02 July 2014
11 June 2014
It's OK It's OK It's OK It's OK...
Here's a smattering of recent headlines that have nearly convinced me that most major media outlets are pretty close to giving up by simply making each of their headlines read, "HELP! PLEASE NOTICE ME! PLEASE! WE'RE COOL, RIGHT?!"
"Everything You Know About Breakfast Is Wrong" [Outside Magazine]
"Let's be honest: Hillary Clinton is Running for President" -- Subhead: "I mean, seriously." [Washington Post]
"Learning to Love Sugar Again" [The Atlantic] (Actual article title is 'Being Happy With Sugar,' which is just as dull, but the editors apparently felt they needed to, ahem, spice up the link title.)
"The Girl Who Was Raised By Monkeys?" [NPR] (insert inflection) This is a question? Were they expecting an answer?
"This Clever Site Tells You If Your Favorite Bar Patio Is Sunny" [Gizmodo] Well thank god; massive white-person problem = Solved.
I definitely don't think people are getting less creative, even though these headlines lack any creative effort. But there's so much content out there and major editors/publishers are just losing their minds. I do tend to think young, expendable web editors get hired in massive numbers, are overloaded with horrifying pressure to generate clicks, so they basically write bullshit. I believe this because I was one of these folks for a couple different institutions. My jobs didn't last and paid basically nothing--huh.
The worse side of this freak out by editors/publishers is that they'll tend to publish insanely extreme opinions (from any viewpoint) simply because they know it'll generate InternetOutrage, meaning clicks, money, and a lot of dumb stuff.
Take this recent George Will column in the Washington Post; only the most insane, clueless, downright evil-spirited person would not think twice about writing the phrase, "supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a 'sexual assault.'" (Just thinking about using snarky air quotes for "sexual assault" in a serious way, like Will does, makes me hyperventilate.)
It's easy to go on about how vile that column is: e.g. he tries to use his own arithmetic to tell you that sexual assault statistics are grossly exaggerated, when if you use your brain at all with the knowledge that it's pretty impossible to know exactly how many sexual assaults occur for any number of reasons, arithmetic kind of becomes useless; or this sentence: "...capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also non-consensual touching." Dear George: 1). you are a Grown White Man complaining that non-consensual sexual touching ought to be OK? 2). your "capacious definitions" are both things that only terrible people do.
But the publishers know exactly how vile that column is; it's why they published it. They know there'll be a whole slew of subsequent rebuttal columns and internet arguments about the whole thing, and they'll laugh all the way to the bank while nobody really learns a thing. I'm probably even feeding into it just a bit by writing about it myself. But I think it's massively important to be aware of how it's in many media outlets' best interests to generate nothing but outrage, fear, and anxiety; and it's equally important to exercise your free will to turn away from these articles (and in many cases the media outlets themselves) as fast as you can. Because...
The world, as a whole, isn't as bad as it seems through these lenses. This is not to say that there are not vast swaths of people who struggle for survival on a daily basis. In real life, there is an unassailable fact that not everybody is going to have everything they need. But a lot of things point toward a world that is considerably safer than it used to be, and we are, more or less, pretty unaware of it. These are really hopeful trends that should keep us moving and innovating into the future.
But I think we need an innovation of thought, because the negative things that are on the rise are not so easily tackled with major advances of media and technology. While gun homicides might be down over the last decade, gun suicides are way up. Diagnoses of anxiety disorders, particularly in the US, have skyrocketed over the last decade (this is more complicated than this little sentence, but still). Like Tom Waits says, way too many people seem to be confusing information with knowledge, and it's rattling their brains apart.
You know me, I won't ever claim to have all the answers, and sometimes I'll claim to have exactly zero answers. But I do believe that one major factor is a problem of perspective and mindset. If you do not believe things are going to be OK, you're probably never going to be very satisfied with what life hands you. If you always expect things to be perfectly shaped, you're going to miss a lot of the weird accidental beauty that's out there. If you can't see things from other people's perspectives, you're bound to run into trouble with some of the 6+ billion people in our contained sphere from which there are few escapes.
If you french fry when you're supposed to pizza, you're gonna have a bad time.
I am reminded of the character of Mario Incandenza in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest on an almost daily basis. He is physically and mentally deformed, is unintentionally hilarious, and is the single most compassionate, hopeful character in the book. He has a whole lot to be hopeless about, but it rarely shows.
I'm working on a little song that's based on a line of Mario's. For a little context, it's a kind of alternate reality and giant fans ('Air-Displacement Effectuators') surround Metro Boston and blow pollution up to Canada. Mario's roommate and brother Hal is losing his mind as they fall asleep talking, and Mario, in his own little way, is trying to calm Hal down:
"I like the fans' sound at night. Do you? It's like somebody big far away goes like: It'sOKit'sOKit'sOKit'sOK over and over. From very far away."
Then later in the same conversation, while not understanding a word Hal's just said in an anxious rant, Mario says:
"Hal, pretty much all I do is love you and be glad I have an excellent brother in every way, Hal."
"Everything You Know About Breakfast Is Wrong" [Outside Magazine]
"Let's be honest: Hillary Clinton is Running for President" -- Subhead: "I mean, seriously." [Washington Post]
"Learning to Love Sugar Again" [The Atlantic] (Actual article title is 'Being Happy With Sugar,' which is just as dull, but the editors apparently felt they needed to, ahem, spice up the link title.)
"The Girl Who Was Raised By Monkeys?" [NPR] (insert inflection) This is a question? Were they expecting an answer?
"This Clever Site Tells You If Your Favorite Bar Patio Is Sunny" [Gizmodo] Well thank god; massive white-person problem = Solved.
I definitely don't think people are getting less creative, even though these headlines lack any creative effort. But there's so much content out there and major editors/publishers are just losing their minds. I do tend to think young, expendable web editors get hired in massive numbers, are overloaded with horrifying pressure to generate clicks, so they basically write bullshit. I believe this because I was one of these folks for a couple different institutions. My jobs didn't last and paid basically nothing--huh.
The worse side of this freak out by editors/publishers is that they'll tend to publish insanely extreme opinions (from any viewpoint) simply because they know it'll generate InternetOutrage, meaning clicks, money, and a lot of dumb stuff.
Take this recent George Will column in the Washington Post; only the most insane, clueless, downright evil-spirited person would not think twice about writing the phrase, "supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a 'sexual assault.'" (Just thinking about using snarky air quotes for "sexual assault" in a serious way, like Will does, makes me hyperventilate.)
It's easy to go on about how vile that column is: e.g. he tries to use his own arithmetic to tell you that sexual assault statistics are grossly exaggerated, when if you use your brain at all with the knowledge that it's pretty impossible to know exactly how many sexual assaults occur for any number of reasons, arithmetic kind of becomes useless; or this sentence: "...capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also non-consensual touching." Dear George: 1). you are a Grown White Man complaining that non-consensual sexual touching ought to be OK? 2). your "capacious definitions" are both things that only terrible people do.
But the publishers know exactly how vile that column is; it's why they published it. They know there'll be a whole slew of subsequent rebuttal columns and internet arguments about the whole thing, and they'll laugh all the way to the bank while nobody really learns a thing. I'm probably even feeding into it just a bit by writing about it myself. But I think it's massively important to be aware of how it's in many media outlets' best interests to generate nothing but outrage, fear, and anxiety; and it's equally important to exercise your free will to turn away from these articles (and in many cases the media outlets themselves) as fast as you can. Because...
The world, as a whole, isn't as bad as it seems through these lenses. This is not to say that there are not vast swaths of people who struggle for survival on a daily basis. In real life, there is an unassailable fact that not everybody is going to have everything they need. But a lot of things point toward a world that is considerably safer than it used to be, and we are, more or less, pretty unaware of it. These are really hopeful trends that should keep us moving and innovating into the future.But I think we need an innovation of thought, because the negative things that are on the rise are not so easily tackled with major advances of media and technology. While gun homicides might be down over the last decade, gun suicides are way up. Diagnoses of anxiety disorders, particularly in the US, have skyrocketed over the last decade (this is more complicated than this little sentence, but still). Like Tom Waits says, way too many people seem to be confusing information with knowledge, and it's rattling their brains apart.
You know me, I won't ever claim to have all the answers, and sometimes I'll claim to have exactly zero answers. But I do believe that one major factor is a problem of perspective and mindset. If you do not believe things are going to be OK, you're probably never going to be very satisfied with what life hands you. If you always expect things to be perfectly shaped, you're going to miss a lot of the weird accidental beauty that's out there. If you can't see things from other people's perspectives, you're bound to run into trouble with some of the 6+ billion people in our contained sphere from which there are few escapes.
If you french fry when you're supposed to pizza, you're gonna have a bad time.
I am reminded of the character of Mario Incandenza in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest on an almost daily basis. He is physically and mentally deformed, is unintentionally hilarious, and is the single most compassionate, hopeful character in the book. He has a whole lot to be hopeless about, but it rarely shows.
I'm working on a little song that's based on a line of Mario's. For a little context, it's a kind of alternate reality and giant fans ('Air-Displacement Effectuators') surround Metro Boston and blow pollution up to Canada. Mario's roommate and brother Hal is losing his mind as they fall asleep talking, and Mario, in his own little way, is trying to calm Hal down:
"I like the fans' sound at night. Do you? It's like somebody big far away goes like: It'sOKit'sOKit'sOKit'sOK over and over. From very far away."
Then later in the same conversation, while not understanding a word Hal's just said in an anxious rant, Mario says:
"Hal, pretty much all I do is love you and be glad I have an excellent brother in every way, Hal."
27 May 2014
To see with eyes unclouded
A quick update featuring things that have made my brain hiccup over the last month or so...
1. Here's a fun game to play; I call it Out of Context Anime:
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Last night I re-watched Princess Mononoke after having downloaded it for the ultra low price of nothing. But webstealing (my new word) has its downsides, one of them being translation. A quick search finds the probably better-translated sentence in that scene as "Well, they say happy women make a happy village."
2. NPR recently covered a certain state's supreme court striking down said state's ban on same-sex marriage. (I'm refusing to look it up at the moment because I think it's actually remarkable that I can't remember off the top of my head what state it is, because these bans have been falling in so many places lately and that makes me happy). Within that coverage, NPR reported on how both sides felt. This included an audio snippet of a man from a Christian organization who disagreed with the ruling, saying without even the slightest hint of irony in his voice, that it's "not right for one side to feel persecuted against, to be made to feel like they are just wrong."
3. Overheard teenage conversation in CVS: "You smoked pot? Don't you know it gives you warts in your mouth?"
But in more uplifting news (burying the lede here just a bit), I'm having a story published in a new NYC-based journal called DenimSkin Review! The story is called Unsound and, since it's a bit long, they're spreading it out across a couple issues. The inaugural issue is out this Friday, May 30--if you're in the NYC area, apparently it will be in certain bookstores, cafes, etc. But no worries if not, you can also order one online. Check out their website or Facebook for more info on how to nab a copy.
1. Here's a fun game to play; I call it Out of Context Anime:
Last night I re-watched Princess Mononoke after having downloaded it for the ultra low price of nothing. But webstealing (my new word) has its downsides, one of them being translation. A quick search finds the probably better-translated sentence in that scene as "Well, they say happy women make a happy village."
2. NPR recently covered a certain state's supreme court striking down said state's ban on same-sex marriage. (I'm refusing to look it up at the moment because I think it's actually remarkable that I can't remember off the top of my head what state it is, because these bans have been falling in so many places lately and that makes me happy). Within that coverage, NPR reported on how both sides felt. This included an audio snippet of a man from a Christian organization who disagreed with the ruling, saying without even the slightest hint of irony in his voice, that it's "not right for one side to feel persecuted against, to be made to feel like they are just wrong."
3. Overheard teenage conversation in CVS: "You smoked pot? Don't you know it gives you warts in your mouth?"
But in more uplifting news (burying the lede here just a bit), I'm having a story published in a new NYC-based journal called DenimSkin Review! The story is called Unsound and, since it's a bit long, they're spreading it out across a couple issues. The inaugural issue is out this Friday, May 30--if you're in the NYC area, apparently it will be in certain bookstores, cafes, etc. But no worries if not, you can also order one online. Check out their website or Facebook for more info on how to nab a copy.
14 April 2014
Only bored as I get older
First, I'm going to apologize (because that's what I do); I usually like to be a little more optimistic than I think this post is going to sound. But it's Monday and life is again real, and these florescent lights are a little more irritating than usual.
One of the most boring things to me is when writers write about what just happened on TV. There was a MAJOR plot twist in The Good Wife! Somebody got annihilated on Game of Thrones! Robin Williams voices the genie AND the merchant at the beginning of Aladdin! (Just go with it.) What does it meeeeeaaannn?
Who is reading this shit? (Probably a lot of people, hence the articles' existence and their many accompanying advertisements...)
I don't particularly care about spoilers, though I do think it's odd that some people seem to need so strongly to blab. But I'm not really the kind of reader/watcher who gets upset knowing the basic plot points or even 'major' twists (I enjoyed Titanic just fine, thank you); and at least as far as mainstream TV is concerned, you can see a lot of these things from miles away. Like the Chekhov rule, when a gun is introduced to the story you can bet your ass it's getting fired. But I'm probably in the minority here; I can certainly understand people not wanting details given away.
So if you didn't watch the show, there's absolutely no reason to read the recap and plenty of reasons to avoid it. If you did watch the show, there's still no particular reason to read the recap. Other than to be told what it all meant, what it could have possibly meant, who did it, why did they do it, who else might have done it, where do we go from here, what was the setup, what's the fallout...these are all things the talented writers who created these shows are already doing for you, and will continue to do for you as you watch their story unfold. I get the desire to talk about it all, but it's not a need (just a very strong desire to not feel so lonely in this world...sorry, sorry that's the existential psychiatrist in me).
Most shows that make it to the popularity of things like Game of Thrones/Mad Men/The Good Wife/True Detective/whatever are there because, on some level, they are great and created by talented people. You should be damn sure that these talented people usually know how to make all things unfold with time (unless it's Lost and everybody's just making up nonsense), and eventually they make you realize that what happens isn't nearly as fun or important as why something happens and why the characters involved are so interesting.
I think this is the right moment to say what anyone reading this likely already knows: I'm way more of a reader than a watcher. So feel free to tell me that I'm perfectly capable of ignoring articles I find boring. You are correct. But should I have to? I don't know exactly what it says about our silly First World that two of the four main-slot articles on today's theatlantic.com are about TV shows, but I don't think it's entirely good. I know I can swim to safer Internet waters, but sometimes the thought of doing that is like standing in the supermarket's soup aisle confronted by a thousand different versions of tomato soup, and I haven't even looked at other kinds of soups and already I just want a fucking blanket and a pacifier...
Actually, I think I'm going to read outside. This has been Melvin Ralsh's florescent Monday morning; 'til next time, folks!
One of the most boring things to me is when writers write about what just happened on TV. There was a MAJOR plot twist in The Good Wife! Somebody got annihilated on Game of Thrones! Robin Williams voices the genie AND the merchant at the beginning of Aladdin! (Just go with it.) What does it meeeeeaaannn?
Who is reading this shit? (Probably a lot of people, hence the articles' existence and their many accompanying advertisements...)
I don't particularly care about spoilers, though I do think it's odd that some people seem to need so strongly to blab. But I'm not really the kind of reader/watcher who gets upset knowing the basic plot points or even 'major' twists (I enjoyed Titanic just fine, thank you); and at least as far as mainstream TV is concerned, you can see a lot of these things from miles away. Like the Chekhov rule, when a gun is introduced to the story you can bet your ass it's getting fired. But I'm probably in the minority here; I can certainly understand people not wanting details given away.
So if you didn't watch the show, there's absolutely no reason to read the recap and plenty of reasons to avoid it. If you did watch the show, there's still no particular reason to read the recap. Other than to be told what it all meant, what it could have possibly meant, who did it, why did they do it, who else might have done it, where do we go from here, what was the setup, what's the fallout...these are all things the talented writers who created these shows are already doing for you, and will continue to do for you as you watch their story unfold. I get the desire to talk about it all, but it's not a need (just a very strong desire to not feel so lonely in this world...sorry, sorry that's the existential psychiatrist in me).
Most shows that make it to the popularity of things like Game of Thrones/Mad Men/The Good Wife/True Detective/whatever are there because, on some level, they are great and created by talented people. You should be damn sure that these talented people usually know how to make all things unfold with time (unless it's Lost and everybody's just making up nonsense), and eventually they make you realize that what happens isn't nearly as fun or important as why something happens and why the characters involved are so interesting.
I think this is the right moment to say what anyone reading this likely already knows: I'm way more of a reader than a watcher. So feel free to tell me that I'm perfectly capable of ignoring articles I find boring. You are correct. But should I have to? I don't know exactly what it says about our silly First World that two of the four main-slot articles on today's theatlantic.com are about TV shows, but I don't think it's entirely good. I know I can swim to safer Internet waters, but sometimes the thought of doing that is like standing in the supermarket's soup aisle confronted by a thousand different versions of tomato soup, and I haven't even looked at other kinds of soups and already I just want a fucking blanket and a pacifier...
Actually, I think I'm going to read outside. This has been Melvin Ralsh's florescent Monday morning; 'til next time, folks!
01 April 2014
I Have a Question
This is kind of an overly general question, the type I'm not usually too fond of, but I do wonder about some stuff...
When I was in college and liked writing music reviews a whole lot more than I do now, I had trouble shaking a bad habit of checking out other reviews of the same album to see where my opinion landed in the vast nothingness of music reviews. If I didn't like an album, I needed to double-check that other folks didn't like it either to make sure I wasn't an idiot, and this was way too easy to do. YouTube didn't even exist, and there weren't nearly as many blogs n stuff, but there was already an overload of opinions out there to Google. I could not stop doing this, but I can understand being younger, insecure, and not very confident about my musical taste/opinions. There were even a couple times I softened a review based, at least a little, on the fact that a bunch of 'professional' people had liked something I didn't. That's pretty hard to understand now.
So does the overabundance of Opinions out there mostly serve to feed our insecurities?
Are people actually more Opinionated now than ever before, or does it just feel that way because I spend a shitload of time on the internet, where Opinion is king?
Sometimes I get the feeling there are folks who get outraged by stuff only because a lot of other people got outraged by it; maybe this is no different than Time Before Internet, but it sure as hell seems to happen a whole lot faster and in larger quantities. Then it goes away and things move on more or less the same, but LO, we have ENTERTAINED ourselves. And probably somebody made a buck or two off it.
I have a question.
12 February 2014
Boy child grows up
Strange happenings are afoot. My body is changing! Between the ages of 27-30 I think I grew at least an inch. My BoyChild brain is evolving, too.
Every once in a while I like to binge on YouTube comments, which can sometimes be serene and mesmerizing. I know this sounds odd. But I get all giddy imagining a commenter listening to a song, having a moment, one so intense it can't possibly be contained, and which Must be shared with the world OR ELSE. Most of 'em are like those folks at live shows who can't stand the deafening silence in their own brains between songs and must shout WOO. So you get really deep shit sometimes, like these ones from Caribou's 'Niobe:'
To implement the vibrations! Man, what is it like to so powerfully need to post that? Probably a lot of people are lonely. But I think the strongest reason so many people post this stuff--stuff that not many are likely to read, and those that do read either already agree with you or hate you/themselves and are only there to troll; there's rarely a fertile middle ground where discussion and actual learning thrive--the reason there's so much of it is that it's incredibly easy to do. You go tap beep boop (like I'm, um, doing right now), click that satisfying Publish button, then smile at your own perceived wit/intelligence. Mmmmm, feels good.
It is so easy to find Anything, and equally easy to tell everyone (or at least feel like you're telling everyone; it's anyone's guess as to who's actually listening) how you feel about it. I don't think this is entirely good. Beck, who just released a great album, went to chat with the Boiling Bob over at NPR and had this to say:
"The rise of internet and all the blogs and the sort of internet criticism, I think it's affected a lot of musicians. There's sort of this critical voice in their head, like somebody's pointed a camera or a mirror at you, and you're a little more self-conscious. I feel like I've felt it in music over the last, you know, 10 or 12 years. When I started out, you were just throwing stuff out there; you had no idea what people thought. There would be a couple of record reviews, but you really were completely ignorant and unaware of what people actually thought. Unless you were at a show — you know, you could play a song and people didn't like it. That happened plenty of times."
Imagine that! Hearing something played live for the first time. Sure, you could boo the guy/gal, but as a human that's a little harder to do right to someone's face. You don't generally have somebody like EarlKrempe (see above) standing next to you on stage, arms folded, saying, "Did not like."
But see, I'm beginning to feel like the quintessential Olderish-Person-Who-Looks-Down-On-Younger-Generations. This is also not good. Because, clearly, not every musical appreciator is like that. YouTube-comments-as-societal-blueprint isn't exactly validated research. But what I do know is that music is laughably easy to find for free, chew for a bit, skip that song you don't like, write about how it wasn't what you wanted, pretend like you know exactly what the artist was trying to achieve, then spit on the floor having digested very little.
One of my band-mates in a new song talks about how instant evaluation is starting to crush his enjoyment of different types of art, and I could not agree more. It seems simple to just ignore it all, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do as more and more folks use the Internet as a way of finding their own voice. Remember in high school how it kind of sucked and made you feel empty when everybody started loving that band you'd been following for forever? It's similar to the feeling you get when somebody tells you whatever book or movie they just devoured was the best thing ever. Your brain is instantly setup to have its expectations swung at and missed, because no one thing is the best thing ever, which transitions nicely into my next thought:
The overabundance of particular types of media might be leading a certain percentage of the population to believe that their lives aren't as worthwhile if they are not cinematic enough**, if certain moments aren't "the best thing ever." It makes people take fewer risks and retreat into what they already know they'll enjoy or, worse, what they know everybody else already enjoys. And because everybody's so keen on expressing why they love or hate something, there's all this media catering to extreme points of view, which this feller thinks tends to drown out that fertile middle ground where you can actually learn something.
Here's some quick examples: Bad Internet [note: please don't read much of this] vs. Good Internet [please read all of this]
So, if you're like me you're probably wondering what the hell to do. Unfortunately, if you know me at all you probably know I'm not entirely sure. All I can do is point you in the direction of folks I've enjoyed and who've made me think about how to handle things that make me uncomfortable. On the surface, these quotes don't directly pertain to media consumption, but I think they offer a path away from extreme points of view (and thus away from a lot of bad media), and I often find myself returning to them:
"Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you. What is unfair can be a stern but invaluable teacher."
~David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
"To know one's own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one's own face with one's own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one's reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all."
~Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
"Don't get set into one form; adapt it and build your own, and let it grow; be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
~Bruce Lee
Some of the things I take away from those quotes are: Don't be afraid to feel stupid, and be wary of folks pushing agendas that claim to have all the answers; Look for stuff that feels genuine to you (and remember that authenticity and originality don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, and that's OK); Little things are infinitely important.
And for the sake of all that is holy to you, please don't you dare listen to music via YouTube at anything less than 480p.
_________________________________________________________________________________
**This is something I want to think about a lot more in another post, and one thing that comes to mind is how often you'll hear the same song used across different movies/TV shows/commericials to generate emotion in a given scene, and then when something similar to that scene happens in your real life, but you don't have the music to go along with it, it might not have as strong an impact on you.
Every once in a while I like to binge on YouTube comments, which can sometimes be serene and mesmerizing. I know this sounds odd. But I get all giddy imagining a commenter listening to a song, having a moment, one so intense it can't possibly be contained, and which Must be shared with the world OR ELSE. Most of 'em are like those folks at live shows who can't stand the deafening silence in their own brains between songs and must shout WOO. So you get really deep shit sometimes, like these ones from Caribou's 'Niobe:'
did not like
my body feel like
fucking tripping but my head is still oke
music is very much
like... math, actually. it is a language and has a lot of math in it. it is a
truly special and difficult art.
its unmistakable,
these guys are just musically gifted. I think they use mathematical equations
to implement the vibrations...and they align very well with my taste. Keep
steady on this path gentlemen it will suit you well.
To implement the vibrations! Man, what is it like to so powerfully need to post that? Probably a lot of people are lonely. But I think the strongest reason so many people post this stuff--stuff that not many are likely to read, and those that do read either already agree with you or hate you/themselves and are only there to troll; there's rarely a fertile middle ground where discussion and actual learning thrive--the reason there's so much of it is that it's incredibly easy to do. You go tap beep boop (like I'm, um, doing right now), click that satisfying Publish button, then smile at your own perceived wit/intelligence. Mmmmm, feels good.
It is so easy to find Anything, and equally easy to tell everyone (or at least feel like you're telling everyone; it's anyone's guess as to who's actually listening) how you feel about it. I don't think this is entirely good. Beck, who just released a great album, went to chat with the Boiling Bob over at NPR and had this to say:
"The rise of internet and all the blogs and the sort of internet criticism, I think it's affected a lot of musicians. There's sort of this critical voice in their head, like somebody's pointed a camera or a mirror at you, and you're a little more self-conscious. I feel like I've felt it in music over the last, you know, 10 or 12 years. When I started out, you were just throwing stuff out there; you had no idea what people thought. There would be a couple of record reviews, but you really were completely ignorant and unaware of what people actually thought. Unless you were at a show — you know, you could play a song and people didn't like it. That happened plenty of times."
Imagine that! Hearing something played live for the first time. Sure, you could boo the guy/gal, but as a human that's a little harder to do right to someone's face. You don't generally have somebody like EarlKrempe (see above) standing next to you on stage, arms folded, saying, "Did not like."
But see, I'm beginning to feel like the quintessential Olderish-Person-Who-Looks-Down-On-Younger-Generations. This is also not good. Because, clearly, not every musical appreciator is like that. YouTube-comments-as-societal-blueprint isn't exactly validated research. But what I do know is that music is laughably easy to find for free, chew for a bit, skip that song you don't like, write about how it wasn't what you wanted, pretend like you know exactly what the artist was trying to achieve, then spit on the floor having digested very little.
One of my band-mates in a new song talks about how instant evaluation is starting to crush his enjoyment of different types of art, and I could not agree more. It seems simple to just ignore it all, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do as more and more folks use the Internet as a way of finding their own voice. Remember in high school how it kind of sucked and made you feel empty when everybody started loving that band you'd been following for forever? It's similar to the feeling you get when somebody tells you whatever book or movie they just devoured was the best thing ever. Your brain is instantly setup to have its expectations swung at and missed, because no one thing is the best thing ever, which transitions nicely into my next thought:
The overabundance of particular types of media might be leading a certain percentage of the population to believe that their lives aren't as worthwhile if they are not cinematic enough**, if certain moments aren't "the best thing ever." It makes people take fewer risks and retreat into what they already know they'll enjoy or, worse, what they know everybody else already enjoys. And because everybody's so keen on expressing why they love or hate something, there's all this media catering to extreme points of view, which this feller thinks tends to drown out that fertile middle ground where you can actually learn something.
Here's some quick examples: Bad Internet [note: please don't read much of this] vs. Good Internet [please read all of this]
So, if you're like me you're probably wondering what the hell to do. Unfortunately, if you know me at all you probably know I'm not entirely sure. All I can do is point you in the direction of folks I've enjoyed and who've made me think about how to handle things that make me uncomfortable. On the surface, these quotes don't directly pertain to media consumption, but I think they offer a path away from extreme points of view (and thus away from a lot of bad media), and I often find myself returning to them:
"Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you. What is unfair can be a stern but invaluable teacher."
~David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
"To know one's own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one's own face with one's own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one's reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all."
~Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
"Don't get set into one form; adapt it and build your own, and let it grow; be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
~Bruce Lee
Some of the things I take away from those quotes are: Don't be afraid to feel stupid, and be wary of folks pushing agendas that claim to have all the answers; Look for stuff that feels genuine to you (and remember that authenticity and originality don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, and that's OK); Little things are infinitely important.
And for the sake of all that is holy to you, please don't you dare listen to music via YouTube at anything less than 480p.
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**This is something I want to think about a lot more in another post, and one thing that comes to mind is how often you'll hear the same song used across different movies/TV shows/commericials to generate emotion in a given scene, and then when something similar to that scene happens in your real life, but you don't have the music to go along with it, it might not have as strong an impact on you.
04 February 2014
Words that inspire a feeling of impending doom
"Is this ad relevant to you?"
"Art can be a slippery slope"
Pretty much anything involving the word "evoke"
"World music"
"Whether or not"
"Recommended for you"
"An Open Letter to..."
"I'm sorry, but..."
"MFW/MRW"
"Retweet"
"That awkward moment" [oh god, this is a movie]
Music described as "lush" and "sprawling"
"An air of sophistication"
Alright that's probably enough doom for one day.
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