Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
I keep storing up blog entries in my head and then discarding them whenever I actually sit down to blog them. Like: "Erasmus was the last man who could have been said to know everything a man of his age could know. In the same way, the internet is leading us out of an age in which there is anything like a literary canon. There will simply be too much that's worth reading to assimilate into any sort of useful list." And then I think maybe it's the opposite; that good things can now be whittled down to and propagated so quickly by the great mass of minds sifting through everything, that people will be able to get a more complete knowledge of them the denser and more complex the network gets. And then I think it's six in the morning and that doesn't make any sense.
And there was another one, that I've been composing in infinite revisions for weeks now, but every time I put it into black-and-white it just seems inane. "The only reason we have Bach is because of Mozart." See, it's like this (backed up only from my lazy anecdotal knowledge of music history and no actual, like, evidence or nothing, of course): until the Romantics, people were only interested in contemporary music. I mean, sure, the church would keep some old music playing on certain holidays like Allegri's Miserere and all that, but when it came down to popular taste, they simply weren't interested in anything "old-fashioned" -- it had to be fresh, new, especially written for them and their time. I'm talking the Dark Ages to 1800, now. But at the turn of the 19th century, something changed... old music was resurrected -- particularly that famous resurrection of Bach by Mendelssohn. And they started playing the music of dead composers. Nowadays, of course, we hardly play any ('classical') music that isn't by dead composers. And we listen to the ages all jumbled up together, Renaissance Polyphony next to Serial Music next to Wagner next to Opera Seria next to Medieval Branles. I do, anyway. But I think most people do. 'Fashion' only refers to what proportion of the repertoire sells more albums in any given decade; Early Music has been coming up to the front lately, and I'm very grateful for it, but that's nothing revolutionary. The revolution happened with the Romantics. They had their own idiom, and wrote in it, but they were reluctant to drop the music of the previous generation the way Bach's sons did with their father. Why? (this is where it gets into airy supposition) Because of Mozart. They couldn't listen to Mozart and say, "Oh, that's all very well, but it's not really the style of the times, now is it?" They had to say, "God. My God. This can never be forgotten." You hear people say (I've said it myself), as an argument for the infinite breadth of human stupidity, "People forgot Bach for a hundred years." But that wasn't it. It wasn't personal; they forgot everyone. But, eventually, they decided to remember, and we're still remembering -- someone could say that's just because we don't have anything of our own to take its place, and there's some truth in that. But even if we do start making music of our own that's as complex as what's gone before (I don't include the good stuff being done in pop music, but that's not just me being snooty -- more on that in this old post), I hope we don't fall back completely into the cult of novelty. I don't think we will -- 'cause of Mozart.
Heh. I'm just from a retro generation. All fin-de-siecle kids have got a streak of retro nostalgia in 'em, but fin-de-millenium kids more than most, and it's only logical. Anyway, I like dreaming up baseless arguments.
And then there was a third one, about novels, and what made 'em just so-so, and what made 'em actually great, and thinking about whether the perception that genre fiction is inferior to 'literary' fiction is justified, and whether that's a result of a sort of low ambition -- choosing to tell a simple story rather than a complex one, using spectacle as a substitute for feeling -- or if it's because literary fiction written by not-so-greats always disappears 'cause it's much more boring than genre fiction, so after the haze has cleared, you get the literary greats stacked up against the genre better-than-mosts, and even if the genre stuff (I'm talking Poe, Doyle, Stevenson) is less true, in the sense that it doesn't reveal truths to us, only visions that we hadn't thought to dream up, it's still fought its way through time, and hasn't been forgotten the way the drippy Victorian serious stuff has. But then I wonder how style comes in, the actual putting-together of words. And where soul comes in -- whether great works can only be written by deep and complex men. And I wonder if I'll feel really silly when the first science fiction book that's an unequivocal work of heady genius is written next year by an unknown Master with a Golden Soul. I just can't work out a formula. See how fuzzy it all is? I guess I'll think about it some more, and maybe I can put it into a more articulate form. I dunno.
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(2)
08:36:09 AM,Sunday 19 October 2003
A fewmorelinks making reference to my tattoo. I like to look at the pretty pictures! Goddamnit, being monolingual sucks.
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08:03:59 AM,Sunday 19 October 2003
T.I.A.I.L.W.: I ain't tellin'. So ha!
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07:15:05 AM,Sunday 19 October 2003
Test:
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(14)
10:28:47 AM,Saturday 18 October 2003
I'm on the Halloween-Candy-And-Bacon diet.
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10:27:08 AM,Thursday 16 October 2003
Aw, fine. These lists are so arbitrary... they're never right. But what the hell. It's three minutes before I have to go to work, and I might as well be a meme-hopper. (I haven't even *seen* some of these movies in more than six years. These codifications are so freakin' silly.)
Impromptu, 'cause I like Judy Davis. In trousers. Oh, yes I do.
M, 'cause I wanna be Peter Lorre when I grow up.
Naked Lunch, 'cause it's the only original movie soundtrack I ever cherished. I need to get another copy.
The Plague Dogs, 'cause it's one of the very few cases in which a good movie is better than the good book it's based off.
The Seventh Seal Plague + Knights + Chess + Strawberries = Fun.
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(1)
12:48:57 AM,Thursday 16 October 2003
I can put on my wristwatch with my teeth.
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12:05:26 AM,Wednesday 15 October 2003
Added some new mixes (including the Blogswap) to Art of the Mix. More soon to follow (I hope). Again, if any of you want any of these, I'd be thrilled to send 'em your way. (Of course, if you're in the blogswap, you're getting that one whether you like it or not. Nyeah.)
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10:58:10 AM,Tuesday 14 October 2003
An account of "tongue demons". I find this incredibly interesting. (Yes, I have been listening to the Snow Crash audiobook for the last couple weeks. Still and all.)
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(4)
06:55:27 AM,Tuesday 14 October 2003
Blogswap done, I do believe! Yeehaw!
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05:26:37 AM,Tuesday 14 October 2003
My toothpaste collection will never be as big as this guy's, because I limit myself to toothpastes that don't got no mint. He's someone to look up to, nonetheless.
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(3)
08:15:21 AM,Monday 13 October 2003
I think I'm gonna be a leper for Halloween. Lepers are sexy.
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(4)
07:40:10 AM,Monday 13 October 2003
Vat of Sulfuric Acid.
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08:28:16 AM,Sunday 12 October 2003
Peace Corps applied for. Dude.
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(14)
05:30:23 AM,Sunday 12 October 2003
{whimper}
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09:54:14 PM,Saturday 11 October 2003
I gotta admit, Wigu's been losing my attention recently. Topato's kind of a one-note samba, y'know? There's only so much I can take. But let me be the first to put forward that:
"KINDA LIKE OL' YELLER KINDA LIKE MACBETH
KINDA LIKE MONKEY 'BOUT TO TAKE HIS LAST BREATH"
is one of the best damn couplets in the corpus of English literature.
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(5)
09:56:56 AM,Friday 10 October 2003
I saw Donnie Darko. Once without commentary, once with. Liked it very very much.
When I've got spots on my face, I always have them in my dreams, too. Only usually they're much worse.
My room is clean. Flibbertigibbet.
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12:24:08 AM,Friday 10 October 2003
So I'm more than a week past the deadline and not qualified for either of these jobs anyhow, but I'm sorely tempted to send them my resume even so. Just tell them that I'll take any job I'm qualified for, from bottlewasher to guard dog, and that I can relocate anywhere? That I'd serve their company with a maniacal fervor? That I've got no shame and no pride and I can live on crusts of bread and early music albums? Seriously. What should I say? Or should I just keep checking the page in hopes that a job I am qualified for might turn up?
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(2)
10:13:21 PM,Wednesday 8 October 2003
Back in possession of own computer! Rejoice!
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09:24:30 PM,Wednesday 8 October 2003
