someone else's thoughts about George Orwell

"You used to be bullied and sat last in class, but now you break windows with the eagerness a brick has for glass."

"In addition to social connections of a pragmatic or idealistic kind, there is a third way of understanding the relations of individuals to the state. It was first demonstrated, as far as I can calculate, by Socrates, when he refused to avoid his death penalty and escape Athens. We need to see society as an extension of ourselves, an invisible part of our anatomy that assists us every day without dominating us and that, like our own arms and legs, we tend when injured, and whose welfare we consider at all times. The relation resembles that of a violinist to his instrument – useful but more than something useful, cared for like an esteemed friend. If such a part of us fails, we do not discard it for a peg leg, nor are we fired from our job because we cannot play hopscotch. We may be a disposable member of the symphony, but our violin is us to us. The relation is sometimes – oh dear – called love."

– William H. Glass, "Double Vision: George Orwell's contradictions," Harper's, October 2012

music makes the people come together

I saw Fiona Apple in concert Saturday night at the Fox theater in Oakland. I've loved her music for so many years that she'd long since acquired a kind of far-away-ness in my mind which meant, somehow, it hadn't occurred to me that someday, I might see her perform. 

When her new album came out, "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do," I did a flip. Fiona Apple's lyricism, her smart yet raw emotional language, her often catchy, haunting, aggressive melodies and incredible vocal control shoot an arrow the size of Cupid's Span straight through my heart, every time. 

So, housemates John & Kristin & I BARTed over to Oakland to see the concert. We had tickets for standing room, at the front. I was happy about this. I like going to concerts when I can see the facial expressions of the performers. I am not excited by massive crowds, with giant screens projecting the show for the people in the back. If I am paying for a live performance, I want to experience some physical closeness, some sense of reading a real person. I was happy to be standing. Fiona Apple's music isn't stuff I dance to, really, but I figured at least I'd get to see her play the piano. Neat. 

She ran onstage with a painting of her dog I recognized from the photo accompanying this New York Times interview, which she flat on the piano, parallel to it, and did not interact with for the remainder of the show. When we'd entered the Fox, there had been signs warning about strobe lights. At a Fiona Apple show? I'd wondered aloud. It was true. This was a very rock n' roll Fiona Apple. That was fine. I actually quite enjoyed the lighting design, although some of the guitar solos were a bit too much for me. I would have preferred longer solos of Fiona on piano. Still, I wasn't really there to complain, I was there to be mesmerized and have a big emotional experience. And to some extent, so was the rest of the crowd. To some extent, but in a different way than I was. A way than was drunker, shoutier, pushier, and far more raucous than mine. Now, I know that I cannot dictate how people behave at concerts. But just for fun, I'm going to pretend I can. Ok? So here we go:
Rules for Concert Behavior

1. Put away your damn cell phone. Yes, I know: This is an incredible experience, and you want to remember it forever, which is why you're using the shitty, low-quality camera on your cell phone to take bouncy, shaky video that you'll no doubt later upload to YouTube. Let me take this opportunity to tell you I don't care. Your cell phone is getting in the way of my incredible experience. It is a little glowing box in my line of vision, and it is filling me with rage. Put it away before I smack your hand and confiscate your phone. Thank you.
2. Shut up and stop singing. I know all the words too! I love this singer/band! That's why I bought a ticket, to hear them sing their songs. Not to hear you sing them, shouting, screaming in my ear. You are not a good singer, actually. Please stop. Also, all of you sing-screaming at the same time like this makes me think we're at a fascist rally. It's creepy/scary. Let's all be quiet and listen to the beautiful music together, ok? (Note: I am fine with you singing under your breath, softly. But not so loud, please, as though you are trying to drown out the artist we are all here to see. And not in my ear.)
3. No shouting at the singer. This is so rude. This is like the rule that (maybe) your parents taught you about interrupting people: Don't do it! For example, when Fiona Apple is singing a beautiful song, and it's a soft, gentle, sad part, her voice low and full of an ache that, for a moment, we all share, we all feel pulling at the base of our spines and the soles of our feet, this is not a good time to get together with your two BFFs and shout in unison, "WE LOVE YOU, FIONA!" because that is rude. She is showing you her art, and you are shouting at her. That is a bad kind of love. Go sit in the corner and think about how to be a better, more supportive, more respectful lover. Corollary: No song requests! The artist has a set list. They will play the songs they want to play. Now stop shouting.
4. Stop talking. This is so obvious, I can't believe I have to say it. But really? Stop talking. Go outside or something. Jeez. Sure, sometimes there are logistics to sort out. But if you are catching up on the gossip or whatever, at least move yourself out of the front area which is largely populated by people who are excited to be where they are, experiencing what is happening.

Hey, that's it! Only four rules! Basically, they could all be summed up under one rule: Enjoy yourself, but not at the expense of other people. Which I tend to think of as a good life-rule. Apparently, though, there are a lot of people out there who disagree with me.
In the end, it was one of the most isolating concert experiences I've had. I was in a place with so many people, and we were all watching the same performance, and I would even say we were all enjoying it, but the ways in which we were enjoying it, in which we wanted to experience it, were so different. Am I the problem? Should I just sit at home in my bedroom listening to music in private? If I hadn't so many other, positive concert experiences, experiences of joy and dancing and connectivity, I would unreservedly think the problem was me. But here, I don't know. There was a disconnect so engulfing, between how her music makes me feel and how it made so many other people feel Saturday night, and I don't think it can be explained away by alcohol and/or drugs alone. I'm not interested in making the case that I understand or appreciate her music "better" because of the way I wanted to experience the concert, and I am glad she has so many fans. I am especially glad there are so many dude-y looking dudes in polo shirts who know all the words to her songs, her songs that to me are so emotional, and so female. Way to confound my expectations of you, dudes! Now if we are ever drunk together and waiting for a bus in North Beach and I somehow feel obliged to make conversation, I will ask you about Fiona Apple!

I suppose what I am trying to get at is that all of this brought home for me the intensely private nature of experiencing art. Duh, I know; but I'd never had it hit me in quite this way before. I was really happy to have gone, but at the end of the evening, I felt alone. The next day, I sang her songs in the shower and then listened to "Extraordinary Machine" and it felt just as real and near and impossible as always.


Do you have any Rules for Concert Behavior you would like to add? You may submit them here for the committee's consideration.

why indeed

Foucault: ...Your question is: why am I so interested in politics? But if I were to answer your question simply, I would say this: why shouldn't I be interested? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject of our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.

So I can't answer the question of why I should be interested; I could only answer it by asking why shouldn't I be interested? Not to be interested in politics, that's what constitutes a problem. So instead of asking me, you should ask someone who is not interested in politics and then your question would be well-founded, and you would have the right to say "Why, damn it, are you not interested?"

                       –The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature

new historicism

"More than ever, I am convinced that history has meaning, and that its meaning is terrifying."

                     – Rene Girard, Battling to the End

backlog

I've been meaning to get to this for some time.  I saw it at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.  It's also pure Monty Python.  Clearly, what we have on our hands here is a classic chicken/egg problem.

in the choir, listening to the sermon

A few weeks ago, I got a free ticket (thanks to this lady) to go see "What's the Economy For, Anyway?" at the Commonwealth Club.  Annie Leonard stole the show.  She's got a fantastic voice and is a damn compelling speaker.  Fox news was no doubt delighted to quote someone who called her her Karl Marx with a ponytail.  I actually think she's much more likable in person than in her very popular video, which I can't help but finding more than a tad condescending and, well, kind of sensationalist.  So it goes, I guess.  The evening I saw her, she initiated a bizarre revival of the obsolete meaning of "disease" (synonymous with "unease").  It seemed unconscious and so it was interesting to watch her co-panelists Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, and David Batker echo it.  I came prepared to dislike Beavan, largely on the basis of this Slate.com review of a documentary about him.  He got in one good line, though: "People like to deny that there's a problem if they can find no solution that they can take part in."   Ultimately, it was a really interesting evening where everyone in the audience nodded wisely and we all agreed with each other.  Excellent reception afterwards.  File under: things I love/hate about San Francisco.

I have no problem

with shamelessly plugging this movie. Because it's excellent:

the moon

Someday I hope I succeed in tracking down the full version of the "Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien" (in English, of course) an excerpt of which I recently read in the May 2009 Harper's (Vol. 138, No. 1908). According to Harper's, the encyclopedia "explains the world in a series of 800 lists." This is part of the list about Americans:

"Americans consider themselves polite, but they stick their hands in their pockets, drink from the bottle, speak in raised voices. Someone ought to train them how to behave in museums. Not only do they converse as if they were in their own houses; they do so in order to give educational lectures. With all their terrible goodwill, they wish to learn and to make all things serve this purpose. It is an American vice to believe that a work of art must teach something. In the same way, they were persuaded to drink red wine because they were told that wine was good for them, without consideration of pleasure. Their passion for learning is naive and honorable...

In the end, what we forget about countries is everything banal that we want to call characteristic. Isn't that what goes by the name of sociology?

They are overly fond of brown.

They eat all the time. What anguish must be theirs!

...It is the only country in the world where no one remains a foreigner. A person can go by the name of Zgrabenalidongsteinloff and no one will raise an eyebrow. 'In New York there are no impossible names,' as I was told by a novelist whose name raised the eyebrows of elegant racists in Paris. This is what makes everything possible. They walked on the moon because they are the moon."

- Charles Danzig, trans. by Lorin Stein

what a babe

Sometimes it seems easy to believe that there is a secret cadre of old, white, heterosexual men sitting and smoking cigars on the top floor of some endless skyscraper, organizing and implementing misogyny for the world. Consider music. Historically, the majority of songs that are performed by women are written, produced, distributed, and promoted by men. I think about this when I hear a woman singing about how if her man leaves her she'll die, or how she can forgive him anything, she can't help herself, she loves him so, etc. I think to myself, it's insidious. As a girl, you want to relate to the singer, you want to feel what she's feeling. After all, music is almost more persuasion than narration. But what she's selling is self-abnegation and patriarchy.

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions: "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" was penned by Carole King. Now some may say that the song was meant as protest, or satire. Maybe it was. I certainly don't hear that when I listen to it, much as I would like to.

I don't take my conspiracy theories very seriously, though. Nonetheless, it's nice to have someone come along and flip all that shy-retiring-butterfly business upside down. Enter into my life, Ruth Brown.

I think I just love her. She's sassy and licentious and suggestive and sexy. Sure, she has some songs about moping and waiting and hoping he'll come back, but to my mind she more than makes up for it with her songs about being wild and desiring as well as desirable. But I think my fate was sealed with "That Train Don't Stop Here Anymore." I didn't care for the overall sound of the song - a later work - and the subject matter I thought, at first, was a bit of a yawner. Ruth was waiting for her philandering man to come home, but she knew he never would because [insert title here]. However, at the end of the song, Ruth starts talking. And you understand why she was the original Motormouth Maybelle. She spends the second half of the song talking out the other side of her mouth "Did you see him leave? I hope he had a suitcase, 'cause he's got a one-way ticket. I told the conductor, don't even slow down, 'cause there ain't nothing here for him...any train. Take him out of here. I'm so sick and tired of him playin' me for a fool..." And on an on. For about three minutes. For the first half of the song, the lyrics seem to be mourning the impossibility of the man ever returning, yet vowing eternal fidelity. The second half flips it entirely. The fact that the train doesn't stop here anymore is not only not cause for grief, but in fact is caused by the singer. She is making sure that the train won't stop. The position of the narrator moves from one of victim to agent. I can't help but feel that Ruth's giving the boot to all the men in all the songs who did wrong and thought they could come back home anyway. Fictional revenge on a fictitious character. Fine by me, anytime.