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Why does LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) hate Hard bop?


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Seems like he's had a lot of fun trying to reach his ideal though.

Yeah, clearly he wouldn't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Don't know how to nudge the Schubert sonata into the sentence, though.

Much of Schubert is sublime, but it would probably take a special interpreter to make it funky.

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Seems like he's had a lot of fun trying to reach his ideal though.

Yeah, clearly he wouldn't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Don't know how to nudge the Schubert sonata into the sentence, though.

Much of Schubert is sublime, but it would probably take a special interpreter to make it funky.

I know why he mentioned it, but I meant that I didn't know how to nudge the Schubert sonata into the sentence grammatically.

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"Bernadette"'s not about Bernadette, it's about the guy singing about Bernadette. The dude's vulnerable in an aggressively, deeply frightened way, but he's gotta keep it cool lest he become like everybody she's not being with to be with him precisely because he's not. An imperfect man defending his one glimpse of perfection by not acting out on his impulse to destroy that which would destroy it, and therefore him. And it's killing him to stay alive in such a world, but it would kill him even more not to.

That shit's about as real as it gets right there.

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Or to put it another way -- not every sentence that is ungrammatical by some standard doesn't make sense, but some sentences (like that one of West's) that are ungrammatical by some standard also do not make sense. West's sentence is like a dugout canoe -- as long as he gets A, B, and C into the canoe, he's satisfied that the relationship among A, B, and C that he feels is there will be evident to all. But it ain't. By contrast, the relationship between the singer and what he sings in "Bernadette" -- as you quite accurately describe it -- is not only perfectly, powerfully clear but also, you should pardon the expression, as grammatical as can be.

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms.

As for Schubert, I thought I understood what he meant. Seems like he was projecting his personal drama into Schubert's music and finding relative equivalency therein. Not unlike an emotional synesthesia, hearing music, seeing a life's tale. Last I looked, that was allowed, albeit at one's own peril, some of this music being what it is and all...

Seems like a waste of time to me, what with the readily availability of "Bernadette", but to each their own, and besides, who the fuck IS Cornell West anyway, really, that I should care about what he hears in Schubert or any other damn thing?

Come back Clem, all are forgived.

I see your visit to Texas has paid lasting dividends! :g

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms.

As for Schubert, I thought I understood what he meant. Seems like he was projecting his personal drama into Schubert's music and finding relative equivalency therein. Not unlike an emotional synesthesia, hearing music, seeing a life's tale. Last I looked, that was allowed, albeit at one's own peril, some of this music being what it is and all...

Seems like a waste of time to me, what with the readily availability of "Bernadette", but to each their own, and besides, who the fuck IS Cornell West anyway, really, that I should care about what he hears in Schubert or any other damn thing?

Come back Clem, all are forgived.

I see your visit to Texas has paid lasting dividends! :g

"Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms."

Exactly. And West's sentence turns the mutual understanding of the link between Schubert's sonata and what he feels about women into a matter of guesswork. What he would have needed to say was something like this, however fucking awkward it is: "My refusal to let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave is just as tempestuous as Schubert's piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960)." But then the Heathcliff and Catherine part of it are out the window -- unless, again, one thinks of a sentence as a dugout canoe: pile it all in; the relationships between what's in there are what I think they are, even if i didn't say it. To switch to music, would one say that of Ornette or Ayler? IMO, no.

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms.

As for Schubert, I thought I understood what he meant. Seems like he was projecting his personal drama into Schubert's music and finding relative equivalency therein. Not unlike an emotional synesthesia, hearing music, seeing a life's tale. Last I looked, that was allowed, albeit at one's own peril, some of this music being what it is and all...

Seems like a waste of time to me, what with the readily availability of "Bernadette", but to each their own, and besides, who the fuck IS Cornell West anyway, really, that I should care about what he hears in Schubert or any other damn thing?

Come back Clem, all are forgived.

I see your visit to Texas has paid lasting dividends! :g

"Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms."

Exactly. And West's sentence turns the mutual understanding of the link between Schubert's sonata and what he feels about women into a matter of guesswork.

I'm guessing that he guessed that people wouldn't have to guess what he meant.

Guess he guessed wrong, eh?

I mean, I got it, but then again, I can't speak the language right and don't read books. So maybe his first mistake was writing shit like that in a format that people who would get it wouldn't bother getting to.

Once again, too much Schubert, not enough Johnny Griffin.

arts-graphics-2008_1186146a.jpg

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I don't know that he's too much of anything, really. But I'm used to people who mean serious and speak careless (and vice-versa), and I've come to be able to pretty much, as my old man used to say, take a Dutchman by what he means, not what he says", although why he would single out a dutchman for that fact of life is something I never bothered to ask he. I figure it had something to do with growing up in Sterling, Illinois in the early 20th century & having friends with names like Orlo Spahtz (who for decades I thought was spell Olro Spots), but...you can't get to everything from everybody before they die, no matter how hard you try.

And if that phrase is offensive to any Dutchmen we have on-board here, I do apologize. Take a Texan by what he eats, not what he shits.

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My late wife grew up in Kansas, among people named Clyde Baysore and Delbert Finniger.

Then there was Paul Rhymer's great radio show "Vic and Sade," about Vic and Sadie Gook and their adopted son Rush, who lived in a vaguely fictionalized Bloomington, Il. Vic and Sade's best friends were Fred and Ruthie Stembottom. Vic's Lodge acquaintances at the the Drowsy Venus Chapter of the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way Lodge included Hunky J. Sponger, Y.Y. Flirch, J.J.J.J. Stunbolt, Harry Fie, I. Edson Box, Homer U. McDancy, H.K. Fleeber, Robert and Slobert Hink, Hank Gustop, and O.X. Bellyman. Then there was Rishigan Fishigan from Sishigan, Michigan; The Bright Kentucky Hotel; and Sick River Junction, Missouri (where the Missouri State Home for the Tall was located).

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You should check out some Vic and Sade:

http://vicandsade.net/episodes.cgi

Episode 213 concerns the Missouri State Home for the Tall

IMO (and I'm not alone here) Paul Rhymer was a genius. Invented a world (perhaps akin to that of the great Frank King comic strip Gasoline Alley, wrote a script for broadcast every weekday for some 15 years. In my later years at the Chicago Tribune I worked alongside a wonderful woman whose folks came from the same region of north central Illinois where Vic and Sade was set. She had the same sense of dry ironic humor, the same wry tone of voice.

Rhymer launched Vic and Sade on June 29, 1932, and between 1932 and 1946, he wrote more than 3500 episodes.

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Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

A Debussy fan with a shoe fetish. I've heard about that.

Grammar is like music theory - a set of rules/justifications based on what has been done before, and a guide to how to keep doing it. It's not a message from god or anything, not like "Bernadette".

Grammar is also a guide to ways of making sentences that make sense. The part of the quoted West sentence that refers to the Schubert sonata -- "like ... Schubert's tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!" -- can only mean that Schubert's sonata, like West, "will not let life or death stand in the way of [the] sublime and funky love that [it craves]!" The piece is tempestuous, but it ain't tempestuous enough to do that -- though I do recall the time Debussy's "Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun" leaked some semen onto my shoe. Further, as I showed above, while West's sentence can be recast to link up Heathcliff and Catherine to what West feels, I don't see how the Schubert sonata can be stitched into West's "I" -- i.e. in a coherent sentence. Suggestions are welcome.

Well, "making sense" is really nothing more than a consensual agreement to convey thoughts in mutually understood terms.

As for Schubert, I thought I understood what he meant. Seems like he was projecting his personal drama into Schubert's music and finding relative equivalency therein. Not unlike an emotional synesthesia, hearing music, seeing a life's tale. Last I looked, that was allowed, albeit at one's own peril, some of this music being what it is and all...

Seems like a waste of time to me, what with the readily availability of "Bernadette", but to each their own, and besides, who the fuck IS Cornell West anyway, really, that I should care about what he hears in Schubert or any other damn thing?

Come back Clem, all are forgived.

I see your visit to Texas has paid lasting dividends! :g

Are you serious? You probably are.

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