tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591129538025550902.post136296665827558814..comments2023-11-17T08:19:25.366+00:00Comments on The auld lang syne.: ...nor his field.Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03409235823234923798noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591129538025550902.post-14054000541782118522009-02-27T03:39:00.000+00:002009-02-27T03:39:00.000+00:00The funny thing is, BB, that I hate this post. It...The funny thing is, BB, that I hate this post. It makes no sense. Made for a satisfying release to spill it all out, but in terms of making a defensible position it's kinda garbage. I was writing from an emotional place, I think. <BR/><BR/>And truthfully, I wish you'd break your rule and its concomitant silence more often. Your insights are as rich as your very fine taste.Bryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03409235823234923798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591129538025550902.post-31090322552630839692009-02-25T05:22:00.000+00:002009-02-25T05:22:00.000+00:00I think I acknowledged Mencken's place in time--an...I think I acknowledged Mencken's place in time--and all relative technological fixities, dutifully if implicitly. Perhaps not with the richness of historical detail as did you.<BR/><BR/>And while you make a strong point about the newness of the technology and precipitating musical exposure in 1919 vs the (inescapable) drubbing of music and its technology in our ears today my dilemma is the prickly and very much increasing role of the commentator/ critic. <BR/><BR/>Granted this all could very easily be the result of ambiguity in my writing--wouldn't be the first time.<BR/><BR/>Like the ACLU defending a Klansman I often find myself standing on the film-thin kinship of wretchedness when I defend the right--however inconsequentially, for some for this shit to see the light of readership. I'm happy the flood gates are open, sad to smell the water.<BR/><BR/>So when Mencken writes that it is the mark of the music lover to attempt to make his own music I make it a foregone conclusion that, given the formative moment during which the essay was written, and given that he could not have realistically foreseen our advancements, he would, nevertheless, have conceded their places in his general argument; the critic is making the same clumsy attempts as any unheard of Shreeveport garage band. His competitive urge is no less incriminating than any other musician's, minus--for now, largely, the yield of beauty.<BR/><BR/>That's my bother.<BR/><BR/>You're absolutely right, NOT hearing music is not an option anymore. That should be a clarion of good fortune for the folks at the ECM label, with their cultish thing for silence! <BR/><BR/>They might've unwittingly sewn the seed for the tranquility revolution to come! The antidote to ubiquitous bad melody fed through cranial usb's!!!Bryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03409235823234923798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591129538025550902.post-5969443894584621122009-02-24T16:24:00.000+00:002009-02-24T16:24:00.000+00:00I'm breaking my rule and commenting. I think it's ...I'm breaking my rule and commenting. I think it's important to remember that Mencken wrote his essay in a time when the main form of musical dissemination was sheet music. Victrolas and Grammaphones were still cutting edge technology. So, basically, if you wanted to hear something, it was either the concert hall, or play it yourself. It is now, officially, easier to listen to music, than not listen to music. Any music. Hell, even the shows at my dinky little shop end up on youtube the next morning, and then get an official cd release a few months later, which winds up on a music blog weeks before that. The only way listening can possibly get easier, would be the arrival of usb ports in our skulls.Brickbat Bookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04818524768121809706noreply@blogger.com