So I had this idea about humor. About genuine humor. Not the niggling humor that munches at the ankle of obviously flawed ideas, but the throated humor that vomits little mountains of spontaneity and thought. I was wondering if I could compose some.
I'm not going to try it here. Partially because I know that I am not intrinsically funny. And partly because I haven't forgotten that I didn't want to try it here. Humor is like singing. It's not so much about talent as much as it is about the construction of a head. Some skulls just have crappy acoustics. Most do. But some don't. The ability to hear yourself outside of what encompasses the space of your higher order functions is key to being a great singer and I think the same holds true for comedy.
Remember when I told you I was going to go look for the hissing? I think I do. I found it last night. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. It wasn't scarier either. It just was. It was the heart of a thing, if you can imagine it, a thing large as three story building and as wide as it was tall if not wider. The sound of my teeth grinding woke me up before I could get close enough to really make it out.
It was a strange trip. I didn't close my eyes and there it was. I had to do a ton of foot work, but I avoided the subways because I tend to get lost down there. I stayed above ground and it got darker and darker until it was dusk and I walked for a long time until I reached a great big brick thing. It could have been a wall for all I knew. The city simply stopped and there was this brick wall that could have been a building, but I didn't walk around it because it joined up with the two buildings on either side of the street and it was too dark to see if it terminated at some point above me or if it simply continued on forever.
I went in the door and inside the lights were like setting suns and I went down for several seconds, but I couldn't have gone deeper than ten or twelve feet unless there was some kind of compression happening, which I doubt. I doubt it because - I suppose I actually don't have a reason to doubt it. It's simply been my expectation. It was the feeling. There were no sutures of skips so I assumed. At any rate the staircase ended rather quickly and the floor was so immense that I could see it's curvature, but the light was too low to see anything beyond the immensity of the space. I walked on, directly away from where the stairs landed and after several dozen minutes the darkness began to turn a dull red and then this weird bronze pink and I followed the shifting gradient, keeping the brightest hues front and center, along the curving floor and there was a massive pounding that kicked through the air and thumped inside my lungs so bad that it was starting to hurt and I walked on and on and on until the intensity of the dullness, the sheer missingness of presence was making my head hurt as bad as my chest and I fought to resolve it and it came into focus and then I realized I wasn't breathing and the sound of my teeth grinding woke me up at 5 in the morning. It was awful. I learned nothing.
I'm not afraid tonight though. I guess, a huge part of what makes us fear is the not knowing. I don't need to know what exactly it is, or why it is, all I need to know is where the boundary of safety is. Where the envelope ends. And now I know.
I'll show you tomorrow. Whenever that is.
///Talvin Singh - "Soni" ...and then...
Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
Showing posts with label talvin singh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label talvin singh. Show all posts
3/25/11
7/19/10
Post-Meta-Psuedo Garbage Nonsense
Nearly a year and a half after the fact, I think I finally understand it. A while back, I flew into an absolute rage over an interpretive classroom discussion about Paul Auster's novel City of Glass and how everyone was going on and on about post-modern this and post-modern that and how the book was a post post-modern deconstruction of post-modernism. Then began the talk of the meta-text and the meta-narrator and, for all I care, the twice baked potato and the refried bean. For me, the entire thing hit a boiling point of ridiculousness that has irritated me to this day.
The main thing that absolutely grated me was the lack of creative thought going into the delineation of what is clearly one period of literary construction shifting into a new period of construction. Is the next period going to be meta-post-post-modernism? I feel like a huge part of what is confining the ability to meaningfully describe and analyze literary constructions is that the people who are doing it are being grown into a more and more strictly controlled framework of knowledge. Unfortunately as the tags used to describe the framework are simplified from exacting coordinates into smears of qualitative judgments they become strung together into descriptors for increasingly complex scenarios of literary construction and then you end up with a cloud of tags instead of analysis of an authors's work. And then, peering into the tag cloud and seeing that it is full of largely meaningless word associations in the context of describing what, in this case, Paul Auster's novel does, frustration takes root (at least it did for me).
But also, I think, even more than that, language is becoming more and more compartmentalized so that every single individual scrap of information is developing its own term. Its the opposite of 1984 and Newspeak. I guess as the body of discourse grows, it becomes inevitable that the words and terms and phrases needed to navigate it will grow in complexity and number, but when does that turn into picking tags out of a hat and saying: okay, that's that. That's what it is and it's no longer up for discussion.
That's necessary to an extent because otherwise the body of literary production would quickly out grow the ability to describe its functions, but I suppose my major concern back then was the arbitrary nature of the tagging. The descriptive term seemed to be affixed simply because it wasn't anything else entirely, so clearly it must be post. Which is okay in some respects, but once the thing that was like nothing else began to be emulated how can they also be post-*? They can't be post if they are happening now and in the same vein of the thing like no other thing before it, but like many things after it.
To the point though, I finally understand it. The tagging is not necessarily an effort to describe the thing it is affixed to, as it is an effort to DATE and LOCATE the thing and establish it's relative relationship to the other things surrounding and drawing from and contributing to it. And that's why calling something post-* meta-* and "whatever else describes a relationship of one thing to another"-* is important. The volume of things being produced and the ever increasing pace of new voices and shared information and production is why they are largely meaningless as explicit descriptors beyond the simplicity of "this came after that, but before the other thing." Their use and over use is more a symptom of growth and discussion than it is an indication of a lack of questioning contributors or thoughtful contributors more interested in the material being analyzed than sounding vague chic.
When you get into a group discussion about these things, over simplifications happen and thats when the relational tags begin to be characterized by their interpretive content instead of their connective tissue and you run into things like "that's what it is and that is that", where the things identity is really a matter of opinion and not a matter of course. With relational things it's a matter of perspective. Am I looking north or am I facing south, am I upwind or downwind or in another state altogether. When questions start to point to things like what does it smell and taste like, what does it do, what does it make, what is the sum of its pieces, relational orientations (and by extension the tag system) isn't much help, but is easily misappropriated and taken to task on issues and ideas it might've been meant to solve at its start, but issues and ideas it is hard pressed to positively impact now.
I hope I put my revelation into some meaningful sentences. At least now I know why I was so angry and disappointed almost a year ago. Sometimes it takes a while to see the value in what you would flush away as a token gesture. Sometimes there really is no value and it's a virtual artifact that's simply comfortable to the touch, but once in a while as you turn it over in your hand it becomes clear, at least to you, why it's still circulating from one hand to another.
So Paul Auster, I apologize. You're not a hack. You just filled the plate with more food than people could digest and some of them threw up. You're not around to clean it up, and you shouldn't have to. Governing an audiences reception and analysis of what you do is about as realistic as driving a car by standing on its roof rack and pointing your fingers. The best any of us can do is to let them drive where they may and, if it get's interesting, hold on for the ride.
///Talvin Singh - "Light" Bubbly, but smooth, like a mimosa. Pleasant and unobtrusive and better than that track on Classical Thunder your mom sent you in the hopes that it would somehow feed your brain with genius. Turns out the jewel case made an okay mouse pad once it got good and scuffed from performing coaster duty. Put away the mail order meditation music. Pick up some Singh and enjoy your working, hopefully fizzed, lunch break.
The main thing that absolutely grated me was the lack of creative thought going into the delineation of what is clearly one period of literary construction shifting into a new period of construction. Is the next period going to be meta-post-post-modernism? I feel like a huge part of what is confining the ability to meaningfully describe and analyze literary constructions is that the people who are doing it are being grown into a more and more strictly controlled framework of knowledge. Unfortunately as the tags used to describe the framework are simplified from exacting coordinates into smears of qualitative judgments they become strung together into descriptors for increasingly complex scenarios of literary construction and then you end up with a cloud of tags instead of analysis of an authors's work. And then, peering into the tag cloud and seeing that it is full of largely meaningless word associations in the context of describing what, in this case, Paul Auster's novel does, frustration takes root (at least it did for me).
But also, I think, even more than that, language is becoming more and more compartmentalized so that every single individual scrap of information is developing its own term. Its the opposite of 1984 and Newspeak. I guess as the body of discourse grows, it becomes inevitable that the words and terms and phrases needed to navigate it will grow in complexity and number, but when does that turn into picking tags out of a hat and saying: okay, that's that. That's what it is and it's no longer up for discussion.
That's necessary to an extent because otherwise the body of literary production would quickly out grow the ability to describe its functions, but I suppose my major concern back then was the arbitrary nature of the tagging. The descriptive term seemed to be affixed simply because it wasn't anything else entirely, so clearly it must be post. Which is okay in some respects, but once the thing that was like nothing else began to be emulated how can they also be post-*? They can't be post if they are happening now and in the same vein of the thing like no other thing before it, but like many things after it.
To the point though, I finally understand it. The tagging is not necessarily an effort to describe the thing it is affixed to, as it is an effort to DATE and LOCATE the thing and establish it's relative relationship to the other things surrounding and drawing from and contributing to it. And that's why calling something post-* meta-* and "whatever else describes a relationship of one thing to another"-* is important. The volume of things being produced and the ever increasing pace of new voices and shared information and production is why they are largely meaningless as explicit descriptors beyond the simplicity of "this came after that, but before the other thing." Their use and over use is more a symptom of growth and discussion than it is an indication of a lack of questioning contributors or thoughtful contributors more interested in the material being analyzed than sounding vague chic.
When you get into a group discussion about these things, over simplifications happen and thats when the relational tags begin to be characterized by their interpretive content instead of their connective tissue and you run into things like "that's what it is and that is that", where the things identity is really a matter of opinion and not a matter of course. With relational things it's a matter of perspective. Am I looking north or am I facing south, am I upwind or downwind or in another state altogether. When questions start to point to things like what does it smell and taste like, what does it do, what does it make, what is the sum of its pieces, relational orientations (and by extension the tag system) isn't much help, but is easily misappropriated and taken to task on issues and ideas it might've been meant to solve at its start, but issues and ideas it is hard pressed to positively impact now.
I hope I put my revelation into some meaningful sentences. At least now I know why I was so angry and disappointed almost a year ago. Sometimes it takes a while to see the value in what you would flush away as a token gesture. Sometimes there really is no value and it's a virtual artifact that's simply comfortable to the touch, but once in a while as you turn it over in your hand it becomes clear, at least to you, why it's still circulating from one hand to another.
So Paul Auster, I apologize. You're not a hack. You just filled the plate with more food than people could digest and some of them threw up. You're not around to clean it up, and you shouldn't have to. Governing an audiences reception and analysis of what you do is about as realistic as driving a car by standing on its roof rack and pointing your fingers. The best any of us can do is to let them drive where they may and, if it get's interesting, hold on for the ride.
///Talvin Singh - "Light" Bubbly, but smooth, like a mimosa. Pleasant and unobtrusive and better than that track on Classical Thunder your mom sent you in the hopes that it would somehow feed your brain with genius. Turns out the jewel case made an okay mouse pad once it got good and scuffed from performing coaster duty. Put away the mail order meditation music. Pick up some Singh and enjoy your working, hopefully fizzed, lunch break.
5/30/07
old feelings 05/30/07
Subject : old feelings ain't nothing new
Posted Date: : May 30, 2007 11:29 PM
something i immediately miss about smoking cigarettes, beyond the non-specific sensations of wanting to smoke something, is having an excuse to go outside at anytime. not that i cant go outside anytime, i just cant exactly go outside and do pushups or go outside for a run at 2am. you gotta keep close to the lights outside your house or you might get shanked or something. you could just go outside and look up at the sky if you want, but it feels too flowery... too romantic. it's probably just my poor retarded notions getting in the way of me enjoying something i would otherwise enjoy. i guess everything doesnt have to be dark to be enjoyable. just some things. but anyway... the point is i miss cigarettes because they were my excuse to do some things i enjoyed doing but wouldn't do otherwise. which is nice to know. cuz now i dont need them for those purposes, or at least that singular purpose of going outside at odd hours.
i also recently thought about what would happen if i cheated on my gf. its a thought that crosses anyones mind when theyre hugely sexually starved... or intellectually starved... or cuddly starved... basically malnourished because their partner isnt near enough to water their needs whenever the ground beneath their feet gets a little parched... but anyway THE POINT IS after maybe twenty seconds of consideration i came to the conclusion that absolutely nothing good would come of it. then i made a huge bowl of mac and cheese with a ton of milk and ate until my face blushed. actually im gonna take a minute to eat some more.
alright that was awesome. these are all basically old feelings. at least the second and third thirds of it are. this being the third third. like everyone else i wish i could sleep on nights when the moon shines so clearly on my back. and i wish i could make people happy. or at least myself happy. ah well. lets hope im getting there. i think my greatest fear is probably stagnation.
///talvin singh - "one" a 12 minute track that opens up what i believe is his third album, called Ha. the most cerebral 12 minutes of indian electronica ive ever heard. the composition is as technically pleasing as it is aurally stimulating. the sound is, for lack of a better descriptor and sleepiness closing in, comforting like the songs of a mother to a baby's ears.
Posted Date: : May 30, 2007 11:29 PM
something i immediately miss about smoking cigarettes, beyond the non-specific sensations of wanting to smoke something, is having an excuse to go outside at anytime. not that i cant go outside anytime, i just cant exactly go outside and do pushups or go outside for a run at 2am. you gotta keep close to the lights outside your house or you might get shanked or something. you could just go outside and look up at the sky if you want, but it feels too flowery... too romantic. it's probably just my poor retarded notions getting in the way of me enjoying something i would otherwise enjoy. i guess everything doesnt have to be dark to be enjoyable. just some things. but anyway... the point is i miss cigarettes because they were my excuse to do some things i enjoyed doing but wouldn't do otherwise. which is nice to know. cuz now i dont need them for those purposes, or at least that singular purpose of going outside at odd hours.
i also recently thought about what would happen if i cheated on my gf. its a thought that crosses anyones mind when theyre hugely sexually starved... or intellectually starved... or cuddly starved... basically malnourished because their partner isnt near enough to water their needs whenever the ground beneath their feet gets a little parched... but anyway THE POINT IS after maybe twenty seconds of consideration i came to the conclusion that absolutely nothing good would come of it. then i made a huge bowl of mac and cheese with a ton of milk and ate until my face blushed. actually im gonna take a minute to eat some more.
alright that was awesome. these are all basically old feelings. at least the second and third thirds of it are. this being the third third. like everyone else i wish i could sleep on nights when the moon shines so clearly on my back. and i wish i could make people happy. or at least myself happy. ah well. lets hope im getting there. i think my greatest fear is probably stagnation.
///talvin singh - "one" a 12 minute track that opens up what i believe is his third album, called Ha. the most cerebral 12 minutes of indian electronica ive ever heard. the composition is as technically pleasing as it is aurally stimulating. the sound is, for lack of a better descriptor and sleepiness closing in, comforting like the songs of a mother to a baby's ears.
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