Adorno on modern music -- just discovered

[Larry Kart]

Passage from Theodor Adorno’s just discovered early 1940s attempt to render into English a key passage from his “The Philosophy of Modern Music”:

‘The shocks of being ununderstandable dealt by artistic technique during the age of their senselessness tilt over. They enlighten the senseless world. Advanced music sacrifices itself for this purpose. It has all its happiness in gaining the cognition of unhappiness. It has all its beauty in renouncing the illusion of beauty. It is liked by nobody, by individualists as little as by collectivists. It resounds [dies away, lingers] (verhallt) unheard, without an echo. If time gleamingly (strahlend) crystallizes around music that has been heard, unheard music falls into the empty time like a pernicious ball (globe) (Kugel). Advanced music aims spontaneously though unconsciously at this last experience which is made hour by hour by mechanical music, the experience of being totally forgotten. Its hope lies with the doom of the world. It is the true manuscript in the bottle.’

Batshit in some semi-comic respects, but one gets (at least I do) what Adorno is trying to say much better than later translations from English-speakers manage to convey.

More on this discovery:

https://persistentenlightenment.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/adornoms/

[danasgoodstuff]

Maybe the Who's Odorono was a jab at Adorno, makes about as much sense as any of the above.

[David Ayers]

Art after art goes out...

[johnblitweiler]

Reading that paragraph is torture just like writing it must have been.

[Larry Kart]

"It has all its happiness in gaining the cognition of unhappiness."

Story of my life.

[JSngry]

Maybe the Who's Odorono was a jab at Adorno, makes about as much sense as any of the above.

As much as we'd both surely like this to be...

http://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/donald-deskeys-odorono-jar

And still to this day: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Odorono-Powder-Fresh-Antitranspirante-Y-Desodorante-2.5-fl-oz/10850105

[Larry Kart]

Maybe the Who's Odorono was a jab at Adorno, makes about as much sense as any of the above.

As much as we'd both surely like this to be...

http://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/donald-deskeys-odorono-jar

And still to this day: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Odorono-Powder-Fresh-Antitranspirante-Y-Desodorante-2.5-fl-oz/10850105

What a beautifully named product. The emphasis on calamity is so good.

[Chuck Nessa]

Once again Adorno has lured Larry into the wormhole.

[JSngry]

Maybe the Who's Odorono was a jab at Adorno, makes about as much sense as any of the above.

As much as we'd both surely like this to be...

http://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/donald-deskeys-odorono-jar

And still to this day: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Odorono-Powder-Fresh-Antitranspirante-Y-Desodorante-2.5-fl-oz/10850105

What a beautifully named product. The emphasis on calamity is so good.

For that reason alone, you might enjoy The Who Sell Out, if you've not already done so. Not too often that I steadfastly recommend a 60s rock album for a nostalgia-free (as can be) a sustained/perfect balance between attitude and music and lyrics and performance, but this one, yeah, I do. All the other Who records in the world, YMMV, understood, mine definitely do (especially on the ones I haven't been motivated to listen to), but this one, yeah. But that's just me.

[Larry Kart]

Once again Adorno has lured Larry into the wormhole.

You mean the armpit?

[Chuck Nessa]

Once again Adorno has lured Larry into the wormhole.

You mean the armpit?

Me, giving too much credit again.

[Larry Kart]

Well, stepping back from an armpit is easier than getting out of a wormhole.

[johnblitweiler]

Maybe the Who's Odorono was a jab at Adorno, makes about as much sense as any of the above.

As much as we'd both surely like this to be...

http://beachpackagingdesign.com/boxvox/donald-deskeys-odorono-jar

And still to this day: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Odorono-Powder-Fresh-Antitranspirante-Y-Desodorante-2.5-fl-oz/10850105

"Armhole" - what a great word. Immediately you think of what the real holes in your body smell like

.

[JSngry]

Nose and ear holes, especially ear holes, all the hair that decides to grow in and out of there once a certain age is reached, what's the deal there, eh? Smell not a problem, just hair. Where's the Nair For There?

[danasgoodstuff]

...and "Made in Canada" where they know about such things!

[AllenLowe]

the above by Adorno is extremely similar to something Han Bennink said in an interview not too long ago; I paraphrase but essentially he said 'our music has no future.'

sometimes one has to take a stand against middle class aesthetic values.

Edited April 22, 2015 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

"The world -- and any eligible bachelor in it -- could be hers."

[johnblitweiler]

Jim, how do you know your ears smell good?

[JSngry]

I have 'em checked each week with one of those machines at the grocery store.