,” Auden is very critical of the poet who claims that his work is induced purely by a trance state. He feels that by accepting such “inspired” truths wholeheartedly, one leaves themselves open to the possibility of recounting nonsensical ideas in the form of a poem. In a poem like “Musee des Beaux Arts,” the inspiration of old works of art is transformed by the poet. He draws his own conclusions on the “Old Masters” by placing their work in the context of a museum and its observers (“Musee des Beaux Arts” 2). Auden also introduces the idea of an internal “Censorate” composed of “a sensitive only child, a practical housewife, a logician, a monk, an irreverent buffoon and even, perhaps, hated by all others and returning their dislike, a brutal, foul-mouthed drill sergeant who considers all poetry rubbish” (Auden 1002-03). By describing the writing process as both a battle with external influence in the form of the muse and an internal battle with one’s own ideas about the rationality of man that takes place before the “Censorate,” Auden recognizes the balance of power at work in the creation of poetry. Similarly, Eliot respects the personal influence a poet wields in the creation of his work but chooses to emphasize the fact that the process is made possible by the “tradition” placed before the poet.
While Eliot’s perception of the writing process places more emphasis on the literary “tradition” and external influences necessary for the creation of a poem, he does not distance the self totally from the formation of valid work. In order to prove his statement in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” that “if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should be positively discouraged,” Eliot introduces the modern concept of a “historical sense” that is be engaged when writing (Eliot 942). Eliot states that if a writer writes from the historical sense, he is embracing the experiences of the whole of European literature in order to make him more traditional and more conscious of his place in time. “The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order,” is Eliot’s summary of the usage of the historical sense (Eliot 942). In works like The Waste Land, Eliot touches on the majority of European literature to the date through allusion and symbolism. This poem showcases his ability to embrace the entire tradition leading up to his time. He expands upon this idea by addressing the fact that no artist has his complete meaning alone. Eliot writes that a poet’s significance “is the appreciation of his relation to dead poets and artists” (Eliot 942). In order to explain his definition of the poet’s work, he utilizes the analogy of the catalyst. During a chemical reaction between two gases, the presence of a filament of platinum will have an effect on the gases and force them to combine. He likens the platinum to the poet as he affects the change but he himself is not changed. Poets utilize their mind as a “receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together” (Eliot 945). Published in 1919 in a period when much of European scholarship was devoted to assessing how the continent had managed to sink to such a low point as the mass destruction in World War I, his “Tradition and the Individual Talent” represents a modern revelation and concept: “the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past” (Eliot 943). While tensions in European culture may have previously been isolated from the whole of European history, the fact that they resulted in an all-encompassing war at the time of this publication makes it necessary for scholars to look back on these tensions in a different light. Just as history is re-written after a landmark event such as the First World War, the existing monuments of poetic art must be re-evaluated after the introduction of a particularly important piece of poetry. By drawing such a conclusion, Eliot gives credence to the work of the individual poet without taking anything away from the strong tradition that he used to write the poem.
Both Auden and Eliot have a sense of the pressure many writers feel to maintain a creative voice in the modern age when it appears as if every human idea has already been over-used. Eliot discusses this dilemma in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” when he moves towards examining the individual’s place in his poetry on page 946. While he discredits the poetic search for new emotions, he maintains that “The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all” (Eliot 946). In his “Gerontion,” Eliot expresses commonly held emotions such as fear of urban decay and forgiveness. However, the overall feeling of the poem is far more elaborate that these simple emotions. By adding his own poetic touch through imagery and other poetic devices, he transforms the work into something original. Earlier in his essay, Eliot touches on a topic similar to that of new emotions when he describes the commonly used method of choosing to bestow praise upon an author for the sections of his work that least resemble anyone else’s poetry. Since praise is given based upon this sense of originality, many writers seek to distance themselves from past traditions at the risk of organizing an incoherent piece of literature. While “We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors,” Eliot claims that a different perspective on the work can be taken when it is looked at without searching for peculiarities in the author’s voice (942). He states that “if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (942). Poets need not be concerned with depicting a foreign or antiquated emotion if they are able to embrace the “tradition” of writing.
Similarly, Auden considers the pressures of writers to strive for originality, which he deems as completely unimportant. By comparing authenticity with originality, Auden sheds light on the subject of considering what is valuable about a good piece of poetry. Claiming that many writers confuse authenticity with originality, Auden uses the metaphor of avant-garde art to shed light on the subject. He says that “There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior; what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act” and then finishes the paragraph by comparing this notion to the majority of avant-garde art. It is apparent from this paragraph that Auden, like Eliot, values the integrity of the work as a whole and does not choose to isolate sections of it that are particularly “original.” One’s work can be highly reminiscent of Yeats but still remain authentic in that it is “intrinsically admirable” and draws together the poet’s internal thinking based upon an influence from the work of Yeats.
For Auden, the idea of combining the external traditions of literary work with his own personal reflections upon the subject matter is showcased in the poem “Spain.” In this poem, he connects the history of European civilization to the present day occurrences in revolution era Spain. The poem moves through three different phases dealing with “Yesterday,” “to-day,” and “to-morrow.” He begins each stanza in the first section with the repeated usage of “Yesterday…” followed by a practice of the past. In this section, he emphasizes the cultural events of the past such as the expansion of trade with Asia or the trials of heretics that he sees as responsible for Spain’s present day circumstance. Following the model put forth by Eliot in the previous generation, Auden aims at dealing with the state of present day emotions connected with Spanish revolution while emphasizing the traditions of the past. The final three stanzas of this section (lines 13-24) bridge the gap between the past and present by ending with a reference to “to-day.” The refrain of “but to-day the struggle” places Auden’s emotions in line with the current plight of the Spanish without distancing “the struggle” from the larger history of Europe. As the poem moves into the second section, the present tense takes over and Auden deals with particular vignettes of wartime Spanish life. However, it is important to note when dealing with the Auden’s usage of the past traditions ingratiating themselves into modern emotions that this section also clings to shards of the past. The philosophy of Plato, commonly seen as the father of Western thought, comes through in line 53. Also visible in the section is the Christian symbolism in lines 43 and after, the major theme of medieval literature. Finally, moving into the third section, Auden contrasts the possibilities of “to-morrow” with the realities of “to-day.” In his idea of tomorrow, Auden includes trends from the past such as “the rediscovery of romantic love” in line 81 but clarifies that these are only possibilities to be entertained until the war is over. He repeatedly brings up images of the harsh reality of war and contrasts them with the pleasantries available after a resolution. The poem eventually ends with the lines “We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and/History to the defeated/May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon” (“Spain” 103-05). This line emphasizes the interconnectivity of all past occurrences with the present day events by bringing to mind how the war will be looked upon by people of subsequent generations.
Eliot’s poetry as a whole highlights the concept of using past traditions combined with modern occurrences in order to make sense of the subject matter. Throughout all of his poems, we see that he is indebted to the monumental literature that paved the way for his work. As he sees modern poetry as being a direct result of all the styles before it, his verse is littered with allusions to everything from Greek and early Christian writing as in the Christ imagery in “Gerontion” and the Greek language from Agamemnon that appears as a prelude to “Sweeney among the Nightingales,” to the work of Dante and English romantics that is in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In his signature complexity that he deems the hallmark of the modern age, Eliot utilizes allusions to multitudes of literary movements and cultural references while expressing his major themes of destruction and infertility in The Waste Land. Eliot deems these the major problems of Europe in the post World War I era and explores their origin throughout most of the poem. Each page of the poem is littered with footnotes citing references to the majority of literary movements before the twentieth century. As it states in the poem’s introduction, Eliot saw the balance between citing historical/literary references and modern occurrences as being “a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility which is contemporary history” (Ramazani 472). By placing prominent characters of the past into the contemporary Europe of his day, Eliot is able to explore the present dilemmas from an objective point of view. In “The Fire Sermon”, the narrator becomes the ancient combination of man and woman known as Tiresias. Through the eyes of this careful observer, Eliot deals with the infertility and sexual dysfunction of man that reflects the infertile landscape of war torn Europe. This objective narrator notes the sexual encounter between a man and a woman in lines 220-256 and sheds light on why the scenario is so dysfunctional. Tiresias highlights the “indifference” that the man and the woman feel towards their sexual moment by pointing out how little the participants actually care for each other. He notes the abrupt departure of the male afterwards and the sense of relaxation the female feels after completing her sexual duty. By using the ancient Tiresias as the objective sexual character to depart insight on current dilemmas, Eliot showcases his idea of past literature figuring prominently into his own poetry.
After T.S. Eliot published his works in the early part of the twentieth century, he became recognized as perhaps the most influential poet of his generation. His ideas have been disseminated throughout modern and contemporary poetry so much that it seems impossible to read a poem since Eliot that rejects his ideas entirely. W.H. Auden, himself an avid fan of Eliot, hints at his ideas throughout his poetry. Coming in the next generation of poets, Auden looks at the present dilemmas of his time including the Spanish Revolution and Second World War. He utilizes Eliot’s sense of tradition in much of his work and even traces the dilemma of World War II back throughout European history in his poem “September 1, 1939.” In this poem, he also includes references to Greek mythology and even utilizes the character Thucydides in much the same fashion as Eliot uses Tiresias. Already, the poetry after Eliot reflects his landmark ideas. Auden’s poetry utilizes the past traditions and even has the first generation of twentieth century poets to further his concept of a literary past. Auden draws his own conclusions from the writing of Eliot and one sees the influence of the great poet. But as Eliot advises, Auden does not limit his tradition to the previous generation alone.
By confronting the occurrences of the twentieth century with the amassed knowledge European history, Eliot and Auden find it easier to deal with current
problematic states. The work of the past is able to shed light on the present. While one must strive to comprehend the literary and historical traditions of the past, doing so opens up infinite windows of poetic opportunity. Looking at themselves as a result of the European “tradition,” Auden and Eliot present a modern view of literature that sees the present in light of the past. Their amassed knowledge undergoes a reaction when it connects with a present day idea that infiltrates the mind, resulting in their poetry which strengthens the past tradition while examining the present.
Works Cited
Auden, W.H. “Writing”. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. New York: Norton,
2003. 1000-1010.
Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent”. The Norton Anthology of Modern
Poetry. 941-947. New York: Norton, 2003. 941-947.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
one of those things just happened
while it wasn't the most impressive, i need to keep track of all of them so here it is...i was reading the de capo best music writing of 2002 book that i got in 2002 but have never really read completely. i think i like started the book 4 or 5 times and re-read the first 5 stories a couple times. however, each time they felt just about new. so anyway, one of them is a detailed account of the making of 'help me make it through the night.' kris kristofferson wrote the song and recorded it with sammi smith singing and a bunch of nashville sessionists playing on it. i'd never heard the song before i read the piece and went and downloaded it a couple days ago. for all the prasie this david cantwell guy gives it, i couldn't really get down. i may need to listen to it a few more times since its apparently some sort of classic that won a grammy in 71. that just shows my ignorance right there: i grew up so punk that i refused to listen to anything not derived from punk rock. consequently, i missed out on a lot of dope shit from pre-1975. i honestly never seriously listened to bob dylan before this summer! i know, its ridiculous. but now i decided to catch up on anything i ignored through my spikey haired ignorance.
oh but anyway, the coincidence: this morning, i read a review of kristofferson's new album that would have made absolutely no sense to me if i hadn't just finished the story of the song. and then, they even mention the song in the last line of the review for absolutely no reason at all. it was almost as if they mentioned the song just because it was the one song i knew about or some such nonsense. but thats what i'm talking about when i say coincidences haunt me. that type of shit always happens.
oh but anyway, the coincidence: this morning, i read a review of kristofferson's new album that would have made absolutely no sense to me if i hadn't just finished the story of the song. and then, they even mention the song in the last line of the review for absolutely no reason at all. it was almost as if they mentioned the song just because it was the one song i knew about or some such nonsense. but thats what i'm talking about when i say coincidences haunt me. that type of shit always happens.
picture of me
this is me in a sleeveless shirt at the bottom of the grand canyon. i don't usually wear them but i did that day cause i felt badass about the impending hike. sorry. anyway, this is from the road trip i was talking about earlier. i really think i want to write some more about that trip so beware. but seriously, it was pretty exciting and i have plenty of stories and some advice about where to stay/hang out for cheap in random cities. so hold up...
coincidences-you know, like when you are talking about oranges and then all of a sudden drive past an orange orchard and the oranges band comes on
Alright, I’m starting to get sick of this shit. No, not my painful life that seems to punish me more and more every day with sicknesses and physical ailments, cause that sucks too. I mean, my heart hurts one day and then the next day it stops hurting but then I have a searing pain in my back, a dull pain as they say, the next day. And the next day the dull pain is gone but replaced with a sensitivity to every touch that sends shockwaves down my spine. Pain in my heart, to compliment the occasional emotional pain that makes the ventricals pretty crowded. But maybe the physical pain is something i should look into. Ahhh, goddammit my heart hurts. What the fuck is wrong with me?
No, what I’m annoyed about now is this stream of coincidences that just keep showing up all throughout my day. Its half scary and half obnoxious cause I can’t figure out what the real issue is and why this shit keeps happening. And is it all connected? I can be fairly certain that there is some sort of modernist Yeatsian ‘animus mundi,’ or collective unconsciousness, that lends itself to basically anyone listening. A bunch of the 20th century’s biggest thinkers and artists believed in some sort of shared set of values, experiences, and cultural references that amount to the sum total of human experiences. This collectiveness is supposedly just floating around out there and open for the taking. Theoretically, anyone can tap into this wealth of information whenever necessary and that principle sits fine with me. I mean, the brain is a complex organ and we know so little about it that it makes perfect sense to think the unused 90% of our domes is somehow related to the famous animus mundi.
What bugs me and what I’m setting out to figure out, is how my daily coincidences fit into this or if they do at all. I’ve believed all my life that I could be special in some way and have tried everything from drugs and art to enterprise and history lessons to figure out what it was that would set me apart from my peers. I still don’t know what it is and lately I’ve been leaning towards the belief that I’m just an egotistical lunatic with an addictive and confrontational personality. But I still can’t wrap my drug-addled mind around the little coinces that make me feel closer to the collective unconsciousness. Its like a vague sense of deja-vu that clouds my moments in varying degrees. While I have a tough time remembering them after they happen, they happen a lot. The one that just happened that prompted me to do some verbal analyzing was a somewhat minor one but nevertheless, undeniably creepy on a 'what the fuck?' kind of level. And guess what? 15 minutes later it escapes me. Hold on…I know it had something to do with what was on tv but I was flipping channels a lot so I’m having a tough time tracking it down. Usually, the instances center around cultural references that are floating around my head and then I see them on tv or hear them in a song. Like if I’m listening to tom vek and I sign on the internet, some reference to him will pop up beyond my control. Like I’ll go on myspace and view a friend’s profile and tom vek is on his top 8. Shit like that but usually it is lot weirder and sometimes a lot more metaphorical, like its indicative of a larger equation. Yeah, thats not a really good example at all. That's not usualy how they are, but anyway. That’s what makes me think something is up that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Another common case deals with me learning something new in the morning and then going home and being met with a situation that I would otherwise have no idea about if it weren’t for my 8 hour old knowledge. Oh, ok, here is one that happened the other day: I was at work and accidentally stumbled on some web site where I learned about a forgotten world war 2 battle. Then later that evening, guess what question was on jeopardy? Fucked up right?
Crazier shit happens all day every day and it is getting worse and worse the older I get. Or maybe its getting better and better. The point is, I cant make sense of it all and that is what bothers me. I’m the type of guy who likes to know what’s up and likes to be the master of his own destiny. I want to be able to state within a reasonable frame, what exactly is going on with my relationship to the world.
A basic example deals with numbers: like I’ll get a phone call from somebody whose number begins with 86 and then ill look up at the tv and somehow, I’ll be on channel 86. Or i'll be driving along and flip to track 8 right as I pass address 8 or something like that. While the number instances aren’t usually the most impressive, I still think they mean something. I’m sure these happen to everybody but I can’t see how they could be occurring in eeverybody’s life as frequently as they are in mine. If they were, there would certainly be a much large body of scientific inquiry about this topic.
Or I’ll be talking to someone about swimming pools while listening to music and then all of a sudden, the singer will drop a line about swimming pools. Or ill be thinking about a vacation in the carribean right before I simultaneously hear a commercial for it and drive past a billboard for it. And that shit happens to me all the fucking time. Seriously.
Its just getting old. I mean, I welcome it cause I know it has to be indicative of some sort of larger interconnectiveness, but at the same time it creeps me out and annoys me cause I can’t make sense of it. Was I thinking about the carribbean vacation because of some subliminal reminder that the radio station sends out right before the commercial to get the ball rolling and heads thinking? Am I hip to something? Am I special or is the media fucking with me? So now I’ve decided that I gotta start keeping track of all this shit. My hope is that if I have a list with all the randoms on it, then maybe i'll find it to be not so random. Hopefully, I’ll remember to keep all this shit going and if I have like a blog or something, maybe others can help me deduce some set of underlying principles surrounding my connection to the mundi. Ghosts in the machine? Is that what they were talking about? Coincidence? I think not. And I’m out of clichés.
No, what I’m annoyed about now is this stream of coincidences that just keep showing up all throughout my day. Its half scary and half obnoxious cause I can’t figure out what the real issue is and why this shit keeps happening. And is it all connected? I can be fairly certain that there is some sort of modernist Yeatsian ‘animus mundi,’ or collective unconsciousness, that lends itself to basically anyone listening. A bunch of the 20th century’s biggest thinkers and artists believed in some sort of shared set of values, experiences, and cultural references that amount to the sum total of human experiences. This collectiveness is supposedly just floating around out there and open for the taking. Theoretically, anyone can tap into this wealth of information whenever necessary and that principle sits fine with me. I mean, the brain is a complex organ and we know so little about it that it makes perfect sense to think the unused 90% of our domes is somehow related to the famous animus mundi.
What bugs me and what I’m setting out to figure out, is how my daily coincidences fit into this or if they do at all. I’ve believed all my life that I could be special in some way and have tried everything from drugs and art to enterprise and history lessons to figure out what it was that would set me apart from my peers. I still don’t know what it is and lately I’ve been leaning towards the belief that I’m just an egotistical lunatic with an addictive and confrontational personality. But I still can’t wrap my drug-addled mind around the little coinces that make me feel closer to the collective unconsciousness. Its like a vague sense of deja-vu that clouds my moments in varying degrees. While I have a tough time remembering them after they happen, they happen a lot. The one that just happened that prompted me to do some verbal analyzing was a somewhat minor one but nevertheless, undeniably creepy on a 'what the fuck?' kind of level. And guess what? 15 minutes later it escapes me. Hold on…I know it had something to do with what was on tv but I was flipping channels a lot so I’m having a tough time tracking it down. Usually, the instances center around cultural references that are floating around my head and then I see them on tv or hear them in a song. Like if I’m listening to tom vek and I sign on the internet, some reference to him will pop up beyond my control. Like I’ll go on myspace and view a friend’s profile and tom vek is on his top 8. Shit like that but usually it is lot weirder and sometimes a lot more metaphorical, like its indicative of a larger equation. Yeah, thats not a really good example at all. That's not usualy how they are, but anyway. That’s what makes me think something is up that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Another common case deals with me learning something new in the morning and then going home and being met with a situation that I would otherwise have no idea about if it weren’t for my 8 hour old knowledge. Oh, ok, here is one that happened the other day: I was at work and accidentally stumbled on some web site where I learned about a forgotten world war 2 battle. Then later that evening, guess what question was on jeopardy? Fucked up right?
Crazier shit happens all day every day and it is getting worse and worse the older I get. Or maybe its getting better and better. The point is, I cant make sense of it all and that is what bothers me. I’m the type of guy who likes to know what’s up and likes to be the master of his own destiny. I want to be able to state within a reasonable frame, what exactly is going on with my relationship to the world.
A basic example deals with numbers: like I’ll get a phone call from somebody whose number begins with 86 and then ill look up at the tv and somehow, I’ll be on channel 86. Or i'll be driving along and flip to track 8 right as I pass address 8 or something like that. While the number instances aren’t usually the most impressive, I still think they mean something. I’m sure these happen to everybody but I can’t see how they could be occurring in eeverybody’s life as frequently as they are in mine. If they were, there would certainly be a much large body of scientific inquiry about this topic.
Or I’ll be talking to someone about swimming pools while listening to music and then all of a sudden, the singer will drop a line about swimming pools. Or ill be thinking about a vacation in the carribean right before I simultaneously hear a commercial for it and drive past a billboard for it. And that shit happens to me all the fucking time. Seriously.
Its just getting old. I mean, I welcome it cause I know it has to be indicative of some sort of larger interconnectiveness, but at the same time it creeps me out and annoys me cause I can’t make sense of it. Was I thinking about the carribbean vacation because of some subliminal reminder that the radio station sends out right before the commercial to get the ball rolling and heads thinking? Am I hip to something? Am I special or is the media fucking with me? So now I’ve decided that I gotta start keeping track of all this shit. My hope is that if I have a list with all the randoms on it, then maybe i'll find it to be not so random. Hopefully, I’ll remember to keep all this shit going and if I have like a blog or something, maybe others can help me deduce some set of underlying principles surrounding my connection to the mundi. Ghosts in the machine? Is that what they were talking about? Coincidence? I think not. And I’m out of clichés.
the real about me section that was too long
graduated from fordham last year and don't really know what i want to do. i'd like to just kick it and write freelance or something but i like money too much to ever worry about. i'm considering ditching the city going to a small town and being the dirtball eccentric. my girfriend maureen and i went on a 10,000 mile circle road trip around the country. we left in june and went to philly (born there and resided til i was 10 and my parents dragged me down south to atlanta. however, it is still my hometown), b-more (my parents just moved to the baltic region), our nation's capital, atl (its so weird down there), florida (the redneck riviera), nawlins (before the great flood, high lifes were usually under a buck), austin (it was fun during sxsw but right after the n.o. it pales), el paso/juarez (its a lot harder to cop than you think), the grand canyon (fucking amazing), vegas(never again), LA (if you can't say anything nice about it then don't say it at all...'hollywooooooodddd bab-a-lon'), up the pch to san fran (i would definitely live here), yosemite (not all its cracked up-but we did run from bears on a desolate twilight trail), crater lake (very impressive), portland (rock and roll barber chain!), seattle (boring), vancouver (somehow, we got clued in), out across canada to alberta and down through waterton/glacier park and into montana(the most beautiful part of the trip), yellowstone and jackson wyoming (yellowblah but had a blast in jackson), mt. rushmore (fucking travesty when you consider that the artist put it there to 'escape the commercialism of america' and then you have to pay an exorbitant amount to park there), then lacrosse wisconsin(kind of cool in a weird redneck way) and down into my girl's hometown of chicago. we had a blast. supposedly, we set out to find out where we wanted to live. but alas, i had to come back to bk. but yeah, still confused. however, it was a great summer and i may refer back to it at length at some later date. holla
whats going on
i don't know much about blogs and i've read very few of them. but i do know a little bit about writing. in fact, i used to fancy myself a writer and have a degree in it. however, judging from the fact that i just accidentally erased everything i spent hours putting together this afternoon, i have much to learn about this shit. ahh, goddamn it that was so fucking annoying. plus i hit the back button and it all popped up again so i know it ws lying around in cyberspace somewhere still. but alas, they won't let me have it back. bastards. anyway, anything could show up on here though since i have plenty of interests. i'm real into music so i might write about that a lot but i want to be more than that. to that end, topics may range from canada and the east coast, l.a. is moral black hole, why they passed over allen iverson or sports in general, the olympics, the okervill river or big bear album, why i hate my boss or your boss or all bosses (not creative, i know, but i really hated my bosses and i'm sure your boss sucks too)what i'm doing tonight, sex drugs and raging it with a rock and roll soundtrack, jay-z. man, the deleted version of this flowed much better and was so much wittier. damnit. i'm off to a bad start. but here it goes. oh, i realize i may tend to sound pseudo-intellectual at times and thats ok. i sometimes know a lot about what i'm talking about or else i probably wouldn't talk about it. but i might just be buggin and talking shit so you never know. anyway, the next one have a degree in english and writing and when i talk about things being 'yeatsian in nature,' i'm not just trying to be a d-bag. holla
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