12 dic 2010
Don't Know Much About Poetry
I used to think I was very smart and knew a lot. Now I know a lot more than I used to, which means I know I don't know a whole lot, but I still do ok for myself. Even I'm a bit slower and less given to shows of brilliance, I think what I've gained makes up for that. Check with me in ten years and then we'll see.
11 dic 2010
Feldman
When I was a kid I had Standing Still and Walking in New York by Frank O'Hara, which contained a detailed, very technical essay about the composer Morton Feldman. (I still have this book, but I don't know if it is the same copy or if I lost it and replaced it at some point.) Anyway, I read the article dutifully as a kid and put it out of my mind. I also read Feldman's memoir of O'Hara in Homage to Frank O'Hara. I never encountered the music of Morton Feldman for years and years after that. I never heard it or was even very curious about it, even when a niece of Feldman's was a colleague in my department for a stretch of a few years.
Then when I was in my late 30s or maybe early 40s, I began to listen to it for the first time. I felt idiotic because I had never thought to be curious about it before then. I am very devoted to this music now, of course, although I am not competent to say anything intelligent about it. Feldman is also a great writer about music, from whom I have taken many marvelous insights. Feldman's music is very unlike Frank O'Hara's poetry, but I should have known that Frank was not wasting his time.
I tell this story "against myself" because even though I think of myself as intellectually curious, more than the next guy, I have had many similar things happen to me because of my curious lack of curiosity about many things I ought to be interested in. I tend to have a very strong focus on whatever I am interested in at the moment, and asking the logical next question sometimes never occurs to me at all.
***
Feldman was a friend of Cage's. I was always aware of Cage and approached him mostly through the literary side, paying little attention to music. I'm still not particularly interested in Cage's music. I should be, but I am not. Once again, I am probably being an idiot here and will kick myself later.
Then when I was in my late 30s or maybe early 40s, I began to listen to it for the first time. I felt idiotic because I had never thought to be curious about it before then. I am very devoted to this music now, of course, although I am not competent to say anything intelligent about it. Feldman is also a great writer about music, from whom I have taken many marvelous insights. Feldman's music is very unlike Frank O'Hara's poetry, but I should have known that Frank was not wasting his time.
I tell this story "against myself" because even though I think of myself as intellectually curious, more than the next guy, I have had many similar things happen to me because of my curious lack of curiosity about many things I ought to be interested in. I tend to have a very strong focus on whatever I am interested in at the moment, and asking the logical next question sometimes never occurs to me at all.
***
Feldman was a friend of Cage's. I was always aware of Cage and approached him mostly through the literary side, paying little attention to music. I'm still not particularly interested in Cage's music. I should be, but I am not. Once again, I am probably being an idiot here and will kick myself later.
10 dic 2010
Twilight On Open Access
It looks like one of my books, The Twilight of the Avant-Garde: Spanish Poetry 1980-2000 (Liverpool, 2009), will become available soon for free on an open access system. I gave permission for this and will receive a modest one-time fee. It won't hurt sales much, because the book is very expensive and probably has sold just about all it is going to (to libraries.)
Once it is available I'll provide information on the blog to link to it.
Once it is available I'll provide information on the blog to link to it.
9 dic 2010
¡Bemsha SWING!
I wrote this satirical post a few years ago by substituting my name and position for that of a certain employee of the athletic department.
I think what makes it funny (if it is funny) is the use of the "royal we," and the fact that Bill Self's language is so generic that I didn't have to change a word in his quote.
I think what makes it funny (if it is funny) is the use of the "royal we," and the fact that Bill Self's language is so generic that I didn't have to change a word in his quote.
Compactness
I like the compact intensity of many short actors. Bogart was short; Paul Newman was about my height, I think, five-eight. Same for Charles Bronson. Robinson and Cagney were very extremely short, and it didn't do any harm to their careers. Peter Lorre's shortness was downright menacing. Hoffman is five-five; Pacino probably not much more than that. Kirk Douglas was five-nine, like Di Niro and possibly Brando and Sinatra and Tom Cruise (don't like him much, but thought I'd throw him in.) I don't know how tall Mifune was, but unreliable sources say five-eight and a half. He tends to physically dominate Japanese movies where he is taller and strong-looking than the other actors. Emilio Estevez and his brother Charlie Sheen look shorter than their dad, Martin.
Actors' reported heights might be inflated, too. I bet Bogie was really only five-five.
Sure, the other model is John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or James Arness, actors who used their larger size to advantage, or Jimmy Stewart's tall skinny awkwardness that seemed to go well with his hesitant, stammering affect. James Garner is one of my favorites in the larger category. What is interesting, though, is how the smaller men project strength, since they cannot do it simply by being the biggest guy in the room.
Actors' reported heights might be inflated, too. I bet Bogie was really only five-five.
Sure, the other model is John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or James Arness, actors who used their larger size to advantage, or Jimmy Stewart's tall skinny awkwardness that seemed to go well with his hesitant, stammering affect. James Garner is one of my favorites in the larger category. What is interesting, though, is how the smaller men project strength, since they cannot do it simply by being the biggest guy in the room.
8 dic 2010
One Exception
... to my abiding interest in the 1945-75 period is mainstream fiction. I don't care to revisit the Roth, Bellow, and Updike novels I used to read. I have no interest in Malamud or Cheever, John O'Hara. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy some of this material back in the day, but I don't really feel like doing back there, back to that place. Some day I might go and see how Vonnegut has held up, though I'm afraid of what I might find. It might be better to have my memories of it than to attempt to experience it all over again as a 50-year old guy.
7 dic 2010
Set Me Straight If You Dare
Not everybody gets my weird perspective. I will sometimes offer a metaphor and people will argue with it as though it were a literal-minded assertion, or I will compress my thought into an aphorism that is obviously *false* if read for what it seems to be saying. So people will argue with that too. Sometimes my irony flies over people's heads. Really, I am probably to blame if I fail to make myself understood.
I don't mind being set right if I stray or affirm something that isn't quite accurate.
Agreement is over-rated, as I've said before. Getting upset because someone does not agree with you seems kind of silly. Do I need my every most-trivial belief to be confirmed in others? It's nice once in a while to have someone agree with me, that's a kind of comforting feeling, but also somewhat dangerous. I could be wrong in factual terms (it's happened before), or just a little bit misguided (that's happened too). I've been accused of being dogmatic, because I like expressing strong versions of my claims. My feeling is that if you disagree, you have to come up with Bemsha-worthy counter-argument.
I don't mind being set right if I stray or affirm something that isn't quite accurate.
Agreement is over-rated, as I've said before. Getting upset because someone does not agree with you seems kind of silly. Do I need my every most-trivial belief to be confirmed in others? It's nice once in a while to have someone agree with me, that's a kind of comforting feeling, but also somewhat dangerous. I could be wrong in factual terms (it's happened before), or just a little bit misguided (that's happened too). I've been accused of being dogmatic, because I like expressing strong versions of my claims. My feeling is that if you disagree, you have to come up with Bemsha-worthy counter-argument.
6 dic 2010
Arrogation
To arrogate is to "take or claim (something) for oneself without justification." Arrogance, then, is not exactly boastfulness or pride, but a a kind of appropriation. To be arrogant is to say that one has special privileges, that the normal rules don't apply to me.
I can be proud or boastful, but I try not to be arrogant.
I can be proud or boastful, but I try not to be arrogant.
5 dic 2010
The Problem with Moderation
I find the notion of moderate belief to be problematic. William Egginton is well-intentioned (and an extremely accomplished scholar in his own field) and it seems difficult to argue against moderation, when fanaticism is the rule of the day. I guess I agree that if people have to be religious, that it is best if they aren't fanatical fundamentalist crazies.
So what is my problem? If religious beliefs are actually true (for the believer), then they are profound and radically transformative truths about the very nature of human existence and reality itself. Religions are not all the same: they come up with different answers to fundamental questions. By the same token, if I believe a religious belief not to be true, then I am also implying that it might have harmful consequences as well as being nonsense. Moderate belief, or moderation in belief, doesn't really resolve this dichotomy for me, especially when its proponent, Egginton in this case, believes that this belief is good for other people. He himself does not participate in organized religion. He seems to be motivated more by anti-atheism than by theism.
So what is my problem? If religious beliefs are actually true (for the believer), then they are profound and radically transformative truths about the very nature of human existence and reality itself. Religions are not all the same: they come up with different answers to fundamental questions. By the same token, if I believe a religious belief not to be true, then I am also implying that it might have harmful consequences as well as being nonsense. Moderate belief, or moderation in belief, doesn't really resolve this dichotomy for me, especially when its proponent, Egginton in this case, believes that this belief is good for other people. He himself does not participate in organized religion. He seems to be motivated more by anti-atheism than by theism.
4 dic 2010
1945-1975
Since I was born in 1960, I feel I have a natural affinity with the culture of the period 1945-1975, my birthday and the window of 15 years on either side.
In poetry, Creeley and O'Hara, the New American Poetry. I still think of Williams as an embattled poet, neglected by the establishment. I like the Spanish poets born around 1925: Claudio Rodríguez, José Ángel Valente.
In film, I like great auteurs like Kurosawa (my favorite), Truffaut, Hitchcock, Bergman. I also like film noir and Hollywood cinema from Bogart to McQueen.
In music, Miles Davis and Morton Feldman. I like classic rock and soul up to about 1975.
This is also the period of the Latin American Boom, of Samuel Beckett. I could go on and on.
I like abstract expressionism, especially Rothko. I like the New York Review of Books.
Nouveau roman, nouvelle vague, Roland Barthes...
I cannot not view most of this stuff as the culmination of human civilization. My second favorite period would be the classic modernist period. My third, the T'ang dynasty or maybe the Heian period in Japan.
Now objectively I know that this set of preference has to do with a particular habitus. Yet I cannot really step outside of this set of preferences either. I wish I liked culture after 1980 as well, but I simply don't. I'll let other people worry about that period. It bothers me sometimes because I feel I am missing something. I don't like to be closed off like that. On the other hand, I have enough things to be enthusiastic about already. My period has bebop and Coltrane. What does yours have?
It's not that I don't like many individual things of the last 30 years, but I don't feel that same sense of deep personal involvement. It seemed like being a writer or musician meant something more in those years. There was a heroic aura about writing fiction or poetry.
In poetry, Creeley and O'Hara, the New American Poetry. I still think of Williams as an embattled poet, neglected by the establishment. I like the Spanish poets born around 1925: Claudio Rodríguez, José Ángel Valente.
In film, I like great auteurs like Kurosawa (my favorite), Truffaut, Hitchcock, Bergman. I also like film noir and Hollywood cinema from Bogart to McQueen.
In music, Miles Davis and Morton Feldman. I like classic rock and soul up to about 1975.
This is also the period of the Latin American Boom, of Samuel Beckett. I could go on and on.
I like abstract expressionism, especially Rothko. I like the New York Review of Books.
Nouveau roman, nouvelle vague, Roland Barthes...
I cannot not view most of this stuff as the culmination of human civilization. My second favorite period would be the classic modernist period. My third, the T'ang dynasty or maybe the Heian period in Japan.
Now objectively I know that this set of preference has to do with a particular habitus. Yet I cannot really step outside of this set of preferences either. I wish I liked culture after 1980 as well, but I simply don't. I'll let other people worry about that period. It bothers me sometimes because I feel I am missing something. I don't like to be closed off like that. On the other hand, I have enough things to be enthusiastic about already. My period has bebop and Coltrane. What does yours have?
It's not that I don't like many individual things of the last 30 years, but I don't feel that same sense of deep personal involvement. It seemed like being a writer or musician meant something more in those years. There was a heroic aura about writing fiction or poetry.
3 dic 2010
After yesterday's post, something not quite so controversial:
(Well, I hope it's a little bit controversial so I can get 15 or 20 comments.)
We like our sprinters fast, our professors erudite and distracted, our poets self-involved and tragic, our movie stars glamorous. We like our violinists to be virtuosi, our sopranos to be divas.
We like for people and things to conform to our expectations of them, and usually they do. If they don't, we hardly notice, or we assign them to other categories. We kind of get the reality we deserve: a reality that conforms exactly to ideology.
I don't know quite what to call this effect. Ideology? On one level, it is a taste for the loud, the bombastic, and the stereotypical or larger-than-life. This taste cuts across any sort of cultural divide, in that we want our MMA fighters to be fierce but our violinists to be show-offs too. People, even the most sophisticated people, are attracted both by extremes and by things that are true-to-type. It is hard to argue with this, because--shouldn't the sprinters be the fastest runners, by definition? The race actually is to the swift.
Paradox is the anti-ideological move. Barthes used to define it as something "against the doxa." In other words, not just something inherently contradictory, but a direct challenge to conventional beliefs or Flaubertian idées reçues.
I myself feel the pull of that old sweet ideological strain, of the doxa. It is tiring to be against what other people think all the time. Sometimes I just like some bombast or football.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't be me if I always embraced all that to the full extent. I like to hold back or to explore other models, like the music of Morton Feldman, which is quiet and non-dramatic.
(Well, I hope it's a little bit controversial so I can get 15 or 20 comments.)
We like our sprinters fast, our professors erudite and distracted, our poets self-involved and tragic, our movie stars glamorous. We like our violinists to be virtuosi, our sopranos to be divas.
We like for people and things to conform to our expectations of them, and usually they do. If they don't, we hardly notice, or we assign them to other categories. We kind of get the reality we deserve: a reality that conforms exactly to ideology.
I don't know quite what to call this effect. Ideology? On one level, it is a taste for the loud, the bombastic, and the stereotypical or larger-than-life. This taste cuts across any sort of cultural divide, in that we want our MMA fighters to be fierce but our violinists to be show-offs too. People, even the most sophisticated people, are attracted both by extremes and by things that are true-to-type. It is hard to argue with this, because--shouldn't the sprinters be the fastest runners, by definition? The race actually is to the swift.
Paradox is the anti-ideological move. Barthes used to define it as something "against the doxa." In other words, not just something inherently contradictory, but a direct challenge to conventional beliefs or Flaubertian idées reçues.
I myself feel the pull of that old sweet ideological strain, of the doxa. It is tiring to be against what other people think all the time. Sometimes I just like some bombast or football.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't be me if I always embraced all that to the full extent. I like to hold back or to explore other models, like the music of Morton Feldman, which is quiet and non-dramatic.
2 dic 2010
I've always hated the idea that a certain kind of linguistic "hygiene" can save us from error of moral or political judgment. I call this idea "Orwellian" because it is expressed in Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." It is also present in Pound: somehow if you get your language straight you will be in a position to see reality more clearly.
Now obviously misuse of power does involve misuse and abuse of language too, but the Orwell/Pound argument seems to imply that you can preemptively inoculate language itself from such misuse, make language a prophylactic barrier against certain kinds of abuse.
Poundian clarity of image and Heideggerian mysticism both lead their authors to Fascism. The prodigious metaphorical language of Neruda entails no guard against the Stalinist temptation. The null hypothesis should be that language in itself makes no difference.
Now obviously misuse of power does involve misuse and abuse of language too, but the Orwell/Pound argument seems to imply that you can preemptively inoculate language itself from such misuse, make language a prophylactic barrier against certain kinds of abuse.
Poundian clarity of image and Heideggerian mysticism both lead their authors to Fascism. The prodigious metaphorical language of Neruda entails no guard against the Stalinist temptation. The null hypothesis should be that language in itself makes no difference.
1 dic 2010
Narratives of Lack
Part of my current project has to do with the narrative of lack in Spanish literature. Basically, the idea that Spain missed out on many of the major developments of Western European intellectual history. Humanism, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Often time, these narratives support a kind of Spanish exceptionalism that I don't find particularly congenial. Being committed to the theory of a lack commits us to some unattractive forms of exceptionalism.
This does not mean that the narrative of lack is always lacking in validity. The particulars can be debated of course, along with the meaning of the supposed "lack" in each case.
Part of my current project has to do with the narrative of lack in Spanish literature. Basically, the idea that Spain missed out on many of the major developments of Western European intellectual history. Humanism, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Often time, these narratives support a kind of Spanish exceptionalism that I don't find particularly congenial. Being committed to the theory of a lack commits us to some unattractive forms of exceptionalism.
This does not mean that the narrative of lack is always lacking in validity. The particulars can be debated of course, along with the meaning of the supposed "lack" in each case.
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