Over the weekend of the 17-18th I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, Pavement, play a reunion show(though in fact I cheated and saw them a month before in Berkeley) in Chicago.
Before going to see them I was on the record as not being a big fan of the reunion show phenomenon. Especially the recreation of an album in its entirety reunion sub-genre and truth be told I still think it’s a pretty odd artificial musical experience. In reality the bands who had come back before this were all one’s that I liked, but had never seen live when they started out. I had no live visceral connection to them. For me they existed in a personal recorded way that I am loath to share with others. However, with Pavement I had seen them a few times before they stopped playing and the part of me that wanted to rekindle that excitement of the live show still existed.
In many ways a lot of the excitement I felt 10+ years ago was still there during their set, but for me there was a disconnect. Maybe some of it came from the rumored fact that the band is not planning on doing anything new and this is strictly a reunion tour. If it was a one-off show there might have been the thrill of that one last time. In this case it is just one of many shows and in this case the set list was very similar to the one I had already heard. Some level of the performance seemed dishonest to my nostalgic memory of previous shows.
As I have thought about that show and specifically the concept of nostalgia I have realized that nostalgia is in itself a dishonest act. The memory that you have created, shaped, idealized and reshaped again is not going to be re-created. It is inherently dishonest of the viewer to expect the artist to even attempt to recreate the past. Evolution is not an expectation, but a norm in both art and humanity. The work is a representation of that moment and the movement of time makes it an impossibility to recreate the past.
Music is the rare art form whereby the artist is asked to perform the specific piece of art anew. Painters, writers and other artists grab onto the zeitgeist and translate inspiration into a form. Once that form is created the piece stands. The artist is not asked to continue to make the same piece of art again unless of course they are a musician.
Now having performed as a musician at one time in my life I can say from experience that a song or musical piece is never the same twice. So in some sense what I am arguing is still true for music, but it is only in music that the audience want the artist to try to mimic their art exactly. Musicians are not allowed in many cases to evolve by the audience. The concept of the Sophomore Slump that a bands second record is somehow weaker then the first due to artistic evolution, would be laughable in any other medium. Artist’s are expected to try, fail and grow. With a paying audience standing in front of them the musician is caught in between the desire to please an audience and to grow as an artist.
Nostalgia is a trap that we as an audience have fallen into. We are now nostalgic for things that happened a month, a week or even a day ago. We are dooming artists to complacency; we are dooming ourselves to boredom.
Been thinking of doing more writing again. Gave me pause to take a look at this blog to see what has been going on since I abandoned it a long while back. Still clocking page views and to top it off I had an incredibly kind comment encouraging me to get back to writing.
So what that means in my usual verbose style is that I am gonna start using this site again for some long form blog posting. I intend on starting a tumblr to do more short link/video stuff as well. However, I this site will be for longer things in the future.
Another month another post….
So the lady and I got up early got some coffee got in line and voted. We got there a little after 7:30 to our polling place that was in the lobby area of the hospital next door. By that time there were already people voting on the floor, on couches and in the booths. They were out of booths and by the time we signed in they were out of the voting pens.
Not wanting to have my vote be invalidated I waited a little extra to make sure that I got the official pen though they were saying that any black ink marker would work( like a Sharpie). So I have done my civic duty. It took about a half an hour and at 8 a.m. I was already the 55th person to vote.
While the Presidential election was oobviously the big draw, but there are so many big ballot propositions here that the polls are going to be packed. The early voting numbers have been huge and today is a very exciting day.
Since life and work seem to be getting in the way of blogging it has been a bit. Don’t have a lot to expound on for the moment just found this and had to post it.
Just very badly burned.
It’s been a bit since I have updated this site. Since that time I am working full time(temporarily) and I have been a touch on the sleepy side so blogging has not had a lot of room in the routine. A bunch of good stuff besides getting paid has happened. As of right now the Red Sox are one win away from making the playoffs again, the apartment has come together(we’ve even had guests), my tomatoes are dying, we are seriously looking at getting a pet and all in all we feel more a part of this city than we have.
Part of feeling like we are a part of this communit is participating in cultural events. On Thursday I went with my main man Zac to see(hear?) Junot Diaz speak at the Herbst Theater as a part of City Arts and Lectures.
For those of you unfamiliar with his work he is the author of a collection of short stories, Drown, and most recently the Pulitzer Prize winning, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. His work is an interesting look into the worlds of the Dominican diaspora especially the effects of the Trujillo regime(particularly in the novel) on the Dominican, as well as the lives of outsiders in an outsider community.
Oscar Wao is the main protagonist of the novel though he is not the narrator. Diaz spoke eloquently about this during his interview showing the bright academic intellect that he is. It made me feel like I was back in class soaking in the ideas of post-modern fiction and academia. He spoke of informing the work with an unreliable narrator because one of the over arching themes of the novel is how easily we believe an authoritative figure. In this case the fiction of the dictator of The Dominican Republic was comforting to many of the people during his reign. The people comforted themselves by becoming a part of this fiction. By using the unreliable character of Junior to recite the story to the reader you as the reader are expected to do the work.
Or as Diaz put it in response to a question about the accuracy of the footnotes he uses(one of which tells you later that that one of the first footnotes was wrong) “Fuck. You’ve got to do the work Motherfucker!” I am obviously paraphrasing since I was only listening and not taping the presentation.
If you want to hear his language(coding as he referred to it) KQED runs the interviews on air(Diaz is 11/10), but to me it was a wonderful blend of Jersey with Academia that could switch into Dominican Spanish. He even spoke of the notion that he was not truly comfortable in either language having learned Spanish first and that starting and living in English since he was 6. He was always aware of the construct of each language having to think about his words before he speaks them. The natural fluidity of language is foreign to him.
There is so much more to explore, but to keep this from turning into an academic paper I will spare you, but if you want to know more get the books and we can chat.
About an hour ago we had a pretty nice bump. My second earthquake. Nothing else really to report it was only a few seconds. 4.0 on the Richter Scale
I’ve been trying as hard as I can to avoid over ranting about politics, but it has my total attention right now. There is such a plethora of unbelievable stuff coming out right now that I can hardly contain myself.
As I mentioned there is way too much about Sarah Palin( a whole blogs worth at least) that I am just going to let that go for now. I know that all of this mentioning of the truth just plays into the Republican’s hands in terms of there beloved liberal media bias, but there is just a never ending stockpile of material. Again the Democrats are no angels either see: Obama and Tony Rezko, but they are not staking their party on being just like you and me i.e. the guy you wanna have a beer with. As asinine as that is it is how they run a campaign; well that and character assasination.
On that note here are Cindy McCain and Laura Bush just two average gals and the wardrobes they picked out for the convention via Vanity Fair
Laura Bush
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325
Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100
Now there is some arguing in the comments of the Vanity Fair article about the valuations on the outfits, but if any of them are even 25% accurate Cindy McCain’s necklace is worth more than all the clothing that I own. Now in fairness there is no reference point to how much Michelle Obama’s outfit was put your guess in the comments, but I would guess it is somewhere closer to Laura than Cindy.
I know this is like shooting prejudiced misguided fish in a barrel, but just watch.
I have been reading all of the same reports that everyone else has and there are so so so many issues bundled into Sarah Palin that I am only going to touch on a few.
Since the announcement it has come out that McCain really wanted Lieberman and was forced into another choice in the end. So what does he do being the “maverick” that he is, he goes with a woman that nobody knows and that his campaign has not vetted.
What happens. Kaboom! Non-issue after non-issue being brought out. From trying to get her ex-brother in-law fired to having a child with a child. None of that really matters to me personally. Humans are flawed; indiscretion does not affect ones ability to govern see: William Jefferson Clinton.
That being said Sarah Palin is really a terrifying thought on issues and McCain’s big issue “experience.”
She has been governor of a state with a population that is less than the city I live in(San Francisco) for two years. When your own campaign mentions your credentials as being the point guard for your college hoops team and PTA president maybe your resume is a touch thin.
Than onto to the issues: Wow. She is more conservative than McCain could even dream to be and not in the fiscal conservative Libertarian way, but in the government tells you what to do way. The way that says we as government make your choices for you and we will not give you any assistance because of it. To be blunt it says to me: unwed mother you have to have that baby that you don’t want, but we the government will not help you with this child nor do we care about this child after it is born. It is an appalling way of thought.
With McCain’s health history Sarah Palin is knocking on the door if they are elected and that is not a realistic option.
There is so much about her that is troubling. I am looking forward to her speech tonight. I am sure I will cringe. I just hope she can turn off enough people that their campaign will be idling until November.
A New Us 