prem@eagle.UUCP (Swami Devanbu) (08/01/85)
<Begin Subdued hisses and sputters>
This missive is by way of expressing distress at the near-total
lack of reviews, comments etc in recent times on non-fiction
that has high-brow pretentions. For example, has anyone
read "The Minimal Self" ? What sayest thee on it ? Or the
even Low Low brow stuff, like "Deadly Gambits", or
"CIA- Secrecy and Democracy" ? Come on, laddies and lassies,
let your lights shine forth !
Let me start off-
Christopher Lasch says that minimal music, with its focus
purely on the nature of sound, with the exclusion of personal
expression, is a symptom of the primary narcissism of our
times.. a reluctance to accept the essential sovereignity and
seprateness of the self. Do you agree ? I don't. One could,
contrariwise argue that letting sounds (or brushstrokes, or
phrases) run wanton is a sign of a deeper kind of self
awareness.. the kind that dares to elucidate the deeper
levels of conciousness in artistic forms WITHOUT having
them filtered by cognitive processes.
Let's hear some arguments... are there any Melanie Klein
or Otto Kerberger fans out there who can shed a psychoanalytic
light (gloom ?) on this ?
Swami Devanbu
{allegra, ihnp4, ucbvax}!eagle!premgtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (08/07/85)
In article <1306@eagle.UUCP> prem@eagle.UUCP (Swami Devanbu) writes: >Christopher Lasch says that minimal music, with its focus >purely on the nature of sound, with the exclusion of personal >expression, is a symptom of the primary narcissism of our >times.. a reluctance to accept the essential sovereignity and >seprateness of the self. Do you agree ? I don't. One could, >contrariwise argue that letting sounds (or brushstrokes, or >phrases) run wanton is a sign of a deeper kind of self >awareness.. the kind that dares to elucidate the deeper >levels of conciousness in artistic forms WITHOUT having >them filtered by cognitive processes. Okay, I'll bite. It's drivel, but not a form of drivel that I haven't heard before. Usually, the critique of Minimalism comes from the theorists of the Left, who'd do the standard Adorno-esque reading of the thing. There is just such a book (out in Dutch, unfortunately-though I've heard that the British composer Michael Nyman is translating it. I saw it in Dutch) written by a Belgian named Wim Mertens. I'd also suppose that some of the underlying presuppositions (that an artistic experience that is in some way connected to the mechanisms of perception has the net effect of making one aware of oneself rather than the experience, for example....) might well be subject to the charge of ethnocentrism on a grand scale. The culture of Narcissism is, from my memory of it, shot through with just that sort of short-sightedness.Not what anyone ever said that mounting a major cultural critique was easy, mind you. I tried the same argument with Adorno's analysis of Wagner and the authoritarian personality in net.music.classical, and got barbequed for it from all the closet Romantics out there. You want excitement, try it again. If you're interested in looking into a decent presentation of semi-current experimental music, Scribners (Schirmer actually, though Scribners distributes the thing) has re-issued Michael Nymans "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond" I cannot recommend the thing highly enough. It is largely free of the sort of bias one often finds in writing on contemporary culture (contenting itself to merely describe what is/was being done and the motives for such work), and concentrates on a particular area in which there is very little collected and intelligent writing. THere's also a wealth of information about non- American types, which is also refreshing. Try it. Greg -- ________________________________________________________________________________ I recognize no method of living that I know/I see only the basic materials I mayuse./If you ask me, I may tell you/It's bee this way for years. -David Sylvian USENET: {cmcl2,decvax,ihnp4}!cornell!lasspvax!gtaylor ARPANET: gtaylor@lasspvax.arpa BITNET: gtaylor@crnlthry.bitnet Gregory Alan Taylor:162 Clark Hall:Cornell University:Ithaca,NY 14850:USA ________________________________________________________________________________