Friends are Electric

To put it another way, why do we not read poetry anymore?  Most people give up on poetry the moment they finish their last English course, be that in high school, college or university.  Is it that poetry lacks the ability to convey deep and important meaning between human beings?  Is it that we have developed newer and better ways of sharing this message?

Or is it just that society has chosen a different form of writing to be the medium by which we exchange thoughts and emotions.  Poetry has its place and is still of great value, but it has been long since supplanted by the novel as the primary literary form.  The novel too will be replaced as the primary, but never shall it fully disappear for some messages are best for it.

A response to a currently circulating article from 2003.

The premise is that American’s don’t like jazz because they are a visually focused, ADD society which has lost its ability to appreciate high art.   The argument takes on the fact that much pop music is vocally driven and assigns the reason for this to the fact that American’s cannot relate to music without it.  The author extends this to the appreciation of visual arts, where he makes the claim that Americans cannot appreciate art which lacks something which they recognize.  That, for instance, Voice of Fire is less liked than Creation of Adam because the later is easier to understand due to having recognizable figures from stories well known to those viewing the work, while the earlier is much more abstract and minimalistic and thus much more challenging to understand.  Ignoring, of course, the relative fame of each work.  Take Mondrain’s Composition 11 in Red, Blue and Yellow and  Le Radeau de la Méduse by Théodore Géricault for a similar comparison.

The argument presented is tainted by an all too common nearly anti-American elitism which we of other countries often take.  The first hint of such taint is the lack of discussion of music in other English speaking countries, such as Canada, Great Briton, Australia, New Zealand or even India.   The author likely lacks personal experience of these countries and places, so he can be forgiven on this front.  It must be noted, however, that singling out the United States is a ploy often driven by the rest of the world’s subconscious loathing-envy relationship dichotomy with the Americans.  If nothing else, a quick look and presentation of sales numbers in the UK would have been in order, as such information is available.

Moving on from the subconscious, let us return the heart of the matter. American’s don’t like jazz because they cannot accept and understand abstract art. The abstract was the central feature and philosophy of the modern movement in the arts; musical, visual and performance.  It was a reaction to that which came before, the romantic.  No one considers jazz to be part of the modernity movement, however, but the generalities still stand.  Jazz was less structured than the romantic music which preceded it, while still maintaining similar instrumentation.  In the arts, the modern replaced with abstraction the vivid, photosimilar paintings of the previous period.

In architecture, modernity lead to buildings with high utility and little ornamentation.  Architects were some of the first to react to modernity itself by reintegrating aspects of ornamentation to increase the aesthetic appeal of their structures, transforming the understanding of the movement.  It was not that unadorned buildings did not function perfectly appropriately for their purpose, it was that the statement they made was insufficient to these first post-modern architects desires.  Post-modernity is the name of the age recently closed, where the artists decided that they no longer held with the idea that you can communicate everything through abstraction alone.  Abstraction has its place, but just because you can reduce something further does not make it necessarily desirable.  I say post-modernity has passed since this is the consensus that is currently forming, although considerable debate exists as to whether post-modernism existed at all.  We would likely find the author of the article in question would be one who denies the post modern and by extension its passing.

What is the meaning of all this?  In short, the experiment that jazz represented has been replaced.  We have moved on, which is not to say that jazz, like pure utility, has no place.  Its place, however, is no longer the main stage.  Jazz does not fit in what, for lack of a better term, we shall call the post-postmodern.  To pretend that jazz is no longer commonplace because we are too unintelligent to properly grasp its meaning is pure and dangerous fabrication.  If we lack the capacity to understand it, it is because it no longer resonates as it once did.  Contemporary musicians have jazz, what came before and what came after to work with.

The purpose of the artist is not to create mocking works which the common human is incapable of understanding for the sole purpose of this elitism.  The artist does their best to present the feelings, interactions and images they experience in a form which they feels best expresses it.  Separating form from purpose is a meaningless endeavor doomed to create emotionally dead works which are, quite honestly, boring.  Art in the style of Composition 11 in Red, Blue and Yellow created now might rightfully be accused of elitism, since we have moved on.  The same with traditional jazz.  It has its place, and certainly a too direct comparison of musical and visual arts leads to false results, but I feel as though the comparison stands.

In short, humans, the world and the arts have all moved on.  Criticizing any of the above from moving on is foolhardy and wrongheaded.  There is nothing wrong with not moving on, it is not necessary.  I often wonder why certain types of alternative rock from the 1990s had to cease being produced, but I do not attack those who fail to grasp the greatness of many of these works and accuse them of being intellectual light weights.  I may question their taste, however.

And a final point, the classical, and I use classical to mean premodern orchestral music, form of musical appreciation is outdated.  I believe that the popular music, popular to mean all that has come since jazz (excluding country) form of appreciation is superior.  Traditional folk music is meant to be played and enjoyed through participation and by just being in its presence.  People would be doing things, preparing foods, talking and preforming other similar tasks during the performance.  This is closer to the popular music form of presentation, which involves plenty of background noise of people enjoying more than just the auditory experience of the music itself, since music has always been about much more than just the sound.  There is nothing wrong or wrongheaded about listening to music in silence, taking it all in.  There is also nothing wrong about experiencing it as something else, as a background sound or as a participatory experience.

I’ve written previously about my distaste for Toronto.  I’ve also claimed that this is not a mentality unique to myself, for truly it is not.  I explained one theory which I think provides the why to the action.

Now I shall refine that thought further.

I find Toronto as a physical place to be greatly unpleasant.  This is, however, just an opinion.  Many of us who grew up outside of the world’s largest cities would share such feelings owing to the total lack of anything natural within the city.  Certianly trees are planted all about, but never do they appear natural.  Even when a forested area is left, it is ruined by the excessive noise pollution of the roads which inevitably follow along near it.

This is not to say that the physical city lacks any attraction, since the ample opportunity for one to exercise boundless consumerism would be a desirable quality to many.  Any with an interest in urban architecture would also find their interests addressed within the city.  My argument is that these aspects of the physical city are insufficient to derive any enjoyment from, at least in my case.

There is the cultural city of Toronto as well.  One would be hard pressed to negatively write about this, and I shall not.  Pure cultural diversity is not the only thing that matters by a long shot, however, it can be a very positive thing.  I would say that Toronto as a cultural entity is somewhat positive in nature, if not wholly positive in nature.

The problem is neither the physical city nor the people who live in it.  The city itself is rather ugly and oppressive to me.  The people are friendly enough so long as you never utter the greatest blasphemy known to them, that Toronto is not the greatest place to live.  No, neither of these are the true nature of my distaste for this city.

The real problem is the idea of Toronto.  That, by virtue of living in Ontario at least, and perhaps Canada as a whole, one should be familiar with the street geography of Toronto enough to recognize a caricature of a map is the centre of the issue.  Toronto expects and demands awareness and seems unable or unwilling to cope with the idea that perhaps it is not the ideal form of life, eve for one person.  That, by living in the same province as the city, we should be informed of who the mayor is and what his daily actions are is an example of this.  (This last point is weakened by the fact that recent mayors of Toronto are eccentric enough to often warrant such coverage regardless of their city’s relative importance.)

I understand that Toronto is an important location and a very populous one.  I just find it impossible to care about where street x crosses street y and what shops can be found in such a local.  So please, a little understanding.

The whole of the sky lit up with that abhorrent electric glow.  In that instance I saw all.  To the north, looming oppressively, was that infernal sheet of ice.  Far off in the east was the sea.  To the west and to the south was my doom.

As the light faded, I tried to count their numbers,  It was a purposeless task, for just a few could end anything.  There were at least two dozen, probably many more.

These mighty warriors had all but eradicated my people, their relentless tools cutting our hardened flesh.  No defense seemed to affect them.  They always kept coming, kept moving, kept killing.

A lucky few survived. They did not hide, could not hide. They were sometimes old, sometimes weak.  Children were rarely spared, but never were they cut down where they stood.  They were more often trampled underfoot by the advancing forces.  Pointless deaths.

They always took our dead with them.  We have stories about their fate.  Cut to pieces, chopped into chips, burned.  Pure desecration of the dead.

The humans raised their axes. They had reached my side. It was over. I was over.  I did nothing as the blades slashed deep into my bark. Again and again they struck. I felt my trunk breaking under my own weight.

I fell.

Background: the new logo.

I despise the look of the new logo, a feeling which is quite common in the student body.  That’s fine.  I dislike the way it looks, it seems tacky and without any meaning.

This morning, all of my internal bitterness shone through like a blazing star.  I realized that, actually, it is the ideal representative of this university.  It has an amazing degree of pretension about nothingness.  It is an attempt at being trendy without backup.

It is an entirely hollow gesture, an attempt to become something without the steps needed to get there.  Symbolism is a power force, but without context it has no meaning.

In short: yes it stands out.  It is very clearly different than what other institutions are doing.  But it stands out for the wrong reasons.  It highlights all of the negatives of this place without the positives.  It doesn’t speak to academics at all.  It ignores the involvement and participation of the students who make this university what it is.

Writing in the student newspaper,  Michael Davenport got it right.  Its just a costume, an attempt to become something without changing what you really are.

I was wrong.  The new logo has plenty of very valid symbolism.  I can think of none which  is positive.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

The human mind clings to symbols like it grasps few other things. Symbols have intense power. Ask any person of religion how they feel when viewing their holy symbols, especially in trying circumstances. Or all of the ideas and violence that went into something like the Soviet hammer and sickle. These images contain much more information due to collective memory than their basic parts ever could.

People do get attached to symbols.  The feelings and ideas attached to them are very strong.  The same is true of certian slogans, musical tunes and moments.   Charlemagne did not have to go to Rome and be crowned ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, it was a symbolic act who’s value and purpose is far beyond the simple action itself.  It represented the subservience of European kings to the church and changed the course of Western Civilisation forever.  Mickey Mouse is the most famous being on earth.  This character is not human, not an animal, not anything, really, except a symbol.

A symbol’s power is not in its direct form.   The actual form is immaterial, its the meaning associated with the form which contains the power.  The form and the meaning, however, are inseparable.  A change in form may result in the loss of the meaning and thus of the power and use of the symbol.  And a symbol without any power is a useless symbol, it may as well be a transient piece of graffiti on a railroad car.

When modifying something as powerful as a symbol, one must consider what is meant by it.  Denying history is a certain road to failure, ignoring it is likely worse.  A symbols past is its memory and purpose.  A change in direction is a process which must take a prolonged period of time as adjustment to modified symbolism will not happen overnight.  If the Catholic Church were to change one of their most important symbols, the cross, how many years would the transition take place over?  How about a modern nation, changing their motto or animal representatives?

Any modification of such symbols must have abundant need and must be gradual in nature.  To do otherwise is to deny their purpose, value and to undermine popular support for such an action.  If such need exists it must be clear to all.   Symbols belong to the group as a whole and are not a responsibility of any one person or subgroup.  Their meaning exists from group consciousness, not any one individual.  Any one individual lacks the insight needed to understand that with which they deal.

Symbols are the primary means of human communication.  All language, visual art, music and literature are all entirely symbolic.  One cannot simply change things abruptly and expect the desired results.  Group ownership, memory and the power of the symbol must be accounted for.  To do otherwise is to destroy the power, purpose and meaning of the symbol, deny your own participation within the group at large and to fragment that which you meant to improve.