Kevin Marshall's America
Two teens involved in gang assault (re: four kids jumped two kids at a party, lest anyone think this involved actual gang activity) were in court and got a talking to from the judge, who in his attempt to look tough and stern instead came across as a woefully out of touch curmudgeon .
Last week, Jacon asked two other teens who pleaded guilty to the attacks about pot use and felt he did not get honest answers.
“What’s going on up at that high school?” the judge asked Monday. “Is everybody smoking pot up there? There must be a cloud of smoke around the whole place.”
These goddamn kids, they’re smoking the mara juwana and it’s making them LIE and beat each other up!
“I want you to knock off this stuff,” Jacon said. “If you don’t, I am going to put an ankle bracelet on you and it won’t look like something you’ll see in Vogue magazine.”
And I don’t even know what that means!
By the way, when you come across kids from all walks of life with no respect for legal authority? This is why.
I was excited when news broke a few months back that Andrew Bird would be playing at the Troy Music Hall, but I didn’t get tickets until mere hours before the event.
I was exposed to Bird through a review of 2009’s “Noble Beast,” which was to that point his most accessible solo album. A violinist since age four, Bird has gained a following for his complicated compositions that also incorporate whistling and a highly underrated singing voice that is as graceful as it is earnest. He has name recognition with fans of independent music, but most display their enthusiasm for him in the form of twee; isn’t he so precious, that guy who plays violin, whistles, and brings a sock monkey onto stage with him?
Long story short, I had a desire to go but nobody that was actually willing or able to go with me. So I was going to pass on the opportunity until I received an unexpected and desperate message from a friend of mine asking if I had any interest in getting tickets. It was just after 2:00pm, and with the post-lunch desire to do anything to make the rest of the day go by as quickly as possible, I called her, got online, and bought tickets. I managed to get two seats on the floor. I was shocked that they were available. When I picked up the tickets later that evening at the will call window, the guy manning the window lit up and informed me that I managed to snatch them up just moments after they had become available. I don’t know what the circumstances were. I was just glad to have them.
Before the show, the friend and I had dinner at Holmes and Watson’s on Broadway.
She had moved to Troy from the Mid-West a little over a year and while growing to love the city, had never been to the Troy Music Hall. I told her about my own memories of the Hall and what little I knew of its history. When first constructed at the end of the 19th Century, the Hall was an auditory disaster. Everything sounded awful, which was an unforgivable sin in an era of chamber music. A large organ was installed that covered the entire wall behind the stage and not only fixed the problem, but resulted – accidentally – in creating an acoustic marvel renowned the world over.
It had been about two and a half months since we had last seen each other in person and a bit longer since we’d had anything resembling a meaningful conversation. We talked about the chaos of our lives and, of late, our shared propensity for isolation. Hers was due to a change in profession and pursuit of a goal she set for herself to launch her own marketing company. Mine is more personal and far-reaching. I’ve been unwilling of late to make any connections on a meaningful level. At the age of 29, I have found myself with a dwindling number of friends who don’t have marriages, children, and other adult obligations preventing them from being there in the way they once were. Feelings of inadequacy are sandwiched with pre-existing despair and anxiety, feeding into a vicious cycle of isolation. Most nights are spent going out alone or staying in alone. The latter is not often, but occasionally, preferable. There are times when nothing makes me feel lonelier than other people.
We left understanding each other and where we’ve been, even if our individual issues and situations in life were unresolved. Can’t expect forty minutes to fix that, but it always helps to at least know that you’re not the only one.
The opening act was two or three songs into his set when we finally took our seats. Percussionist and electronic musician Dosh, who frequently accompanies Bird on tour and contributed to songs on his last two albums, strikes an unassuming presence. He wore a pale blue shirt, bore a naturally pale complexion, and had light brown hair. He was also, like so many others in his genre, remarkably thin. It’s as if electronic artists don’t have the time or inclination towards sustenance because it would get in the way of work. His performance space took up a small area of the Music Hall’s wide stage, creating a tight cubicle of soundboards, synthesized keyboard, and a drum set. Trapped inside the construct, sporting headphones and nodding to the beat, it was as if he was blissfully unaware of the presence of an audience. Thankfully, it didn’t come off as being aloof. It was more like were given a glimpse of him at his most isolated, focused, and content.
His compositions are not unlike British artist Jon Hopkins, who himself recently performed at EMPAC. Each song was dense and ambient, broken my moments of quiet reflection. Much of his work, like the headliner, is reliant on looped instrumentals. While constructing his songs he’d occasionally break out in something resembling a fit of tourettes, for example a sudden shaking of a tambourine or beating of drum cymbals. At the moment, it jars the listener and seems out of place, until a twist of a knob and pressing of a button creates a new backing track that melds perfectly into the sonic sculpture he’s melding in front of us.
His performance provided an interesting juxtaposition. Bookings for the Hall are largely pedestrian and unimaginative: chamber orchestras and masters of acoustic guitars who are respected but lack contemporary relevance and play to a much older crowd. But sound and music is sound and music, regardless of its method of delivery. The soundboards and tiny LED lights may have looked alien in front of and below those massive golden pipes, but the latter only enhanced and improved upon the former, the culmination of over a hundred years of evolution rooted in traditional sensibilities and architectural accidents. Dosh completed his set and very quickly waved to the crowd, then sheepishly took his leave as the lights came up for intermission.
The headliner, Andrew Bird, took the stage to thunderous applause that reverberated throughout the Hall. He walked with a purpose, first removing his scarf and carefully draping it over a set piece before taking his spot on the stage. He looked like an incarnation of The Doctor from the UK serial “Doctor Who” that had been trained in the Suzuki method.
Bird performed as a one-man orchestra. He plays his violin alternately as a percussion instrument, mandolin, and in its proper form, using loops to give his songs more depth than anything you’ll hear from a five or six piece outfit. In addition to the melding of traditional instrumentation with new technology, he also crosses genres. His second song, for example, was a fascinating combination of Mediterranean folk and ragtime jazz.
He also played “Passive,” a song about the inherent frustration in arguing with someone who doesn’t care. It’s told from the point of view of the person making the argument, but afterwards Bird revealed that he was actually the target of the hostility. He based the song on his relationships with other people, and in particular a college roommate who once got very angry at him for his passive attitude and lack of reciprocation of the roommate’s attempts at friendship.
“Sometimes,” he told the audience, “doing nothing is the worst thing.”
Halfway through the set, Bird introduced a new song that was originally commissioned for the Muppet Movie. He poured everything into those songs, he told the crowd, but the executives only took the one that was composed entirely of whistling. I ached for him. That fetishizing is an all too familiar theme for Bird, who is sometimes treated as if the whistling and other forms of expression are mere gimmicks. This becomes apparent later in the evening when during an interlude, a man from the crowd yells out “will there be snacks?!” It’s a reference to an inside joke created by those aforementioned fans on the internet (there’s even a Facebook page you can like called “When Andrew Bird says there will be snacks”). Bird held in an exasperated sigh, paused, and relented.
“…there might be,” he announced to a combination of applause from some and utterances of confusion from others.
The abandoned Muppet song, “Lazy Projector,” is heart-wrenching and one of Bird’s best. The executives that passed on it weren’t just inconsiderate of his time. They were completely mad. He followed the song with a cover of “It’s Not Easy Being Green” that emphasized the poetic quality of the lyrics and literally brought tears to my eyes.
Bird ended his set with an energetic riff that would make Springsteen shrink with shame and envy. He came back out for his mandatory encore and performed three covers on guitar: a rural bluegrass piece I didn’t recognize but sounded fabulous, a cover of the Handsome Brothers’ “So Much Wine,” and an old Delta blues tune (Charley Patton’s “I’m Going Home”). He left to his second standing ovation of the evening.
Me and my friend sat breathless for a moment.
“I don’t usually do this,” she said, “but I need to get my picture taken with him.”
I smiled, but winced a bit. Thinking of our earlier dinner conversation, I had put myself in Bird’s position and the last thing I would want to do is deal with the throngs of hipster humanity desperate for his approval. I didn’t say anything, but she read my hesitation.
“I know.” She said. “But that sort of comes with the rock star thing.”
She was right, of course.
We went out to the lobby. The merchandise table was swarmed, manned by Dosh and a crew member, but no sign of Bird himself. Despite my apprehensions towards inconveniencing and putting out the famous with my polite and brief praise, I waited with her until the end. She was eager to meet him, and who was I to deny her that? Also, where the Hell else did I have to be?
He didn’t come out and it became apparent he wasn’t going to, so we took our leave and walked downstairs. We exited the music hall and a short, black-haired kid with facial hair that screamed for acceptance sang with friends circling around him and bopping to an imagined beat. A young girl shoved a flyer in my face and I said, despite my best efforts to the contrary, “oh please, no.” My friend laughed, took the flyer and showed it to me. It was for a show they were going to perform that weekend at a coffee house in Albany. As I expressed some regret at my rude dismissal, I heard the singer behind me transition to the most cringe-inducing, embarrassing rap performance I’d ever heard in person. I burst into laughter as we continued walking towards her car.
We were almost at the intersection of Third and Fulton when she reconsidered. “Maybe we can still catch him.”
“Probably,” I said. Again, I had nothing better to do and her eagerness to meet the man overrode any hesitancy I had.
We went back up to the lobby, where no fans were left and the crew was packing up. I faked, convincingly, interest in buying an LP and fretted not knowing which one I didn’t have (part of the ruse). When those options were exhausted, we waited out by the side entrance. We stood there about fifteen or twenty minutes, waiting with but standing far away from a group of younger enthusiasts. We discussed more of our lives of late, intermittently discussing if and when we would take our leave.
We finally did and I went home, alone. I logged into Facebook and, as is required in 2011, let everybody know the important news that I attended a concert I knew I would enjoy and did, in fact, enjoy it. I dusted off “Noble Beast” (metaphorically since it’s all on iPods and Macbooks now), the album that introduced me to Bird, and listened to it for the first time in over a year. I fell asleep to the instrumental bonus disc that accompanied the deluxe edition of the LP, “Useless Creatures.”
When I spoke with my friend the next day, she told me that Bird had, in fact, gone out the front door and directly across the street to Bacchus after the show and spent the remainder of the evening mingling with fans. Like so many other things, we would have accomplished our goals and not missed meeting someone if only we hadn’t decided to think too hard on it and taken an ill-advised trip around the corner.
Harvard cancer expert Ramzi Amri believes that the death of Steve Jobs was preventable.
The issue at hand is Jobs’ stubborn refusal to pursue conventional medicine, opting instead for “alternative medicine” quackery.
According to a 2008 Fortune article, Jobs for nine months pursued “alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid [an] operation through a special diet.” The Buddhist vegetarian took this approach from the time he was diagnosed in October 2003 until at least the end of July 2004, when he underwent surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.
By then the cancer was so far along Jobs had to lose his pancreas and duodenum in a “Whipple procedure.” The cancer also spread to all the major parts of his liver. “The only reason he’d have a transplant,” wrote Amri, “would be that the tumor invaded all major parts of the liver, which takes a considerable amount of time.” Amri said the Whipple procedure and liver transplant were clear signs the cancer was out of control and should have been stopped earlier.
The condition might have been nipped in the bud if Jobs had acted right away. Jobs’s cancer manifest in neuroendocrine tumors, which are typically far less lethal than the “pancreatic adenocarcinoma” that make up 95 percent of pancreatic cancer cases.
Amri isn’t the first to make the observation, as the 2008 article did spur some discussion at the time about alternative medicine. But he’s the first high profile figure that is an expert in his field to voice such an opinion.
Others aren’t likely to follow. Amri is careful to insist that this be viewed as his own personal opinion shared on his own personal space and not to be construed as academic. Jobs was a pathologically private person considering his stature, and as such did not subject himself to much in the way of examination. This extends to his personal health, to the point where he would refuse to comment on concerns about his health even though he would appear in front of packed conferences and on film looking gaunt, frail, and speaking with a harsh scratch in his voice.
But it’s still a valid observation and one worthy of further exploration.
Alternative medicine’s role in health is wholly speculative. It’s also a placebo effect. If you need to pursue it in the same way some need to hold a cross and/or mutter an offer to their God(s), then all the more power to you. But you do yourself and potentially the rest of the world a true disservice when you use that in lieu of, rather than in addition to, treatment that could save your life.
IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon is dead at the age of 33.
Wheldon, a British native, found fame in the United States as a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 in 2005 and 2011. He died after a crash earlier today at the Izod Indy Car World Championships in Las Vegas.
A touch on a turn resulted in a multi-car collision that sent vehicles careening into the air and against the wall. Drivers Ryan Briscoe, Davey Hamilton, and others became emotional while recounting the scene to USA Today, noting it as one of the worst – if not the worst – crashes they’ve ever witnessed.
Wheldon himself was contributing to a three-part series for the publication, providing a first-person narrative of his bid to win the championship and the $5 million that came with it. In the second installment published yesterday, Wheldon spoke of issues with the car that, ironically, were putting it three miles per hour off the pace. In other words, too slow.
In the aforementioned piece, Wheldon expressed nothing but confidence, admiration, and appreciation for his crew for all the hard work they’ve committed in preparation for today’s race.
The truly grim note comes right in the introduction, when it’s noted that his final contribution will recap the actual race day. Obviously that series will remain unfinished, but that’s the least of what Wheldon leaves behind.
If homosexuality is still struggling for acceptance in modern society, it was verboten if not a capital crime in 1957. That was when Frank Kameny was fired from his job at the Army Map Service due to the discovery of an earlier arrest (resulting from entrapment) in a mens room. He fought back and became an early and continued leader for equal rights.
Closure wouldn’t come from the singular incident until June of 2009, when an openly gay man was appointed as the director of the Federal Civil Service. Kameny was invited to the swearing in ceremony, where in a prepared speech he was given a full apology and the promise of a better tomorrow.
But he did more than stand up once. He continued writing, advocating, and speaking right up until his passing last Tuesday.
From The New Republic:
The gay rights movement is widely considered to have begun with the Stonewall Riot of 1969, when, rather than succumb to police intimidation as they always had before, a group of patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back. “Stonewall” has become enshrined in American history as the Lexington and Concord of gay rights. But this reading of history gets it wrong. While Stonewall was indeed a seminal moment, the movement would never have found its footing had it not been for the tireless and courageous actions of Kameny, whose work began over a decade earlier. Essentially blacklisted, he devoted his life to the cause, never reconsidering the choice to do so because, as he told the Washington, D.C. gay magazine Metroweekly several years ago, “I’m right and they’re wrong.”
I am glad he lived long enough to see a nation apologize to him, New York pass marriage equality, and the United States military repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Frank Kameny was the greatest kind of American. To say he will be missed would be to provide a disservice to his efforts and the changes he ushered in.
Tell them, Frank.
This is not a book a young man would or could write. There is the sense here of somebody who has seen and considered much, without letting his inner fire cool.
– John Sayles on William Kennedy’s Chango’s Beads and Two Tone Shoes in the Sunday Book Review (The New York Times 10/02/2011)
Author and filmmaker John Sayles gives William Kennedy’s new book Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes the sort of enthusiastic and awe-inspiring write-up you’d expect for the latest work from a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. Except Kennedy is 83, and the wonder here is that this book is even more exciting and energetic than his earlier works, such as the half-fiction biography Legs and the award-winning Ironweed.
I’m nearly done with it. It’s written in a disjointed fashion, going first to Havana in the late 50s then Albany in the late 60s, then back and forth and back and slightly forward then back and then forward again. It’s a device that should be jarring, but Kennedy is a master and he keeps the narrative linear even when the time frame isn’t and the characters are revisited at wildly different points in their arcs.
I’m a late arrival to his work. I became fan after acquiring and absorbing a paperback collection of “The Albany Trio,” an anthology that includes Ironweed, Legs, and Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game. I can’t deny that the local connection made it much easier for me to develop a familiarity with his work (Kennedy is a native of the area and uses it as the locale of his novels and I was born and raised in Troy), but it’s his prose and especially his treatment of characters that has retained my enthusiasm and appreciation. Amongst the praises heaped upon him by Sayles and others, what I perhaps appreciate most is his ability to tell us everything about a person with just a brief moment, anecdote, or action. I want more than anything to be able to do that, though I shouldn’t obsess over it because the envy might drive me mad. Rather than Kevin Marshall, a fan at a respectful distance, I’d become Salieri.
Okay, not really.
Through mutual friendships and company, I’ve had the opportunity to meet Kennedy. Thus far I’ve purposely avoided it. I’m always loathe to impose myself on people for whom I carry such great respect and admiration. I will, however, be at Troy Night Out on Friday, October 28th to have him sign my copy of Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes when he appears at Market Block Books (290 River Street, Troy NY).
I’ll likely keep it brief. I’ll give him my book, let him scribble, shake his hand, then say “thank you” and let him assume it was for the signing rather than the reinvigoration of my love for the written word and passion for writing at a time in my life – right now – when I so desperately needed it.
I read a story on The Awl yesterday that left me feeling a bit unsettled.
Michael Walker was acting strangely. The 23-year-old Seattle soundman had just been re-introduced to Sara Merker, a college student a couple years older than he was, and the first thing he said was, “Can I take a picture of you for my blog?”
…
“I was like, why is this guy being weird to me?” said Merker.
…
Here is what Nick told her: Walker had a Tumblr called “Photos of Sara. She doesn’t know me,” which featured nothing but photos and videos of Merker. … But that wasn’t even the strangest part: Merker hadn’t posed for these pictures. She had never seen any of them before. In fact, she hadn’t known any of the pictures were being taken. Michael Walker had a Tumblr consisting entirely of photos and videos he had secretly taken of Sara Merker.
Walker and Merker had met, briefly, at a party the previous year. They didn’t interact, but one of Walker’s friends had mentioned something about a crush and/or was hitting on her. Well, according to Walker, anyway. After that night he attempted to add her as a Facebook friend. She denied the request because she didn’t recognize the name. Walker claims that she did have him as a friend, but then removed him. So, I suppose in response to being spured in a social media setting, Walker started the stalker blog.
Some time after she found out about the blog, the victim decided to interview Walker for a Communications class project. She pursued him relentlessly, but he kept cancelling and dodging her. After essentially cornering him by calling from a nearby pub, he finally relented with the condition that he would do the interview “in character.”
Again, from the article:
He also wanted to “make it kind of funny and stalkery at the same time,” he said. “But never in, like, a super harmful way.”
The interview, excerpted in the story and available in full from Merker’s wordpress blog, may reveal someone that is comedically tone deaf but tragically is convinced otherwise. I, however, see Walker as someone who legitimately has a darker side to him that he’s desperately trying to conceal with dodgy half-statements, insincere self-deprecation, and shoddy excuses.
“I don’t hate you,” Walker replied. Merker said he seemed flustered. “I’m sorry. You seem nice.” He would continue to insist that he didn’t dislike her even when Sara mentioned the first caption he’d written—”I didn’t find her as appealing as my friends did”—claiming the message was a reference to how a friend of his was “trying to hit on you. He’s a creep.”
Oh, his friend’s the creep because he tried to hit on her! Looks like someone’s suffering from a variation of NICE GUY SYNDROME.
I was going to post about this yesterday but decided to give myself another day to process what I read. I’m still a bit torn. I was glad to see the victim confront the accuser. But the fact that he continued this Tumblr for so long, and the fact that it…well, I don’t want to say it’s not funny. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Perhaps I don’t get the joke because the joke’s not for me, but rather for present-day undergrads who have the context of parties and voyeur social media culture. But I’m not THAT far removed where I can’t put the thinking into context. The only thing I can assume (based on the information presented) is that there’s more to this story from his end than he’s letting on.
Merker, the victim in this scenario, took this a lot better than I and definitely most women I know would have. I get put off when someone writes a blog post about me with a hostile tone, particularly when it’s unwarranted and comes from a source that has an unknown vendetta or axe to grind. It’s fucked up, particularly when it transcends into the realm of invasion of privacy. This situation, though, was much more extreme than anything I’ve personally seen or dealt with.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: hey fellas, don’t do this shit, huh? It’s just you being a stalker no matter how much you try to dress it up or what pretense you try to put out about it.
And of course, if you didn’t do so already, I recommend you read the full article. It’s an enthralling, if disturbing, read.
I usually spend my lunch eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and trying, in vain, to get some writing done. It almost always fails. I’m never in the right mindset for it, so I end up frstruated and I return to my office in an even more miserable state than I was before, trudging through stacks of unnecessary paperwork and cursing both the tasks at hand and their stifling of my creative output.
So when Daniel Nester called me yesterday and suggested I meet with him to attend a lecture by new media and music professor Michael Century at EMPAC‘s main theater, I jumped at the opportunity. It was the second in a series of three lectures exploring the relationship between technology and art, starting at the turn of the 20th Century and continuing into the present day. Yesterday’s lecture, “The Panacea That Failed,” covered the period starting with the post-war years and ending in 1974.
EMPAC’s website described the talk as one that “balances the celebratory heyday of art and technology against a rising tide of disillusionment and media-archelogocial irony.” It was grad school academia to a point of self-parody, particularly with Century’s nervous delivery and steadfast refusal to avert his eyes from his lecture, which rather than being outlined in notes was obviously written out in full and simply read aloud. Not that I fault him for it, since I imagine his workload is already heavy as it is without pseudo-intellectuals like me popping in during our lunch break.
The lecture spoke to the inherent trials and tribulations associated with this relationship and for EMPAC’s visiting and resident artists. Linking the two is a wonderful idea in theory: making the artist more practical and the mechanical more human. On the surface it makes perfect sense. We cannot have art without science and technology, nor can science and technology expand and evolve without some inclination towards creativity. But to treat the two as potentially equal partners in a project is a fool’s errand, particularly when you try to put the emphasis on technology and expect the end result will somehow lean towards art. It’s a misguided attempt to legitimize one field in the eyes of the other by appealing (pandering?) to the latter’s sensibilities. More often than not, it results in experiments that become something resembling clumsy stunts, briefly intriguing but not much else. At least, this has always been my belief and observation.
Call it confirmed bias, but I felt it was reinforced by Century’s presentation. He discussed and showed the work of artists like John Cage, who at one point abandoned control as his method and sought to fully automate the process of composing music. Footage from this period shows fellow artists and cultural icons looking on as Cage performs this work. Joyce Carol Oates is seen looking unimpressed to a hostile degree. I look over to the sound engineer, sitting three rows in front of us, and he is removing tags of himself on a Facebook picture that identifies some unknown person’s allegedly best friends. Then, as Nester leans in to ask if that is indeed Oates who looks so terribly unhappy with the results, I feel something on the tip of my index finger and realize the pen he loaned me has bled open and deposited royal blue ink all over my index and middle fingers. Eventually all technology fails the creative mind, whether it be on the cutting edge of science or the rudimentary tools we take for granted. One must always be prepared to improvise. The engineer maintained the cleanliness of his profile by removing himself from the clumsy digital collage. I was able to retrieve a pen buried deep in my bag that I had forgotten about. Cage abandoned the attempt to divorce control and re-married the compositions that brought him his greatest success. And there we were, in different rows and eras, back in control of our own output to the world.
The idea of putting emphasis on the influence of technology on the artistic process is a consistent theme at EMPAC that’s admirable but nigh self-defeating. My reaction to the vast majority of performances and exhibits at the facility are that the ideas are art, and perhaps to a greater extent the process that the artist(s) undergo can be considered art. The end result, however, usually is not. Naturally we can get lost in a circular argument and debate the merits of deciding what is and isn’t art. But taken on their own, without the context of process and intent, many of the works say nothing. They may incoroporate mechanical components, but most fail to move the audience in any meaningful way. The irony, or perhaps it’s more apt to call it a cruel joke, is that the artist should recognize and identify with such a beautifully self-destructive process and self-fulfilling prophecy.
As I take notes on the sad but noble efforts, Century touches on another project where 75 artists were commissioned by industrial firms to create cutting edge exhibits. Only 15 of them were deemed good enough to be displayed to the public.
When Century broaches the realm of computer animation, the crowd in the theater shifts in their seats. With the passing and subsequent (and at times truly baffling) deification of Steve Jobs still fresh in their minds, thoughts turn to Pixar. Century tells us about early pioneers like John Whitney, who re-purposed military technology to create film animation, and the groundbreaking but tyrannically post-modern theory of Ivan Sutherland, who strove to develop a system wherein eventually one could simply push a script in and the computers would do the rest. My thoughts throughout turn to a conclusion Pixar themselves reached in the development of their breakthrough film “Toy Story” and continue to preach to their employees and the public at large: that above the slick renderings, it is the creative minds within the organization and the fierce adherence to integrity of its artistic direction that has been the key to its success. The devaluing of human input and the “aesthetic virtue” as Century coined it – humanizing technology to alleviate Cold War anxieties over a loss of control and influence on the world around us – was doomed from the beginning.
Glenn Gould
The third act of the talk focuses on Glenn Gould, the legendary Canadian classical pianist who specialized in Bach and whose contempt for most piano music composed in the Romantic period was matched only by that of the live audience. He theorized, amongst other things, that live performance in a concert hall had not only become antiquated but was stagnating creativity and inhibiting the emotional relationship an audience has with a piece. It was his belief that music was moving away from live performance and towards personal absorption through media.
Nearly thirty years after his untimely death, that last part has been strangely prophetic. The number of acts that can legitimately sell out large venues is dwindling, with those that can relegated to nostalgia acts marketed towards an older audience that hasn’t caught on to 21st century technology or maintains their own anxieties about mp3s and music players. For modern acts, larger venues can’t be filled because most people can’t fill their iPods with enough mp3s. There are other factors at play, including but not limited to an increasingly micro-managed method of socialization through status updates and posts of 140 characters or less. The point is that it may not have personalized the experience in the way Gould envisioned, but it has at the very least isolated it.
But he was right for the wrong reasons. The most glaring counterpoint to his argument isn’t presented through words but rather a video of Gould himself playing piano in the studio. As he performs, he moves his head with manic intent and opens and closes his mouth to the rhythm in an uncontrollable tick. The output moves him, and I feel him through the film some thirty-seven years later. It is infinitely more unique and fascinating than the music he’s performing. It is this aspect of performance that Gould tragically overlooked. He thought of music in singular terms of auditory reception as the only means of achieving an emotional connection with an audience. His ideas about the medium were not theory, but rather a symptom of social anxiety. And what a damn shame it was based on what little I saw.
Gould’s words made me think of our more contemporary attempts to marry technology and art, and how it often betrays a misunderstanding of what art is and can be. The focus cannot be on the tools provided by the sciences and technology. The moment an artist does this, s/he betrays the art itself and weighs the work down with something cold, distant, and unmoving. It instills in me a greater respect for the uphill battle artists at EMPAC face, but it also gives me a greater understanding of why so many events at the facility have trouble attracting an audience.
The penultimate clip of the lecture was a segment from a documentary where Gould spoke with the great Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan in 1974. As they discuss Gould’s idea of eliminating concert hall performances, McLuhan becomes dismayed. He asks him, defending what he views as the strength and value of the human experience, what would become of human beings if they stopped climbing mountains and instead were content to watch film of others accomplishing the feat. Gould’s unsympathetic and puzzled response is that it would be worth celebrating that we climbed the mountain at all.
McLuhan responds with a loud gasp and looks at Gould with heavy eyes that I could have sworn were welling up with sympathetic tears.
“Oh, Glenn,” he says as he trails. I read his reaction as two things. One is a realization that, as stated earlier, Gould’s response is more reflective of his own innate sadness and inability to overcome his personal demons. But I also think it’s possible, in that moment, that McLuhan felt a pinge of the fear that this prophecy may, at least in part, be fulfilled in the years to come.
It would be unfair and inaccurate to describe EMPAC as Glenn Gould’s dream or Marshall McLuhan’s nightmare, but it does speak to the precarious nature of this unique facility and the tiny human dots that litter its vast landscape. It can help us to accomplish some truly wonderful things, but it is just as easy for the artist to become completely lost in it.
Celebrated author Jeff Pearlman, whose books include the Roger Clemens retrospective The Rocket That Fell to Earth and The Bad Guys Won, has a new book out on legendary running back Walter Payton. The book is called Sweetness, borrowing from the moniker bestowed on him during his days at Jackson State University, and in its 430 pages it explores and uncovers details of the legendary running back’s life that even members of his own family were not privy to. It’s a revealing look into the life of a complicated but remarkably intelligent professional football star who was much more than the deified figure created by the media and perpetuated by a naive fanbase.
Last week, Sports Illustrated ran an excerpt from the book that enraged sports fans, particularly those in the Chicago area. It was taken from later chapters in the book , when the abuse of a twelve year career full of hard hits and a physical, smashmouth style of play resulted in a dependency on perscription pain medication simply to get through the day. It also details his failing marriage, which culminated in an awkward scene involving both his wife and his girlfriend insisting on being present at his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1993.
The information shocked fans who had fully invested themselves in the well crafted media persona of a gentle, quiet, reserved faimly man who was a monster on the field. Even though the excerpt only showed a small glimpse of his life and out of the context of the biography as a whole, Pearlman was immediately villified by fans, former teammates and associates of Payton, and even – shockingly -members of the media.
Mike Ditka threatened to spit on him if he saw him. Fans bombarded his Facebook fan page with insults, threats, and demands that he specifically answer to them for the words he had written that none of them had read. The kicker, though, comes in the form of an ESPN.com column from Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon:
The point isn’t to question Pearlman’s accuracy, but to question his purpose in writing the book. What’s the literary mission here?
…
I’m tired of journalists, under cover of painting a complete portrait, deciding the world is a better place for knowing whom public figures are sleeping with. This isn’t news, it’s pandering, especially when the man in question has been dead for 12 years and can’t defend himself (something I thought Payton paid Bud Holmes all those years to do).
Now, before you and I jump all over Wilbon, I urge you to do what he didn’t do: go and read his column in full. Give him the fairness of context that he, which he himself admits in that very column, did not give to Pearlman in his condemnation of Sweetness.
Now, let me just say that with all due respect to Michael Wilbon, it’s complete bullshit and unbecoming of a journalist to question the motives of Pearlman and to shame someone for writing a thorough historical account one of the most famous athletes in the last fifty years, particularly one that he himself notes has been dead for twelve years.
That last point Wilbon uses to chastise Pearlman, but for me it’s both a defense and an explanation.
Walter Payton is and was one of the highest profile professional athletes of all time. I’m always loathe to commisserate with sports fans who feel a sense of entitlement from an organization or especially an individual. But on that same token, guys like Payton are more than a guy who throws or catches a ball. He’s transcended and become a part of American society, culture, and history.
I wouldn’t be as dismissive as to suggest that if Walter Payton never wanted the details of his personal life disclosed well after his death, then he should have joined a flag football league on weekends instead of making a career of it. Yet there’s a very valid point hidden in the snark. To truly understand a person and their role in any area of our culture, a thorough examination is necessary. Can Pearlman or any writer or journalist worth their weight be expected to smudge facts, omit relevant information, or otherwise mythologize history so as to not offend people whose loyalty is to a brand name rather than to anthropology and culture? Long after they’ve passed, should Payton and other relevant figures be painted as the myth we wish they were or the men they were?
I’m sure many reading this will dismiss the idea of Payton being such an important figure, but to do so is to discount the role that professional sports \played in the development of American society in the 20th Century and continue to play in the 21st. Wilbon himself, like so many other sports writers, waxes poetic and lends grand importance to the game and its players. In the response to the book he never read, Wilbon described Payton’s play as deserving of artistic considerations. If we’re going to respect the game enough to lend it that sort of weight in our lives, we selectively omit other aspects of the game and its players just because they don’t fit into our fantasy construct. The point of the book is that Walter Payton was not a perfect man, but Pearlman has maintained throughout the process that he feels he was a great man. Great men come in all forms. What makes them great is not what we imagine them to be, but what they are, warts and all.
The backlash against Pearlman and assault he’s received from those who would consider themselves fellow journalists has left me perplexed and frustrated. I know that I shouldn’t be surprised when we live in a state of fluctuating standards and an inclination towards revisionist history. But I feel that we owe it to ourselves at all levels – as writers, journalists, scholars, scientists, anthropologists, what have you – to be honest, thorough, and relentless in our pursuit of truth and understanding. That holds true whether we’re talking about a former President of the United States or a legend in the most popular form of sport in the United States.
“Never die easy” was an idiom created by Payton himself to explain his style of play and the life that he lived. In that he was honest, even if we couldn’t see the full scope of the truth.
SEE ALSO: Pearlman’s reaction to Wilbon’s column
A bonus Troy Night Out will occur this Friday, October 14th in conjunction with the MoHu Arts Festival.
Highlights include a live performance by Ben Karis-Nix in his own space at Design It Together, a performance by Capital Rep of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Telltale Heart” in the Arts Center’s Black Box theater at 6:30pm and 8:00pm, and much more. Also, make sure you stop into Anchor No. 5 and holler at Kevin Marshall’s American reader (and store owner) Petra. She’s got some cool shit there. No joke.
Not to mention, of course, more art than you can shake a stick at. But why would you shake a stick at it? It’s art. Don’t shake your stick at art. C’mon.
Don’t forget that our regularly scheduled Troy Night Out (last Friday of every month sans December) is still on as well for October 28th. That one has a ton of events as well, including the highlight I’m personally looking forward to: Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy at Market Place Books for his new novel Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes. I’m about halfway through and it’s engrossing and gorgeously written.
STALK ME
