Moral Mandate?

[JSngry]

Well, if that's what you hear in it, that's what you hear. Why you hear it, I can't say, and I'd dare not speculate.

But that's not what I'm saying.

I'm not trying to get anybody "out of the way". No siree. Just trying to get friends, family, and other loved ones to kinda...wake up so they don't get run over. It's not a question of "get out of the way" so much as it is, "here's the road we're on, here's where it's going, enjoy the trip and don't get intimidated by all the 18-wheelers that act like they want to run you over. But don't try to call the cops on them either, because they ain't gonna come."

Now, if after all that, folks decide that this isn't the road they want to be on, hey, cool. Now you know, and now you can decide based on something other than just the seemingly crazy driving of others. Side roads and back roads exist for any number of reasons, not all them disreputable. Far from it.

Just don't blame the freeway for being what it is, that's all I'm saying. Lots of people still want to get on and drive 45 in the fast lane and then they don't understand why people get pissed off at them. If you're gonna get on it, then know what the game is and proceed accordingly. It's your road too, but not every lane on it is. It's a swell ride and you don't have to drive like a maniac to enjoy it. But you do need to recognize & observe some basic minimum standards of it's self-contained/created reality lest you do get run over.

And ain't nobody wanting that.

[Larry Kart]

Well, if that's what you hear in it, that's what you hear. Why you hear it, I can't say, and I'd dare not speculate.

But that's not what I'm saying....

Just don't blame the freeway for being what it is, that's all I'm saying. Lots of people still want to get on and drive 45 in the fast lane and then they don't understand why people get pissed off at them. If you're gonna get on it, then know what the game is and proceed accordingly. It's your road too, but not every lane on it is. It's a swell ride and you don't have to drive like a maniac to enjoy it. But you do need to recognize & observe some basic minimum standards of it's self-contained/created reality lest you do get run over.

And ain't nobody wanting that.

You use the "freeway" image, the "fast lane" image, and the phrase "lest you do get run over," and you don't see why a reasonable person might feel that "the 20th century is over now" sounds fairly pissed-off and not like a simple statement of fact? There's no connection between "is over now" and "get run over"? You've told several stories about being justifiably pissed-off by various annoying old farts (e.g. that club owner); the desire to visit violence on people who won't get out of your way is natural enough.

[T.D.]

At the risk of sounding foolish, I'm really not sure that "freeway" and "fast lane" images are highly applicable to the world of classical music.

The tastes of the mainstream buck-paying classical music "market", as exemplified by Mark's Chamber Music Society of Detroit anecdote, change at a glacial pace ("glacial" may be too fast, given the global warming trends). And opera's little different, although it's a little more open (to cite one of the composers who elicits the most violent reactions in said "market", Berg's Wozzeck has a relatively secure place in the repertory), and has a directorial element.

It's been this way for a long time, and seems almost unique in modern culture. That's why the issue seems almost intractable to me; I don't argue about it any more. It's really hard to analyze, because the "institution" of classical music is heavily subsidized, making economic/market issues difficult to clarify. Although, in the simplest terms, the tastes of the biggest donors carry a whole lotta weight...

Edited January 9, 2008 by T.D.

[JSngry]

You use the "freeway" image, the "fast lane" image, and the phrase "lest you do get run over," and you don't see why a reasonable person might feel that "the 20th century is over now" sounds fairly pissed-off and not like a simple statement of fact? There's no connection between "is over now" and "get run over"?

No there's not, at least not a malevolent one. In fact, I've gotten run over myself more than once. Hardly the end of the world. More like a renewal, in fact. Live and learn, and hopefully share the lessons. Frankly, you sound a bit paranoid about this whole "time passing" thing. Go with that if you must, but leave me out of it. My goal is to include, not eradicate, forward. Forward will happen, people do get left behind, and it's not always necessary, nor pretty, that they do.

And frankly, I'm not a kid myself, so I myself have a vested interest in not turning into a grumpy old man who rants and rails against that which they do not understand simply because they make no attempt to understand it. Having spent the first half of my life in the company of many, many, such people, I feel it to be an act of enlightened self-interest to discourage - by putting some "ideas" out there for consideration - as much as popssible the possibility of spending the second half of my life surrounded by more of the same. I don't fear getting old, but I have no interest whatsoever in becoming a stranger in my own world.

You've told several stories about being justifiably pissed-off by various annoying old farts (e.g. that club owner); the desire to visit violence on people who won't get out of your way is natural enough.

"visit violence on people who won't get out of your way"? Are you fucking serious?

Wow...

Dude, it's a fact of life - different people move at different speeds on different roads that only sometimes intersect. Annoyance is inevitable (and on both sides - that club owner had every bit as much right to be annoyed at me as did to be at him, it was his room and his money), but violence? You seem to equate being pissed off with actually being angry. Hell man, it's just another reality afaic, same as happiness, hunger, whatever. People only get angry about shit like this when they think it's not supposed to happen. I harbor no such illusions, and in fact have quite often been able to laugh at shit that at the same time pisses me off.

You've probably known some people like this before. If not, hey, here one is. Carpe diem, bitch.

[JSngry]

Carpe diem, bitch.

Apologies to Dave Chapelle for that one, btw.

[Larry Kart]

Carpe diem, bitch.

Apologies to Dave Chapelle for that one, btw.

No problem. As Freud (among others) said, All humor is based on hostility.

[JSngry]

Is this where I claim being intimidated by a hostile moderator?

[JSngry]

Carpe diem, bitch.

Apologies to Dave Chapelle for that one, btw.

No problem. As Freud (among others) said, All humor is based on hostility.

Freud, Europe, "Classical" music, hey, the biggest benefit of the 20th Century, bar none, was being able to begin to get wired into non-European paradigms in a viable manner, what with the world getting "smaller" and all. Of course, that creates a whole 'nother set of "issues", big issues, but having centuries worth of "pat answers" at one's disposal for all things "cultural" ain't one of 'em. A mixed bag, that one is, and the more things change, etc., but still...

Try this one - "hostility" is hard-wired into all of us. We'd not survive without it. "DAMN, that rain shit SUCKS! Fuck THIS! Why don't we move inside?" So "identifying" it is akin to discovering air, it's always there somewhere, and we kid ourselves - and quite possibly run the risk of creating more overt forms of it - if we think it's not.

Edited January 9, 2008 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

[

Freud, Europe, "Classical" music, hey, the biggest benefit of the 20th Century, bar none, was being able to begin to get wired into non-European paradigms in a viable manner, what with the world getting "smaller" and all. Of course, that creates a whole 'nother set of "issues", big issues, but having centuries worth of "pat answers" at one's disposal for all things "cultural" ain't one of 'em. A mixed bag, that one is, and the more things change, etc., but still...

Try this one - "hostility" is hard-wired into all of us. We'd not survive without it. "DAMN, that rain shit SUCKS! Fuck THIS! Why don't we move inside?" So "identifying" it is akin to discovering air, it's always there somewhere, and we kid ourselves - and quite possibly run the risk of creating more overt forms of it - if we think it's not.

Jim -- More and and more your 21st Century sounds like a slightly modified version of the '60s, minus the psychedelic drugs.

[rockefeller center]

Sounds all like timeless bullshit to me.

[Chuck Nessa]

Sounds all like timeless bullshit to me.

Inclined to agree.

[JSngry]

As am I, strange though it may seem.

[JSngry]

[

Freud, Europe, "Classical" music, hey, the biggest benefit of the 20th Century, bar none, was being able to begin to get wired into non-European paradigms in a viable manner, what with the world getting "smaller" and all. Of course, that creates a whole 'nother set of "issues", big issues, but having centuries worth of "pat answers" at one's disposal for all things "cultural" ain't one of 'em. A mixed bag, that one is, and the more things change, etc., but still...

Try this one - "hostility" is hard-wired into all of us. We'd not survive without it. "DAMN, that rain shit SUCKS! Fuck THIS! Why don't we move inside?" So "identifying" it is akin to discovering air, it's always there somewhere, and we kid ourselves - and quite possibly run the risk of creating more overt forms of it - if we think it's not.

Jim -- More and and more your 21st Century sounds like a slightly modified version of the '60s, minus the psychedelic drugs.

Well, the 60s were part of the 20th century, and the 20th century...

[JSngry]

And the Astrodome. Dammit, we are keeping the Astrodome.

[BruceH]

Can we also keep the Zombies?

[Guest Bill Barton]

I'm voting for the psychedelic drugs in addition to the miniskirts, cow thighs & go-go boots, all of which may help make 20th Century chamber music more *accessible* (sheesh, where is Charlotte Moorman now that we need her?)

[JSngry]

Charlotte Moorman died of breast cancer, I believe. Sad.

[JSngry]

[Larry Kart]

Love her Little Rock accent.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Charlotte Moorman died of breast cancer, I believe. Sad.

Indeed she did, in 1991.

Charlotte Moorman on UbuWeb

[7/4]

seems like just yesterday...

[JSngry]

Yep.

[Teasing the Korean]

As a vinyl junkie, few things thrill me more than finding obscure 20th century longhair stuff on small labels by composers who barely or never made it to CD. Lots of this stuff is amazing.

[Larry Kart]

As a vinyl junkie, few things thrill me more than finding obscure 20th century longhair stuff on small labels by composers who barely or never made it to CD. Lots of this stuff is amazing.

In that vein, I have an LP of Hall Overton's classical stuff. Very interesting IIRC. Another fairly obscure good one (actually one-and-a-half -- a whole LP on Desto, maybe, plus half of an old Columbia LP) is of things by Lester Trimble, who again IIRC made knowledgeable use of jazz elements at times.

[Larry Kart]

Listened again to Overton and Trimble (actually the CRI LP I thought of as entirely Overton has one work by him (his final one, "Pulsations" from 1972, the year of his fairly early death, at age 52) and one by ... Trimble ("In Praise of Diplomacy and Common Sense"). The Trimble I did listen to alongside Overton's "Pulsations," was his "Panels I" (from 1969) for a semi-goofy lineup: electric guitar, baritone sax, Farfisa organ, electric harpsichord, piccolo, percussion, violin, viola, cello, and bass. Far out, man. Actually, it's a fine, somewhat aleatory piece (the details of how it's aleatory are not spelled out). For once, though, the "freedom of choice in performance" elements, whatever they are, seem to have been built into the language of the piece rather than serving as a kind of sauce -- the damn thing moves from moment to moment with a mysterious, loping looseness. I thought at one point of the "Id Monster" from "Forbidden Planet." And it's deeply, naturally jazzlike music at times -- wish I knew who the bari and electric guitar players were. The crucial part though is probably the percussionist's, on kettle drums and playing almost throughout. It's something like Wolpe's swooping writing for kettledrums in his Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Piano, and Percussion. By contrast, Overton's "Pulsations" was a disappointment. The jazz elements were surface-y, and the whole piece had a short-breathed, declamatory air; whatever the zest of a particular phrase might be, Overton's next gestures tended to sound obvious, as though his sense of variation, which ought to have been fairly "free" given his jazz background, got all rigid in when he donned his classical robes.