1. "Tiny Spark," Brendan Benson
2. "Cardinal Points," The Essex Green
3. "Adlai Stevenson," Sufjan Stevens
4. "Eanie Meany," Jim Noir
5. "Snakes in the Grass," The Essex Green
6. "The Avalanche," Sufjan Stevens
7. "Air," The Owls
8. "Stay in the Shade," José González
9. "Forever Changing," The Owls
10. "Cemetary Row," The Minus Five
[All songs available on iTunes. Total cost: $9.90].
Side note: Has anyone noticed that Norway's Kings of Convenience sound exactly like Simon & Garfunkel? And that to many of us that's an entirely good thing? Check out "Homesick," and you'll think you're at the Concert in the Park. But then listen to "Misread," and that part of your brain which can't help but crave Belle & Sebastian will be well fed. Sure, it's not everyday music, but it's the sort of necessary music there's most definitely a time for...
...Kind of like (though in an entirely different way) The Magnetic Fields' "100,000 Fireflies." Okay, maybe that one's just me. And yet, those lyrics:
I have a mandolin, I play it all night long. It makes me
want to kill myself. I also have a dobro
made in some mountain range--
sounds like a mountain range in love. But when I turn up the tone
from my electric guitar, I'm afraid of the dark
(without you close to me).
I went out to the forest and caught a
hundred thousand fireflies: as they ricochet around my room
they remind me of your starry eyes--
(someone else's might not have made me so sad)--
but this is the worst night I ever had, because I'm afraid
of the dark
without you close to me. (Always was).
You won't be happy with me, but give me one more chance--
you won't be happy anyway.
Why do we still live here in this repulsive town? All our
friends are in New York! Why do we keep shrieking
when we mean soft things? We should be
whispering all the time--
Yes. Yes, I know exactly how that is. Thank you Stephin Merritt.
Monday, September 04, 2006
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8 comments:
If there's one thing I've learned on the poetry blogs, it's to keep your opinions to yourself, as nothing good can come from saying that the poetry of _____________ does nothing for you whatsoever, unless _____________ happens to be the poet everyone else is presently deriding, too. Every time I say that I like, for instance, _____________, I get the sense--either from Ginger, or from readers, or simply from the general tenor of chat on the blogs--that I have somehow just consigned myself to a "camp" from which I cannot possibly hope to extricate myself.
Er, um...look at this most recent post.
"Has anyone noticed that Norway's Kings of Convenience sound exactly like Simon & Garfunkel? And that to many of us that's an entirely good thing? Check out "Homesick," and you'll think you're at the Concert in the Park. But then listen to "Misread," and that part of your brain which can't help but crave Belle & Sebastian will be well fed. Sure, it's not everyday music, but it's the sort of necessary music there's most definitely a time for..."
Do I detect a mild sneer in your tone for people like me who've never heard of Kings of Convenience? I think I do. Ditto those who, like me again, sometimes enjoy but never actually crave Belle & Sebastian.
Given the way our tastes in music diverge, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, listening to KoC, I heard nothing whatsoever in it that felt necessary to me. Is there room for that? Seems the answer’s no when in the next paragraph you say, regarding the Magnetic Fields’ 100,000 Fireflies, “Okay, maybe that one’s just me.”
If another blogger raved about the latest Jessica Simpson album, I suspect you’d be one of the first to mentally consign him to the Camp of Bad Musical Taste, no? Fuck elitism, indeed.
Your latest BAP post makes some points I agree with, others with which I disagree, but juxtaposed with this post on music, I find your lobbying for lower critical standards hard to swallow. How is it that crappy poems don’t bother you, but crappy records do? Is it really fair to expect more critical generosity in one’s own field (where one risks being judged) than in any other?
What it boils down to for me is that it’s easier for people to snipe at what they don’t like than to articulate reasons for what turns them on. Lazy, self-serving critics do it all the time. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for negative criticism either. As an artist, I find it useful to think about the roads I don’t want to go down in addition to those I’d like to pave myself. Yes, if one defines oneself exclusively against _______ and ________ and _________, one might as well paint DULL REACTIONARY in neon letters on one’s forehead. However, thinking through my likes and dislikes (what you might call “defending” my taste) helps me to refine, deepen, and even complicate my initial (more passive) reactions. Moreover, if one’s constantly reconsidering and revaluating their tastes, it’s easier to avoid that stasis which seems perpetually to require defense. Finally (and frankly), it’s what keeps me from feeling unnecessarily insecure in the face of other people’s boldly articulated tastes.
G.,
Hey sweetie...I think you need to re-read my initial post. Nothing in that post derides the musical tastes of others, and if you've "detected a sneer," I can't help that. There is no sneer. What I've posted here--about music--is no different from the sort of positivistic posting I sometimes see poets make about poetry, like the sort of posts you've made about Jorie Graham in the past. The sort of post which says, "This is what I like, and I like it well enough to talk about it in a dialectic which is occasionally insular, and presumes some knowledge of the underpinnings of the conversation."
My comment about the Magnetic Fields underscores that point. This is my blog, a blog which is chock-full of my favorite things, and a discussion of same. As no one's forced to read the blog--I'm not "selling" the blog--I don't think I need to hold back in talking about the things I love. And yet, though I needn't, I do: saying that I recognize not everyone is likely to feel about the Magnetic Fields' "100,000 Fireflies" the way I do. And that's not a sneering acknowledgment, that's an acknowledgment which intends to say, "Or maybe you hate the Magnetic Fields, in which case you probably have no idea what I'm talking about when I say it does __________________ for me..."
Re: Jessica Simpson. I think you make the same mistake Collins does. This isn't about "judging"--i.e., the perniciousness of that. We all judge. We don't all write introductions to anthologies which we have months to prepare and which will be read by tens of thousands of people, however.
Yes, I can hear someone sing a paean to Jessica Simpson and be silently mortified, but shouldn't I get a grip if I devote time on this blog on repeated occasions to opining about how bad Simpson is? She is what she is. Saying what I like probably makes clear enough what I don't like without me railing about it, and it does so with more class and style and perspective, as Charles has noted on his blog. You've taken my post as saying "don't judge Jessica Simpson." No! By all means, judge her! Harshly! If you like! But don't predicate your critical talents on the ability to tear her a third asshole. Don't predicate--as Billy Collins does his view of poetry--your entire view of music on the fact that Simpson exists.
Your misunderstanding of my post, then, is what makes it possible for you to say I'm "lobbying for lower critical standards." No. Look at it this way: if Collins were a music critic and spent all his time and energy and talent writing lengthy diatribes about music which is irrelevant both to him and to all other music critics--Simpson, Spears, J. Lo, et. al.--wouldn't you say, "Billy, we want to hear what you think about some of the best music out there? Billy, can you get over the fact that there will always be some music you don't like? Billy, how many times can we hear you decry the state of modern music, and opine that only 10% of modern music is worthwhile, when a) the same was probably true in 1955, and b) even if it's true now, that doesn't in any way impair your ability to focus your critical talents on writing about good--or at least ambitious--music?"
So yes, I think crappy poetry is crappy. And as I said, I wish it were better than it is. Crappy music is also crappy. I wish crappy music were better than it is (in the way I define "crappy music"). But I don't think I've ever seriously wished on this blog for crappy musicians to die, or for them to stop playing music, or somehow insinuated that the fact that Jessica Simpson exists somehow makes the Kings of Convenience worse, or less worthy of discussion. Simpson is irrelevant to me because, in my personal opinion, I know enough about music to distinguish her music from quality music, and therefore I don't waste time on her. Therefore her existence doesn't piss me off because it doesn't affect me. I fail to see how bad poetry antagonizes Collins, in the same way I fail to see how avoidable bad music--cf. Simpson--would continually antagonize him. Unless he doesn't know the difference between good and bad as his own heart construes it.
P.S. I've articulated on this blog some of what turns me on in poetry (re: my discourse on "magical realism" in poetry). I was savaged for that view. By another blogger. Who's posted on this thread.
XOXO
S.
Ack, we've already had 1/2 this conversation privately, but for the benefit of anyone who might be following the thread...
1) Trotting out a relatively obscure band (or book, or painter, etc.) and talking as though everyone must be familiar with it, is classic snobbery/elitism. That's the sneer I detected. You say you can't help that. I say tone is not inevitable.
2) I was responding less to the BC thing (as I agree his "Introduction" is mostly absurd) than to the following, which suggests that critics ought to do a better job of giving "good" (as opposed to "great") poems their props:
"Good but not great poems will be published, too; just so, good but not great cars will come off the assembly line, and they're not undriveable simply because they're not ready for the Autobahn. Obviously, having said that, the aim of the journal for which I am the Poetry Editor, The New Hampshire Review, is only to publish "great" (not merely "good") poetry; I separate that personal and professional aim from the sort of more generous observation I would make as a critic of modern poetry."
3) You nuked your archives, so I can't see what you were talking about circa August 2005. But I was able to find what I'd written regarding myth in poetry. I hardly think what follows (copied directly from my blog) qualifies as "savage." And your feeling it was savage is exactly what I was on about in my original comment. The articulation of my negative views on some of the poetry you happen to enjoy does not an attack on you make.
[8/21/05]: "Sincerity does not employ myth unless Myth is itself the subject of the poem. Put another way, a sincere writer does not substitute heroes, gods, saints, or other archetypes in order to avoid looking directly at the people, emotions, or ideas they represent."
[8/22/05]: "Since Reb asked in her comment below, I thought I'd elaborate on the statement I made below regarding sincerity and the use of myth. The old adage, "Show don't tell," is probably appropriate here. First then, an example of myth used insincerely (in my view!):
Cassandra
by Louise Bogan
To me, one silly task is like another.
I bare the shambling tricks of lust and pride.
This flesh will never give a child its mother,--
Song, like a wing, tears through my breast, my side,
And madness chooses out my voice again,
Again. I am the chosen no hand saves:
The shrieking heaven lifted over men,
Not the dumb earth, wherein they set their graves.
---------------------------
Bogan's use of myth strikes me as evasive. She seems to want to talk about the role of the female poet, but not directly--and so she calls her poet Cassandra. But instead of talking about what it's like to be a flesh-and-blood, contemporary, female poet, Bogan simply repeats a feminized version of the old Romantic idea of the poet as prophet. I hear lots of melodrama, but no real emotion. Moreover, by couching her assertions in terms of a familiar myth, Bogan takes much of the edge off her boldest assertions, thereby minimizing the risk of her speech. On the flip side of the same coin, I think she sometimes overstates or exaggerates--for instance, "Song...tears through my breast.../And madness chooses out my voice..."--in order to maintain the Cassandra metaphor.
Better, in my opinion, is the following:
Helen
by H.D.
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
---------------------------
Here I detect a number of motives, but at least one of them seems to be a critique of myth itself. That is, rather than seeming to avoid the real issue, the myth itself is the issue. Why, asks H.D., is beauty only beauty when it no longer breathes? Why the lionization of mythological women, and the persistent disdain for real ones? Why, she might even be asking, why Helen and not Hilda? It's a complex poem, with a number of possible readings, but its emotions seem to flow directly from lived experience, whereas Bogan's seemed to be co-opted from the myth.
I hope that clarifies what I meant in my earlier post, but if not I'd be happy to continue discussing it."
XOXO
G.
This is hot, you guys, don't stop.
I am only familiar with Kings of Convenience because a music-freak friend pressed them on me, but the first time I heard them I thought oh my God, Simon and Garfunkel have fallen into a fjord and this is the only way they know how to call for help.
Yeah, yeah. I'm with Tricia. Hot!
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