Nietzsche

Nietzsche has come up in a few conversations lately. It inspired me to read the Nietzsche I’ve been wanting to read for some time now. I was dissapointed, to say the least.

His The Case of Wagner is likely the worst bit of commentary on art I’ve ever read, excepting perhaps the occasional LiveJournal/myspace rant about recent literary dissapointments of ppl with no art crit. aspirations.

Nietzsche’s “critique” of Wagner’s work is shaped by a sad, petty set of adjectives: “idiotic/stupid,” “sick,” “subversive,” and “evil.” These are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for criticism- they herald the logical humiliation of the critic by the criticized work. They are in fact an admission. The reasonless, visceral hatred of any work has its place. I hate Elvis. We all suffer this. It has no place in lit/art criticism.

Besides these… charges, Nietzsche ascribes to Wagner many, many things: power, genius, pre-eminence in his contemporary field, etc. So, if we must discount his pathetic insults from the work, all we are left with are tacit praises of Wagner!

These are the only other accusations Nietzsche manages to bring: Wagner lacks melody in comparison to Bizet and his music is generally ugly. Anything lacks melody in comparison to Bizet! Carmen is in fact little but a sequence of melodies. There is more to a grand orchestral narrative of a proud nation than its whistle/sing-along-appeal, is there not? Wagner makes a point of this, quite blatantly.  Nietzsche ignores it. As far as ugliness… how can this be criticism? Nietzsche looks something like an old, bitter Icarus falling from the lit. crit. heights of The Birth of Tragedy to this painful end.

It has been said that “Nietzsche was Symbolism’s philosopher, Wagner it’s composer.” Wagner was a Symbolist. They were both decadents. Nietzsche *nearly* achieved the Symbolist aesthetic philosophical master-piece in The Birth of Tragedy, but failed. Ultimately, he mistook Symbolism’s relationship to Classicism. He took Puvis de Chavannes to be a naïve Giotto, Gauguin to be a hasty Raphael, and forgot al about Redon, Klimmt, Munch, and Dennis, amongst others. Saddly, he took Moreau and Khnopf at face value.

I refrain from calling him stupid nonetheless. He was purposeful. He knew what he wanted. In the end, the inventor of the übermensch may have suffered an excess of that “nostalgia for unity” he pretended to despise.

I think I will leave Nietzsche here. I had intended to do a more in-depth reading of his works, but I am already tired. There is a new decadence to exploit, and I have no time to reasonlessly whine about degradation, ugliness, low-class, etc. I want to move, move decisively on this indeffinite path towards a supposed future and move others with what I do.

The Begining

So, my grandfather- posted about him last week (?)- and I were talking. He told me that resurrection really means the new beginings we choose to create. For example, getting up in the morning and, whereas the routine would be to lazw about, deciding that you are going to go jogging and come home to make a good, non-pre-prepared breakfast.

I would shy away from the term resurrection, as I am quite orthodox in the sense that I reserve that term for Jesus. Nonetheless, I believe that I am begining a complete “new begining”- let’s call it “change in (existential) project” per Sartre.

I am graduating college. This means that everything in my life is about to change. I realize that I am in complete control as to whether this change will be good or bad. I choose good. I want to work. That is established. I want to work but give myself the time to be creative and seek bigger things for myself. It’s been said before. So, what is changing?

My book is pretty much done. It will be a great landmark for myself. Even if ten ppl buy a copy. The fact that I believed I could, others believed I could, and I actually did means a tremendous amount to me. It’s only the begining. I could have kept my manuscripts and notebooks all to myself, stacked in some affectedly humble state with sublimated resentment. I won’t though. Already, I have come too far for that.

I went to a poetry reading type thing. It was awful. It was meaningful though, and not neccessarily in the strictly schadenfreude-esque sense: I realized that for some reason, even ppl who write things so radically opposed to my poetry can like my poetry. Not only that, but I have my own personal struggle to make poetry something to respect again. In workshops and class-rooms and blog-posts, ppl can mock the classical and modern approaches to writing poetry. In their heart of hearts though, no one can grudge it thoroughly, as it is something that stands the test of time. That is, the search for the truly beautiful and eternal will never truly lose its place.

So, new beginings. All I can say is this: Max and I have some great ideas that we’re working on. My first book is going to be something to be proud of. My new ideas are going to work out quite well. I will find my way back into the University soon enough (yeah, I will be trying to get to Grad school soon enough). Besides that, I have an entirely new and inspired attitude towards the visual arts. New printing techniques have made me want more. Now, I have my sights fixed on learning Mezzotint, Aquatint, etching of all varieties, monoprint, and screenprinting.

Take care I have some new blog ideas as well. Later, perhaps today, I’ll post some new stuff about artists and music- you know, the classic type veezy commentary.

My Last Word on Existentialism

I’ll keep this brief. Needs to be said though.

So, I realize now that everything I like about Existentialism is the stuff that is already a part of my religion. Everything besides that I dislike and find kind of silly in its far-outness. So, I can say now that I am not an Existentialist. I am not any kind of determinist either. Turns out I’m just an Episcopalian

Waterhouse, TG and Jungle- mi luv unnu pt. II

Again, Dancehall’s the topic.

I feel a need to explain my pov on Reggae vs. Dancehall. You see, I love Reggae. Some may not know this, but at some points of my life, I have hated Hip-Hop. As a child I loved Hip-Hop, but there was a point when, in my teen years, I was separated from it by being at Roosevelt middle school. Even when I hated Hip-Hop, I loved Reggae. It is and has been a large part of my life.

However, Dancehall is dearer to me than “Reggae.” This is how I see it: “Reggae,” in the minds of most people who are not from jamaica or have no authentic experience with Reggae, consists of the following: Bob Marley (& wailers), Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown, Mighty Diamonds, Midnite, Freddie McGregor, and a couple others. While I do like those artists ok, they are not what I love about Jamaican music. In fact, as a fan of dancehall, I frequently resent those artists (the exception being Freddie McGregor, who properly belongs in the Dancehall category and considers himself a Dancehall pioneer).

Sure, I like Bob Marley. In fact, when I was listening to Shabba Ranks and Madd Cobra (the big stars of early 90’s dancehall), I was trying to give Reggae a chance, and Bob Marley was the first thing I could relate to. However, i resent that people think that Reggae is Bob Marley, and everything else either came after or is inferior. That oppinion is so far from true, it is ridiculous. In fact, Dancehall began around 1970, predating Bob Marley’s first international success in 1975. The first real dancehall album- one of the greatest albums of all time, by the way- was 1970’s “wake the town,” by U-Roy. In Jamaica, people were loving Dancehall before Bob Marley was really popular. In a sense, “reggae” in the popular conception is an extremely small and incoherent mass of vaguely religious music.

Dancehall is music for the people. “Reggae” is music by Black Jamaicans for White hippies. That’s why I’m more comfortable with Dancehall- it encompasses every variety of Jamaican music that actual Carribean people go and listen to since the very late 60’s. Religious artists like Lynval and Luciano are Dancehall. Shabba Ranks and Ninja Man are Dancehall. Elephant Man and Ward 21 are dancehall in exactly the same way as Dillinger and Horsemouth Walker were Dancehall. “Reggae,” on the other hand, is for extremely elitists who don’t even believe the fundamental assertions of Reggae itself. As much as I love Reggae, people have to admit that Reggae is dead. The great things about it live on in the dancehalls. The bad things about it live on in the “classic,” boring, repetitive, and confused yet militant hold-outs.

So, next time someone tries to tell you that Buju Banton is not “Reggae”, agree exuberantly. He is not “Reggae.” He is better than Reggae, two generations removed from it at this point. “Wake the town and tell the people, bout the musical murdah commin your way!”

waterhouse, TG and Jungle- mi luv unnu pt. I

A few ppl have asked me about the name of my blog. So, here it is: the phrase is a line from a recording of Ninja Man at a soundclash between Jaro and Blackkat in 1980something. It’s the happiest sounding phrase I’ve ever heard- I’ve never heard anyone say something so thoroughly genuine than that haha.

So, this post is dedicated to Dancehall music (Dancehall is a modern form of Reggae music that uses a “chanting” or melodic rap style vocals and digital, drum and bass oriented beats, if you ain’t know ).

Somebody asked me last week, “what do you listen to?” That list has grown ungodly long and touches on essentially every type of music ever created. I stated so. However, I summed thing up by saying “as much as I love everything, the music that I feel is my music is Dancehall reggae.” I can’t really explain this. I am not Jamaican. I had to learn patois from talking to a limited number of Eugene peepz and listening to the music itself. I think I can guess one essential reason though:

The most happy that I have ever been was a particular night when I was about 15. I said I was staying at a friend’s house. Instead, my friends and I went to a rave. At this rave, I didn’t do any drugs besides taking some nodoze late into the night. There were 3 stages at this rave, and the first was quite boring (House music, meh). I wandered deeper into the forest to where I heard an outrageous sounding bass thumping. I walked in on the end of a dj’s set, and I waited about 1 minute to see the next dj. What happened next was something I could identify as a religious experience: the most incredible bass line I’ve ever heard started bumping, and the singing started: “cyaah say mi never dida warn yuh.” It was the most ecstatic experience of my life. It was a jungle set, and this 25 year old dude from Oakland was standing next to me skanking away. I aksed him what the hell was going on, more out of dumb wonder than anything. He said, ” haha, kid, this is JUNGLE!!”

That was the begining of the rest of my life as I reckon. After that set, the entire duration of which I interupted older cats dancing- some of them were Thizzing, so they didn’t mind it- to ask “what is this? Who is that singing? Where do you know about this from?,” I was a changed, much happier person. A couple of weeks later, after a coincidental random purchase of something I didn’t know was dancehall (I thought it was ska, my favourite music at the time and still some of my favourite) and falling completely in love with it forever, I began my collecting of Dancehall music.

I think that that moment in Dexter was the kind of “conversion” Sartre talked about. I knew my place in the world and understood all rudeboyism simultaneously. It was beautiful. The last 7 or 8 years of Dancehall fanship has been very good to me. When our friend J died, I was listening to Ward 21. When I was watching the presidential election results in 2000, I was bumping Blackboard Jungle, telling myself it would be ok. When I first told my girlfriend I loved her (the actual begining of our relationship- we were not dating at the time, I just said it ), I was listening to Sizzla on my speakers. To me, Dancehall is love.

I could write about this forever. And I will. But later- more posts to come on Dancehall music

Be e-Z massiv

Existentialism II

Ok, here’s some extended ideas about existentialism:

Pro: 1. Existentialism argues 100% against moral relativity. But not in the traditional way. In a way that moral relativism has no answer to: if we are all freedom, and we are all responsible for evey one of our own actions, there can be no moral relativity besides the fact that all action is absurd.

I hate sociology, so you can bet that I love this

What I don’t like about sociology/theories of moral relativity is that they are based only on circle and/or self-refferential logic. Example: “You can’t judge the actions of a person from another culture”; this is based on the non-falsifiable, technically religious premise that enculturation determines the structure of a person’s consciousness and/or individual actions. Thus the first statement is illogical and is derrivative of a system of belief. It is on the same logical grounds as me saying that Joseph Smith proved that Jesus came to America to convert the Native Americans.

Further, I’d like to take the opportunity to say that Sociology resembles a religion and is not even really a very good social science. Sociology has only statistical evidence to support it, and at that, statistics of society. Sociology must constantly ignore the fact that all other fields criticize sociological statistics as being significant in themselves. Sociological statistics more often are manipulations of statistics that are impossible to prove as meaningful in anyway, and thus, all sociology is self-refferential logic that is either unfalsifiable or shallow lies. THere you go, my oppinion on Sociology.

Con: I still think that the unconscious not existing is crap

edit: this post is still a work in progress

Existentialism

Being the extreme visualy oriented individual I am (don’t know if Sartre would approve of that statement ), I need to put ideas on paper. So, here I go: my thoughts on Existentialism!

Pro’s:

1. When Sartre said that man is freedom, not even just that he is free, he nailed it. There’s nothing I could add to this, it’s just perfect.

2. The understanding that nothing determines action but a freedom hit me like a ton of bricks. I sat there, trying to argue this, and there was nothing. Nothing determines things, “effect” things as they may. Too perfect.

3. There is no “supposed to” and no third person observer/judge over your consciousness. It’s just too true. People have tried to get away from this one for too long, it’s just time to accept this.

4. Bad faith. Yep, were’ll all in bad faith too much of the time. There’s no refuting this point either. I’m as bad on this point as anybody else, and everybody knows it

5. Angst. I think that Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, and Sartre agreed more than existentialism wants to admit on this point: we’re all running from the truth of our mortality, because it sucks. But i’s there, and the best thing is to face it.

Con’s:

1. There is no unconscious mind? Give me a break. This is a terribly dated notion. Of course there’s an unconscious mind: it doesn’t determine anything, but it sure as Hell exists.

2. The problem of impaired consciousness. It’s a reeeally tough one. Ouch. Sartre doesn’t do a good enough job at arguing this point, and that’s a tough spot for him.

3. The “existential project.” Too often Sartre says “the existential project does a)., howver b). blah blah blah. This is dangerously close to the very thing he used to refute the existenstence of unconsciousness!! If there is no “censor” in the Freudian sense, there can also be no “existential project” that is transcendent of anything, and the existential project can’t be said to “do” anything at all! Argh, this one ticks me off.

4. There is no God. Psh. I think Sartre damaged his philosophy by throwing in a personal belief that isn’t neccessary to his philosophical system. In fact, he does that too much for my liking. I think he should have left the question unanswered other than that God doesn’t determine individual human actions. That would have been true and I could have accepted that. Dunno.

5. Absurdity. I don’t think that acknowledging freedom and such neccessitates the belief that everything is absurd. It’s a logical leap. But we knew that Camus and Sartre were into logical leaps as soon as it jumped off, didn’t we?

So, there you have it. My take on existentialism. There’s little that I didn’t actually believe already as a Protestant Christian- it’s all free choice man, and you and God will figure it out- not the church and you.

My last word on this: Franz Kafka was the greatest existentialist. Dostoevskii comes second. Sartre and Camus weren’t half the artists that they were, and they should have stuck to the raw reasoning .

Das ist alles

Painter: Robert Delaunay

I’m not entirely sure how popular this guy is these days, but I’d like to throw in my two cents on his work. I’ll preface this by saying that I myself began working on sketches and engravings of circular forms after experiencing anew a recuring hallucination in which I looked at a person’s face, and all I saw was rotating wheels of color in place of eyes, mouths, noses, etc (don’t worry, I have very benign hallucinations that occur regularly ). When I discovered Delaunay, it was like I understod myself better than I could have without him.

Anyhow, so, this painter Robert Delaunay was a neo-impressionist at first. He wanted to be the next Seurat- a goal I could never find fault with. The more he studied and the more he painted, the brush strokes became increasingly large and no longer served the purpose of mixing in the beholders eye to create Seurat’s “ghost colors and shades.” He became increasingly fascinated, much like the Symbolists Alphonse Mucha, Frantisek Kupka, and the young Vassilii Kandinskii in pure colors. Of course, Gauguin and Maurice Denis had a lot to do with this.

The amazing thing that happened was this: based on Symbolist theory, Delaunay, Kupka, etc., started developing “Orphic” perspective- that is, a “universal identification with all places and things,” or identification with the unconscious all consciousnesses in the world. The late Symbolist, early Modernist Guillaume Apollinaire, one of Delaunay’s closest friends, dubbed the art “Orphic,” based on his Symbolist take on the decapatation of Orpheus- Orpheus becoming the purified Prophet/poet in his decapatation- and appropriated the “Orphic” perspective into his poetry. Orphic painting uses pure color fields, related closely to Maurice Denis and Gauguin’s art theory, to express the “essential truth” of an object. That is, if an object is green, you should paint it as green as it seems to you, regardelss of the darker and lighter patches of shadow and light, as the green is the “truth.”

Delaunay moved on to paint in circular forms, largely influenced by the Wagner cult’s ideas of “music” in art, the brilliant colored circle being the rhythmic truth of many objects in the world. I find this fascinating. I rate Delaunay higher than the later Kupka, although the early work of Kupka and Mucha is some of the best Art Nouveau ever conceived of. Sorry for the Art History rant, but I really had to put all this in one place, as I’ve read from three books on him and another on his friendship with Apollinaire lately. Sometimes, one discovers and artist and can’t figure out how so few ppl know about him/her. Hopefully that was interesting for you Thanks for reading. Check out this painting of his!