Okay, so I originally meant to write this post a long time ago in response to Ed's post about jazz. Then I got sidetracked by sudoku (curse you, sudoku!), and then I got lazy/forgetful. Lucky for all you readers out there (hey Steph! hey Amy! hey Emily!), I'm finally back on track. Get ready for some insight, folks, 'cause here it comes.
Today's topic of discourse is the relevance of the Western canon. (Wait! Don't go away, please. I know it sounds dull, but I promise to throw in some funny witticisms at some point.) I started by thinking about Ed's gripe about the small group of people for whom jazz is life. He was sounding really bitter about how they got to decide who and what was "important" in the world of jazz. He was like, boo to esoteric, be-boppy deconstructions of "My Funny Valentine". It was too think-y. And then he was like, boo to the sappy, soulless smooth jazz beloved by the vapid masses. Greatness in jazz in his view was to be decided by neither the devotees of the hyperintellectual avant-garde, nor the shallow and unthinking proletariat. Rather, the arbiters of greatness would be intelligent people with a sensitivity to musical expression, who nonetheless maintained a studied distance from the mechanics of the music.
In other words, Ed gets to decide. Which is fine, for Ed's Canon of Stuff He Digs. But when it comes to choosing and studying the people and works that represent the achievements of the Western world, to a certain extent, we have to take the experts' word for it.
And that's the canon. Somebody else keeps track of all the greatness so that we don't have to. And because we can't, even more to the point.
Here's a quick exercise: In the blank space on your computer screen, write down the names of ten famous scientists, in any field.
Alright - which names did you write down? Hopefully none, because that could do serious damage to your computer screen. I'll assume you simply thought up ten of them. Let me guess. Einstein. Newton. Galileo. Copernicus. Gregor Mendel. Pasteur. The Curies. Darwin. Maybe Niels Bohr? I don't know. I got a lot of them, though, didn't I? That's because they're in the scientific canon. And I know the basics of why each of them is famous. But my appreciation for them and their work can only go so deep, because my knowledge of their fields can only - well, at one point, it would've filled a couple of textbooks. But there are people who know every last thing about these people, and who know what makes them so significant.
And there are experts in each of those fields that would more or less agree on a general hierarchy of greatness. Louis Pasteur was a great chemist; Daniel Rutherford was a very good chemist. According to Wikipedia, he isolated nitrogen (which he called phlostigated air). That's pretty good. But he didn't invent pasteurization or cure rabies. That was great.
So are there experts in every field - scientific, artistic, economic - whom we entrust with the task of creating, maintaining, and passing along the hierarchy of greatness.
Which means we can say: great composers - Bach, Mozart, Beethoven; great artists - Michelangelo, Renoir, Picasso; great Presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. And we can say this without qualification, because they're in the canon. And also because I put that in italics. You can't argue with italics.
It's not a perfect system. There are biases, historical accidents, historical intentions, and other quirks that have led to people's inclusion or exclusion from the canon. Why are there so many artists from Florence or composers from Vienna in the canon? Because that's where the money and influence was. Which attracts great artists and composers, to be sure, but also leads to the marginalization of would-be great artists from elsewhere.
But neither is it a static system. New research, new sensibilities, new fashions constantly add to and subtract from the canon.
And you don't have to enjoy something just because it's been canonized. Lots of people hate Jane Austen, Arnold Schoenberg, James Joyce, and Daniel Rutherford (that accursed phlostigator!). Ed apparently has a vehement, visceral hatred of Charlie Parker and his noodlings. But the jazz people tell us he's a good one, so I guess he is. (And I think I also have to argue with Ed's point that the hard core jazz fans are only satiated by novelty - Parker's heyday was during the Eisenhower years - after fifty years, noodling's no longer novel, but some people still wax obsessed about it.)
Great music (and art, literature, etc.) appeals both to the intellect and to the soul (That's a hoity-toity sentence, isn't it?) It's an individual's decision whether a particular artist or artwork strays too far down one road or the other for their own taste, but even Charlie Parker's music (and Karlheinz Stockhausen's - listen to him sometime, if you're feeling masochistic) satisfies the souls of his true fans.
(I was going to investigate the nature of sophistication at this point, but I'm really running out of steam, as I'm sure most of the five of you are, as well. So maybe I'll talk about it some other time.)
My point, by the way, is that the canon is a useful collection of greatness. It has its flaws, but it's served us well over the centuries. So cut it some slack.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Inventions I'm Too Lazy to Make or Market
1. The Remote Finder. Like a lot of people, I watch a lot of TV. Like most of those folks, I use a remote to do it. Like a large percentage of such humans, I'm lazy and messy. Like a lion's share of the guys to which I'm referring, I often lose the remote. Like a healthy sector of chaps with which I share the above characteristics, I get extremely angry when I lose the remote, and start banging my head with my fists, moaning, and frothing at the mouth. Like a plethora of homo sapiens who find themselves caught in a similar or analogous pickle, I am then sedated by men in white coats.
Has this happened to you? It has to me, and others, probably. That's why I thought of but will probably never market or sell the amazing new Remote Finder! It's a small thing that you attach to your remote. Then there's another small thing you attach to your TV that has a button. When you press the button on the TV, the thing on the remote beeps. Then you find the remote!
Post script: A lot of TVs have this built in. And I actually looked online and found that a lot of other people have also had this idea, but presumably have also been too lazy to actually do anything with it. Oh well. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it doesn't go.
2. iKaraoke. My wife just got an iPhone. It's fun. I thought you could have an application (I refuse to call them "apps." I don't care if they call it the "App Store." Apple may be powerful, but they do not have the power to turn annoying abbreviations into legitimate words. The day the public library puts up a sign saying they are now called the "Pube Libe," then maybe, MAYBE I'll use the word "app" in a sentence non-ironically. But only then.)
What was I saying? Oh, yeah, how about a karaoke application? The iPhone already can send its music into a radio station. So all you'd need is a program that will take in your voice (which shouldn't be hard, since this thing is ostensibly a phone) and play it over an instrumental track. And the screen could play the words.
Why, you ask, would I want an iKaraoke application? Well, I love karaoke. There, I said it. It's a great way to have a performance in your own house. There was a time, back in the old days, back in the times I don't remember, because no one who experienced them is still alive, when people would regularly perform music for one another, just in the house or on the street or whatever. Everyone could play an instrument or yodel or hambone or yodelbone or something. And it's a fun thing, to see people you like doing something besides talking and watching some person you don't know performing on TV.
The thing is, learning to play an instrument sucks. It takes a long time just to get terrible at it, especially if you're me. Meanwhile, anyone can sing, sort of. But no one wants to hear people sing without some sort of backing band. That's called "a capella music," and is illegal in most states, for good reason. A capella music is strictly the domain of painfully white young guys who have floppy hair, wear button-down shirts, and think they're much more charming and funny than they actually are. It's the improv comedy of the music world.
The answer to this dilemma? Karaoke. But who wants to drop a zillion dollars for a karaoke machine? And who wants to sing the songs that are actually available in karaoke form? Most of the time you get both kinds of music, country and western. If you get a hip-hop song, it's Kris Kross. Seriously. When I do karaoke, I want to sing a GG Allin song in the style of Morrissey. This is seldom an option. So with iKaraoke, you would somehow make an unlimited library of songs available for download.
Post Script: This has probably already been done. I'm too lazy to check.
3. The Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan (the name isn't quite finalized yet). If a device involves cooking, and seems like it could potentially be useful once in a person's life and never again, it will fly off the shelves. I've been to cooking specialty stores that are packed to the gills with rosemary mincers and tripe squashers and bread injectors and all sort of crazy gizmos that are absolutely vital in order to save a few seconds making one recipe that you will make once and fail at and then never try again. Kitchens are getting bigger and bigger to provide plenty of storage in which to put all these useless pieces of crap so that you can stack them on top of one another, forget you have them, and then die, leaving your kids with the task of trying to find a use for pork tossers and potato sodomizers.
In that spirit, I think the world is in desperate need of the Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan. It's a lasagna pan that has two extra metal walls in the corner, each perpendicular to the sides of the pan. These extra walls connect to make a small square within the larger square of the pan, about the size of one piece of lasagna. Then you fill the pan with lasagna, all except that one square. When it's done, you then lift the two extra inner walls out (I forgot to mention that they're removable), and voila! You can now cut the lasagna and use the spatula in the open space made by the removable walls there to remove a first piece of lasagna that's not so fucking sloppy. That's where we get the name of the product: The Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan. Ask for it by name!
Post Script: Probably invented. I don't know. I'm bored now.
Has this happened to you? It has to me, and others, probably. That's why I thought of but will probably never market or sell the amazing new Remote Finder! It's a small thing that you attach to your remote. Then there's another small thing you attach to your TV that has a button. When you press the button on the TV, the thing on the remote beeps. Then you find the remote!
Post script: A lot of TVs have this built in. And I actually looked online and found that a lot of other people have also had this idea, but presumably have also been too lazy to actually do anything with it. Oh well. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it doesn't go.
2. iKaraoke. My wife just got an iPhone. It's fun. I thought you could have an application (I refuse to call them "apps." I don't care if they call it the "App Store." Apple may be powerful, but they do not have the power to turn annoying abbreviations into legitimate words. The day the public library puts up a sign saying they are now called the "Pube Libe," then maybe, MAYBE I'll use the word "app" in a sentence non-ironically. But only then.)
What was I saying? Oh, yeah, how about a karaoke application? The iPhone already can send its music into a radio station. So all you'd need is a program that will take in your voice (which shouldn't be hard, since this thing is ostensibly a phone) and play it over an instrumental track. And the screen could play the words.
Why, you ask, would I want an iKaraoke application? Well, I love karaoke. There, I said it. It's a great way to have a performance in your own house. There was a time, back in the old days, back in the times I don't remember, because no one who experienced them is still alive, when people would regularly perform music for one another, just in the house or on the street or whatever. Everyone could play an instrument or yodel or hambone or yodelbone or something. And it's a fun thing, to see people you like doing something besides talking and watching some person you don't know performing on TV.
The thing is, learning to play an instrument sucks. It takes a long time just to get terrible at it, especially if you're me. Meanwhile, anyone can sing, sort of. But no one wants to hear people sing without some sort of backing band. That's called "a capella music," and is illegal in most states, for good reason. A capella music is strictly the domain of painfully white young guys who have floppy hair, wear button-down shirts, and think they're much more charming and funny than they actually are. It's the improv comedy of the music world.
The answer to this dilemma? Karaoke. But who wants to drop a zillion dollars for a karaoke machine? And who wants to sing the songs that are actually available in karaoke form? Most of the time you get both kinds of music, country and western. If you get a hip-hop song, it's Kris Kross. Seriously. When I do karaoke, I want to sing a GG Allin song in the style of Morrissey. This is seldom an option. So with iKaraoke, you would somehow make an unlimited library of songs available for download.
Post Script: This has probably already been done. I'm too lazy to check.
3. The Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan (the name isn't quite finalized yet). If a device involves cooking, and seems like it could potentially be useful once in a person's life and never again, it will fly off the shelves. I've been to cooking specialty stores that are packed to the gills with rosemary mincers and tripe squashers and bread injectors and all sort of crazy gizmos that are absolutely vital in order to save a few seconds making one recipe that you will make once and fail at and then never try again. Kitchens are getting bigger and bigger to provide plenty of storage in which to put all these useless pieces of crap so that you can stack them on top of one another, forget you have them, and then die, leaving your kids with the task of trying to find a use for pork tossers and potato sodomizers.
In that spirit, I think the world is in desperate need of the Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan. It's a lasagna pan that has two extra metal walls in the corner, each perpendicular to the sides of the pan. These extra walls connect to make a small square within the larger square of the pan, about the size of one piece of lasagna. Then you fill the pan with lasagna, all except that one square. When it's done, you then lift the two extra inner walls out (I forgot to mention that they're removable), and voila! You can now cut the lasagna and use the spatula in the open space made by the removable walls there to remove a first piece of lasagna that's not so fucking sloppy. That's where we get the name of the product: The Lasagna First Piece Not So Fucking Sloppy Pan. Ask for it by name!
Post Script: Probably invented. I don't know. I'm bored now.
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