[rant] Turn your head and spit
IHCOYC XPICTOC
and utterly dead come this New Year's Day.
Do this. Do one thing for me. Turn your head over your left shoulder,
and spit. Spit upon the twentieth century, and by this act, show your
disdain for having ever lived during it. Let its name hereafter be a
byword among you.
The twentieth century was a period of cultural dry rot.
The twentieth century presided over the end of architecture as an art
form, at the hands of the corporate state, void of human values, who found
that any design other than the rectangular was inefficient, and any symbol
or ornament too costly. Form was stripped to function. The results will
not even make an attractive ruin.
The twentieth century presided over the destruction of serious music, by a
cabal who professed not to care if anyone listened. Instead, they
composed "music" from which melody and harmony were purposely banished:
either by rote series or by random number generators, though the results
cannot be distinguished one from the other by any human ear.
The twentieth century was the triumph of abstract painting and sculpture.
It saw the triumph of free verse that eventually turned into something
less artful than even prose. And it saw the rise of a school of
interpretation that claimed that all human arts were ultimately
meaningless, every human writing ultimately indecipherable; all are the
servants of mere political argument, which it poured over everything in a
vandal attempt to paint the world in off-colour shades of red.
The twentieth century was a period of political blight.
The twentieth century was the age of Socialism, Fascism, and Capitalism,
all ideologies whose point, at the last analysis, is that you exist to
serve a master; the latter the most subtle and dangerous, in that it
pretends to extol freedom, when freedom in fact exists only for those who
own your time.
The bloodiest wars the world has ever known were fought in the twentieth
century. As many people were killed by weapons during the twentieth
century as were killed during the preceding seven. This does not include
the victim of the twentieth century's pogroms and genocides, which were
utterly unprecedented during the prior history of the human race.
But that, we are assured, is all in the past now. We assure ourselves
that we live in the triumph of Equality and Democracy, values which all
people of good will are supposed to share. We do not grasp that Equality
and Democracy are both a chimerical lie.
The actual results of Democracy in action only demonstrate that most
people are the same old eternal peasants they have ever been: believing in
the gods and the spirits of their ancestors, fearing witches and
strangers, waiting for the priest to tell them what to think and a man on
a white horse to tell them what to do. Equality only makes their votes
count as much as yours.
Combined, their result in practice is to make absolutely certain that
their fears are written into the law of the land. Together, they
guarantee that the rule of the priests, and those who can buy the image of
the man on the white horse, cannot be effectively challenged within the
system.
People need somebody to hate. If they can't find an obvious target they
will invent one. We should learn at least that much from the history of
the twentieth century. But because of this lesson, the triumph of
Democracy, the sacred doctrine of majority rule, only guarantees that
there are more pogroms and genocides to come.
We cannot know the future. But let us now resolve, with every last
muscle, nerve, and neuron, that we shall do all within our power to make
the next century resemble the twentieth century as little as possible.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
+ NOLI Vibrabimus volvemurque usque ad reditum boum. ABDUCI +
+ Let's put RU-486 in the water supply! +
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****
Jennie Kermode
>Do this. Do one thing for me. Turn your head over your left shoulder,
>and spit. Spit upon the twentieth century, and by this act, show your
>disdain for having ever lived during it.
For having lived during it? For having _lived_, when the focus
was only on existing? I, at least, don't regret that. Some of us had to
continue to live, to carry the flame, the hope of something better, even
if it was only a flicker in the darkness. It's time, now, for that flame
to consume the old century. Let the ashes be scattered to the winds. But
let us not despise ourselves for the accident of having been a part of
it. After a fire, seeds long dormant have the chance to grow.
>The twentieth century presided over the end of architecture as an art
>form, at the hands of the corporate state, void of human values, who found
>that any design other than the rectangular was inefficient, and any symbol
>or ornament too costly. Form was stripped to function. The results will
>not even make an attractive ruin.
Will the results last long enough to fall into ruin? Corporate
products are finest if they crumble quickly to make room for something
else that can be sold.
I have looked at the landscapes those people have made; the
blocks of concrete and glass, with their bones of steel - and I have tried
to learn to love them. You might consider me a quizzling for that. I have
only this to say in my defence: that they were buildings designed without
love, designed to exclude love, and that, by finding some secret beauty in
them, I hope to subvert that design. I have observed them through the eyes
of writers, from Gernsbaack to Ballard. I have watched them in the
morning, the pale sky calling them to anonymity; I have seen them at their
crudest, in the noon sun, blue skies all around, some 'eighties corporate
soap opera idyll; I have viewed them in the evening, stained by a falling
sun, and at night, when they rise monolithic beneath city smog, empty of
stars. I have found what I seek only when their pattern is broken, only
when they are punctuated by earlier, wilder forms of architecture. Yet
they cannot swallow my hope. There is still something there, hiding at the
bottom of the flat-pack, easy-assembly box they came out of.
>The twentieth century presided over the destruction of serious music, by a
>cabal who professed not to care if anyone listened.
Music can be restricted, but I don't believe it can be
destroyed. I share your horror at what has been done to it during recent
decades, but I still have an awareness of music within me which none of
that can touch. I used to play old Bach records to Danae (despite her
mother's stated preference for Bon Jovi) and I saw how she, a tiny, fresh
thing, responded to that music with excitement and awe. It aroused an
intense curiosity in her. Every child who has even a taste of such things
must surely remember something and carry it along, waiting for an
opportunity to turn it into something more. There is still talent out
there. Because it is not well recognised does not mean it cannot live. It
is waiting.
The twentieth century has been in many respects a time of
waiting. I suppose our underlying fear is that Godot won't come, that the
butterfly will never be born, and that we will simply rot in our
seeming chrysalis, our self-made sepulchre.
>The twentieth century was the triumph of abstract painting and sculpture.
I think I feel the horror most keenly when it comes to art.
I once sat on a crowded pavement fighting back tears,
struggling with a lighter, trying to set a plastic table on fire. Had it
taken, I might easily have turned my attentions to the gallery
beyond. Donald stopped me, took me home (as he always does). Told me there
are battles worth fighting and battles which are simply pointless.
My girlfriend, who had taken me to that exhibition, didn't
understand my reaction at all, and told me that I was being oafish,
failing to appreciate the brilliance of the artists who had shown their
work there. At the time, I didn't have the words to explain why I had
reacted quite as strongly as I did. I had spent two hours there trying to
appreciate, trying to come to terms. All the time, anger gathered in me,
fury at that insult to imagination and to humanity. Every 'witty' exhibit
announced that it saw no value in beauty, believed there were no new ideas
to communicate, and disdained mere creativity. What got to me most was
seeing a small goldfish in a plastic box taped to the back of a stuffed
wallaby. The goldfish was still alive, and terrified, utterly exposed to
all that space, light and human attention. I wanted to take it safely away
from there, but could see no means to do so. I have no time for people who
say that it was 'only' a fish. How long, then, before we have 'only' a
Jew? What mattered was that it was being abused for the sake of a weak
joke. When we lose our humanity sufficiently for us to laud a thing like
that, how can we hope to admit anything truly human into art? How can we
create art which is passionate and honest?
I'm sorry; I'm upset now, and jumbling my words, and probably
failing, once again, to communicate what that incident really meant to
me. All I can say is that I don't come that close to committing arson on a
regular basis. I am very wary about going to exhibitions of new art now.
>It saw the triumph of free verse that eventually turned into something
>less artful than even prose. And it saw the rise of a school of
It's one of the uglier aspects of egalitarianism - the
assertion that everyone is capable of producing work of equal value (in
any given field) and that, if this doesn't work, it's because the system
is wrong, not because individual talent varies. Not enough students pass
exams, so the schools make the exams easier, rather than improving
standards of teaching. Free verse is poetry made simple so that everyone
can be a poet.
That said, there are still real poets to be found.
>interpretation that claimed that all human arts were ultimately
>meaningless, every human writing ultimately indecipherable;
The thing that struck me later about that incident at the art
exhibition was that people there stared at me when I was upset as if they
had never seen such a thing before. They were each a perfect study of
politeness, all the same. Passion seemed alien to them. How could they be
artists, then? What was wrong with me? I felt that way because I was still
capable of feeling. Why did they feel nothing? Were they all robots? It is
considered more socially acceptable to be a robot.
I don't care if I don't always interpret things the 'correct'
way, or the same way as the artist intended. I don't care if people see
things in my work which I did not intentionally put there. The essential
thing, to me, as that we should all continue to make efforts at
interpretation at all, because _that_, to me, is the point of artistic
endeavour. Not the conclusions reached, but the process of thinking.
>The bloodiest wars the world has ever known were fought in the twentieth
>century. As many people were killed by weapons during the twentieth
>century as were killed during the preceding seven.
Do you think this can ever change?
The internet is my hope. It may seem like a feeble one, but I
think it's a start. The more easily information can be accessed from a
variety of sources, the harder it is for any society to be subjected to
propaganda; it's much trickier to make a group of soldiers fight when they
all think differently. I do think that there are things worth fighting
for; I would fight (and, indeed, have done so) to protect my loved
ones; so I can't say that I'm a pacifist, or that I would never take up
arms if I felt the situation warranted it. War depresses me, though,
because it is so rarely about those fundamental things; most often, it is
about the economic advantage of a distant master. I hope that better
informed people might have a better chance, however small that chance
remains, of resisting such mastery.
>the victim of the twentieth century's pogroms and genocides, which were
>utterly unprecedented during the prior history of the human race.
We are industrialised now. Deaths can be streamlined and
mass-produced like anything else. Is there a way back from that? I don't
know. I don't yearn for an age of slavery to the plough. Then there must
be a way forward. Where? How? Can we defeat that part of ourselves which
identifies anyone outside the tribe as disposable?
We are only animals, emotionally ill-equipped to handle the
tools at our disposal. It seems to me that we have only intellect with
which to try and overcome that. The age to come _must_ be an intellectual
age, or we are doomed.
>The actual results of Democracy in action only demonstrate that most
>people are the same old eternal peasants they have ever been: believing in
The tyranny of the majority. After the South African
elections, I heard a man lament: "We fought for freedom, and all we got
was democracy." Winston Churchill said that democracy is a bad bet until
one considers the alternatives, but I'm not always sure whether I believe
him; after all, it was to his advantage to be a populist, since he found
himself at democracy's mercy like everyone else.
The evangelical practice of democracy disturbs me. It happens
with a zeal which denies us the opportunity to learn from the alternative
arrangements of those cultures which it subsumes.
>a white horse to tell them what to do. Equality only makes their votes
>count as much as yours.
This is where I find myself torn.
Erithromycin told me once that he thinks I am very female by a
certain definition, it's just that most people have forgotten what that
definition means. [1] He said that I have a tendency to nurture and
protect people, to try and 'save' them, perhaps; and that I am very fierce
in defending them. I do find myself under some compulsion to protect all
the people of the world; to seek justice for them; to see that their basic
needs are provided for, and to educate them so that they might govern
themselves. I want them to go into the world as strong children do,
doubtless to make mistakes, but to learn, and keep learning, and to be
capable of wise and considerate self-determination. In other words, I want
them to have their democracy, and I keep searching for some way to enable
them to use it properly. Of course, I am repeatedly disappointed.
Another part of me despises those weaklings who cannot think
for themselves. They are outside the tribe, and disposable. It's very easy
to be seduced by the glamour of that notion which has baited so many
intellectuals towards fascism - the notion that the world would be a
wonderful place if only it had less people in it.
In essence, I _want_ people to be equal, but I _see_ that,
inevitably, some are more equal than others; I have not sufficient vision
to determine a means of resolving this.
>their fears are written into the law of the land. Together, they
>guarantee that the rule of the priests, and those who can buy the image of
>the man on the white horse, cannot be effectively challenged within the
>system.
Do they force us to move outside the system? The problem I
perceive with revolution is that it only takes us round and round.
It seems to me that we must devise our own system, a better
system, and that this must be achieved in philosophy before it can be
applied as a concept (though that's not to say we should cease our small
struggles where they seem to be effective). It's easy to criticise. I want
to do more than that, but I have only one brain and one lifetime to use it
in. I can only do a small amount. There must be others. Who will carry
the flame?
>People need somebody to hate. If they can't find an obvious target they
>will invent one. We should learn at least that much from the history of
Do you think it must be somebody? Could it be some_thing_? Can
we channel those energies against the abstract, and thus make them work
for us instead of against us (as, inevitably, it seems they must otherwise
do in such a crowded world).
>the twentieth century. But because of this lesson, the triumph of
>Democracy, the sacred doctrine of majority rule, only guarantees that
Its sacred nature infuriates me. It is an idol in dire need of
smashing. We must remember to speak freely.
>We cannot know the future. But let us now resolve, with every last
>muscle, nerve, and neuron, that we shall do all within our power to make
>the next century resemble the twentieth century as little as possible.
I hear you.
Yet... I will be bound by nothing. I am tired of the burdens
of the past; of embracing them, and of running from them. I want to carve
out this new century as if the last had never existed.
Will you be with me?
Jennie
[1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
least not mentally or emotionally.
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"Will you carry a torch for me?"
Albatross
Kermode) wrote:
> Jennie
>
>[1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
>because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
>least not mentally or emotionally.
Almost every woman I've been close to - including my wife -
says this exact thing. And everyone of them have been every whit a
woman.
Interesting post and response, btw.
A
~
Bella Anti Matter
Can it truly be said that NOTHING good came of it?
- George Gershwin
-George Orwell
-JK Rowling
-John Irving
-Tom Waits
-Oscar Peterson
-Louis Armstrong
-George Walker
-Curious George (Since the George's are coming up)
-Maya Angelou
-The Coen Brothers
-Robert Frost
-F Scott Fitzgerald
-Igmar Bergman
-Dorothy Parker
-Freida Khalo
well... it's just a fraction of a list... but it's a start
--
Fovit metus
----------
IHCOYC XPICTOC
news:slrn94l4u1...@triffid.demon.co.uk...
> All the time, anger gathered in me,
> fury at that insult to imagination and to humanity. Every 'witty' exhibit
> announced that it saw no value in beauty, believed there were no new ideas
> to communicate, and disdained mere creativity.
. . .
> The thing that struck me later about that incident at the art
> exhibition was that people there stared at me when I was upset as if they
> had never seen such a thing before. They were each a perfect study of
> politeness, all the same. Passion seemed alien to them. How could they be
> artists, then?
We live in an age that has made an idol of ironic detachment.
Part of me wants to react to such things as you did, by setting fire to them
all. Another part wonders whether hiring Jennifer Saunders to go around in
a nun's habit and "explain" them all might be more effective.
> >It saw the triumph of free verse that eventually turned into something
> >less artful than even prose.
> It's one of the uglier aspects of egalitarianism - the
> assertion that everyone is capable of producing work of equal value (in
> any given field) and that, if this doesn't work, it's because the system
> is wrong, not because individual talent varies. Not enough students pass
> exams, so the schools make the exams easier, rather than improving
> standards of teaching. Free verse is poetry made simple so that everyone
> can be a poet.
Rather, the orthodox doctrine is that is shown by any standards, is that a
critic has enough personal or institutional clout to make their standards
stick. It's once again the vandalistic reduction of everything to mere
political argument. It is especially ironic that this is ostensibly done in
the name of peace and tolerance. It seems unlikely to have the desired
effects.
> Do you think this can ever change?
> The internet is my hope. It may seem like a feeble one, but I
> think it's a start. The more easily information can be accessed from a
> variety of sources, the harder it is for any society to be subjected to
> propaganda; it's much trickier to make a group of soldiers fight when they
> all think differently.
The internet is one part of the web of human commerce that creates something
of a comfort zone for those who dwell within. Avoiding war is a matter of
having too much to lose, to find the thought of drilling in uniforms and
going to boot camps unbearable; to look with disdain at the disruptions that
it would cause. In doing so, of course, they become peaceful, but incapable
of heroism. Dying for the Fatherland becomes inconceivable to them; so does
fighting for it.
The perennial problem is, there is always going to be somebody out there who
feels they have nothing left to lose. And sooner or later the barbarians
are once more at the gate.
> [1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
> because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
> least not mentally or emotionally.
I know what you mean. While physically I probably will never be an epicene
waif, I have very little use for "masculinity," either. I will be no one's
"provider" or sugar daddy. I will not be sent into the line that confronts
the lion while the women and children huddle behind in the circle.
> Another part of me despises those weaklings who cannot think
> for themselves. They are outside the tribe, and disposable. It's very easy
> to be seduced by the glamour of that notion which has baited so many
> intellectuals towards fascism - the notion that the world would be a
> wonderful place if only it had less people in it.
Not to worry. If the human species does not reduce its numbers voluntarily,
Nature will do it for us.
> Do they force us to move outside the system? The problem I
> perceive with revolution is that it only takes us round and round.
> It seems to me that we must devise our own system, a better
> system, and that this must be achieved in philosophy before it can be
> applied as a concept (though that's not to say we should cease our small
> struggles where they seem to be effective).
I suspect that the only real solution is to turn your back on politics, and
try to find a separate peace; at least, until it all falls down.
> >People need somebody to hate. If they can't find an obvious target they
> >will invent one.
> Do you think it must be somebody? Could it be some_thing_? Can
> we channel those energies against the abstract, and thus make them work
> for us instead of against us (as, inevitably, it seems they must otherwise
> do in such a crowded world).
You can't create a meaningful society except by excluding -somebody-. If
you have a group of ethnically homogeneous people, they will -invent- things
to quarrel over. The human heart is wicked above all things, and beyond
hope; who can know it? Our every nerve and muscle is a servant to an evil
will that dwells in our members. Hate is one of our needs, like sex or
food.
> I hear you.
> Yet... I will be bound by nothing. I am tired of the burdens
> of the past; of embracing them, and of running from them. I want to carve
> out this new century as if the last had never existed.
> Will you be with me?
I will try. . .
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Quaedam crimina morte voluntaria solum expiantur:
--- crimen majestatis;
--- ignavia coram hosti;
--- venditatio telephonica.
Dag
>On 26 Dec 2000 02:23:36 -0500, IHCOYC XPICTOC <gust...@shell1.iglou.com> wrote:
>>Do this. Do one thing for me. Turn your head over your left shoulder,
>>and spit. Spit upon the twentieth century, and by this act, show your
>>disdain for having ever lived during it.
>
> For having lived during it? For having _lived_, when the focus
>was only on existing? I, at least, don't regret that. Some of us had to
>continue to live, to carry the flame, the hope of something better, even
>if it was only a flicker in the darkness.
If there is one thing I regret over the last year, then it's every
second that I didn't live. Every moment I merely existed and got
pushed along by life. Every time I thought my life was 'good enough'.
In many ways the last year has been good. I've got a good enough job
and a nicely located flat. I make enough money to not have to worry
about things like food and rent and still have money to spend. My
life reached a point where it could push me along quite happily and I
would not have to worry about anything.
Yet, somewhere, somehow, some of the passion died. The flame slowly
died, suffocated by mediocrecy and lack of will. At times some thing
would come along and blow life back into the flame and it would burn
strong once more. I Would glow in the reflection of that flame once
more and remember that this is what life was all about.
Then whatever catalyst had set the flame alight would disappear and I
would slip back into the patterns I was used to. The flame would die
down again and my life would return to the mediocrecy I had grown used
to and even comfortable with.
Even as I type this I look back of the year that has been and wonder
how I could let that flame die. Why I accepted good enough as good
enough and why I felt content with this. Of course I know the answer
to that. It obvious really. It was the easy thing to do. I was and
remain lazy. Why risk losing what you have just on the off chance
that there might be something better?
Yet I don't want to live this life. I want the flame to burn once
more. I want to be alive every second of every day and feel the
simple pleasures that comes with that. I only pray that I will be
able to live up to my wish in the year come.
Dag
zentariana
"IHCOYC XPICTOC" <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote:
> Not to worry. If the human species does not reduce its numbers
voluntarily,
> Nature will do it for us.
actually, we do. there were points in time when every tenth child born
into a society was killed.. and if the population was too large, even
more than that - usually girls though, since girls would be reproducing
in the future and just making it more of a mess.
*grin* so what if that was an extremely long time ago. they did the same
sort of thing in china, right? limiting a family to two children? did
the same thing in germany during and before WWII.....
just not in happy fluffy ways like having half the population nuetered.
becky.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Spider
zentariana <zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> *grin* so what if that was an extremely long time ago. they did the
same
> sort of thing in china, right?
To my knowledge, China still has this policy in effect and any
pregancies after that are aborted or killed after birth.
> becky.
--
Spider
TurboTramp's PR Frontman
"So he can't understand why his heart always breaks. But his honor is
pure and his courage as well," -Billy Joel
The Industrial Love KittenLady
stopped frolicking with the rabbits just long enough to scratch out:
>
>> *grin* so what if that was an extremely long time ago. they did the
>same
>> sort of thing in china, right?
>
> To my knowledge, China still has this policy in effect and any
>pregancies after that are aborted or killed after birth.
I think that they have a tax-penalty if you have more than the alloted
number of children.
Thusly, many baby girls are left in trash cans and taken up by
orphanges that are overfilled and have no money to tkae care of them.
Dan Marino and his wife adopted a child (little girl) from one of
these orphanges, and visisted the place while going through the
adoption process. So, they had a little article about this stuff one
day in football land last year on CBS. :)
-Leonora
--
------------------------------------------------[ www.kittenlady.com ]----
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall
Why do only scars remain?
---[ leokitty.scribble.nu ]-----------------------------------------------
Mark Greene
Spider <gypsy...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <92fvue$lr3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> zentariana <zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > *grin* so what if that was an extremely long time ago. they did the
> same
> > sort of thing in china, right?
>
> To my knowledge, China still has this policy in effect and any
> pregancies after that are aborted or killed after birth.
Aborted, yes.
Killing a child after it has been born is still considered murder, a
still against Chinese law and still prosecuted as such. OTOH, for
those you may have wondered, China is also the originiation of
the 'partial birth abortion' technique so as to get around that law.
--
gothae subnoto baritus
Burning our skins to be renewed, but never hiding the charred look as
we forever age ourselves without reason.
-- Hardrock Llewynyth in a.g.
Mark Greene
"Bella Anti Matter" <coz...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> -Maya Angelou
> -Robert Frost
This is an example of taking the bad with the good, yes?
Jennie Kermode
>"Jennie Kermode" <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:slrn94l4u1...@triffid.demon.co.uk...
>> exhibition was that people there stared at me when I was upset as if they
>> had never seen such a thing before. They were each a perfect study of
>> politeness, all the same. Passion seemed alien to them. How could they be
>> artists, then?
>We live in an age that has made an idol of ironic detachment.
I have seen that; and yet I can't help but think that its
worshippers are themselves detached from irony. Something has been lost,
somewhere. I suppose it's because irony only works while something
matters.
>Part of me wants to react to such things as you did, by setting fire to them
>all. Another part wonders whether hiring Jennifer Saunders to go around in
>a nun's habit and "explain" them all might be more effective.
Heh. :) That would be by far the better solution. Humour is
almost always a more effective tool than violence (reminds me of something
Ed was saying in another thread...) but, I think, humour requires more
strength, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always strong.
>stick. It's once again the vandalistic reduction of everything to mere
>political argument. It is especially ironic that this is ostensibly done in
>the name of peace and tolerance.
Perhaps it works a little better for the masses. I respond
with a sort of inner violence to forced blandness and the reduction of
ideas. Others - generally those who think less, by their own admission -
seem to cope better, and feel no distress at all, or feel only a sort of
dull dissatisfaction. I'm unsure who's better off, but I suspect that, as
ever, it is the variety of our survival mechanisms which is our species'
real strength.
I think the twentieth century suits a lot of people at least
as well as ages past have done. Disowning it might involve disowning them
too. I wonder where my loyalties should lie. I'm quite certain where they
_do_ lie, when I dare to admit it - I'll have none of it and none of them,
and they can damn well save themselves.
Have I lost something myself, then, though, if I will fight
for humanity but not for human beings?
>The perennial problem is, there is always going to be somebody out there who
>feels they have nothing left to lose. And sooner or later the barbarians
>are once more at the gate.
So do we meet them in battle; or might there be another way,
whereby we give them something to live for? The Romans did pretty well by
absorbing the cultures with which they came into contact. But does that
take away their notion of self? And is that so different from killing?
War just seems... impractical, incoherent, crude. As if there
ought to be a more efficient way of resolving things.
>> [1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
>> because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
>> least not mentally or emotionally.
>I know what you mean. While physically I probably will never be an epicene
>waif, I have very little use for "masculinity," either. I will be no one's
>"provider" or sugar daddy. I will not be sent into the line that confronts
>the lion while the women and children huddle behind in the circle.
I think the core of it is that being 'masculine' or 'feminine'
often seems to leave little room for being human. It's about fitting a
pre-arranged role; it's about one's place in society, rather than oneself,
even in its subtlest manifestations. Maybe I'm just too easily dismayed by
the thought of flesh interfering with mind, inevitable though it is. It's
always a reminder of mortality.
>> intellectuals towards fascism - the notion that the world would be a
>> wonderful place if only it had less people in it.
>Not to worry. If the human species does not reduce its numbers voluntarily,
>Nature will do it for us.
That's always a comforting thought. Something tells me it
shouldn't be, but I wonder how that 'shouldn't' is determined - it seems
to be an ethical plea unrelated to my actual feelings on the matter.
I try to like people, but it's always easier in the
abstract. ;) Tomorrow when I walk down the street some ned will accost
me and I'll find myself dreaming of volcanoes and tidal waves and really
big meteorites.
>I suspect that the only real solution is to turn your back on politics, and
>try to find a separate peace; at least, until it all falls down.
That's a way of finding peace, but I'm not sure it's a
solution. Not for me anyway. That's like saying that everything is fine as
long as you don't look at the world, but I've never been very good at
keeping my eyes shut. And if we wait for it to fall, what then? What
follows after? I think it will fall, given time. I want something
different at that point, something which is neither corporate slavery nor
desperate subsistence living.
Politics as we generally think of it seems to have dug itself
into a hole. Rethinking the old ideas doesn't seem to turn up many
answers. A shift in perspective might be needed. I certainly think that in
constructing new models it's as useful to consider art or poetry as
economics or war.
>You can't create a meaningful society except by excluding -somebody-.
How about an unreachable somebody, then? Somebody who doesn't
really exist? Eastasia is at war with Oceania. It seemed to work for the
US and USSR, for a while.
There was a kid who was killed in London a couple of months
ago; a ten year old boy; afaik no-one has been arrested for it yet, but
they're looking for a group of boys roughly his own age. People on the
television keep asking why they did it. Was it because he was foreign? Was
it because he was studious? The answer seems pretty clear to me. They did
it because they were kids and their blood was up, and he was another kid,
not a particular friend of theirs, who just happened to be around. But
society will keep looking for scapegoats. The truth is too frightening for
television.
>you have a group of ethnically homogeneous people, they will -invent- things
>to quarrel over. The human heart is wicked above all things, and beyond
>hope; who can know it? Our every nerve and muscle is a servant to an evil
I could cut out such a heart and dissect it. I suspect that
solutions would reveal themselves. I also suspect that I would be hesitant
to apply them. I don't want to see more of the humming drones so well
suited to the twentieth century. I do not reckon the wickedness of the
heart a worse thing than the absence of heart. There lies my hope; and
it's animal, not what I had hoped for.
>will that dwells in our members. Hate is one of our needs, like sex or
>food.
Good sex can certainly distract me from eating when I
should. ;) I wonder if hatred might be subsumed in such a way. I wonder
how we manage it as individuals, those of us who don't go off on killing
sprees. The answers are not obvious, because I constantly wonder why I
don't go off on killing sprees myself.
>> Yet... I will be bound by nothing. I am tired of the burdens
>> of the past; of embracing them, and of running from them. I want to carve
>> out this new century as if the last had never existed.
>> Will you be with me?
>I will try. . .
Then I will spit on the twentieth century for you, in four
days' time.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"There's no point in going out with somebody who doesn't have
the muscle density to move _themselves_." - erithromycin
Winter
> cabal who professed not to care if anyone listened. Instead, they
> composed "music" from which melody and harmony were purposely banished:
> either by rote series or by random number generators, though the results
> cannot be distinguished one from the other by any human ear.
> The twentieth century presided over the destruction of serious music, by a
> cabal who professed not to care if anyone listened. Instead, they
> composed "music" from which melody and harmony were purposely banished:
> either by rote series or by random number generators, though the results
> cannot be distinguished one from the other by any human ear.
Arnold Shoenberg invented twelve-tone music in the eary 20's and
is one of the fathers of the atonal music movement.
On one hand, I respect all serious music endeavors. The man was passionate
about his work and was really trying to push boundaries. He DID care.
And then it all went downhill.
I went to a music conservatory and then a small music college, seeking a
still
unfulfilled BA is music composition (3 credits short, but that's a different
story).
What constantly amazed me is that the vast majority of other young composers
I
worked with still worshipped atonality as the end-all-be-all of modern
classical
music. Another interesting thing I noticed was that very few of these
composers
were truly moved by music in their hearts. Music was an intelliectual,
dispassionate
exercise. Respect was given to composers who could devise new electronic
processes,
new notation devices, new ways to warp the western scale. The actual
products weren't
as important as the process and the prestige.
Why has modern classical music reached such a standstill?
My studies brought me in contact with students and faculty from a number of
conservatories
(Carnegie-Mellon, Oberlin, Peabody), and the following issues were common:
1. Atonal music is the height of musical expression
2. It is unacceptable to think otherwise.
I've had teachers frown at my pieces because they weren't dissonant enough.
"Suggested"
note and progression changes would be pencilled in, completely altering the
sound of
the piece...usually in directions that made my head hurt. Other students
would argue
with me about the finer points of tonality and mock my love of the Romatic
period.
The few other composers I met who still believed in the power of melody and
harmony faced
similar situations, even to the point of lowered grades (I personally never
had that happen).
To make in simple: Tonalilty is unacceptable.
And this school of thought has now lasted for about 80 years. There has to
be more.
I can't imagine we've reached the pinnacle of tonal expression in the 20th
century.
I composed a 12 tone piece that sounded quite major key out of spite.
Winter
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Rat Bastard
> > -Maya Angelou
> > -Robert Frost
>
> This is an example of taking the bad with the good, yes?
And the purpose of this ambiguous statement was?
It would appear (to me) that you wished to blast one of these poets while
praising the other. However, you appear to have omitted the most important
part: who exactly you were blasting/praising. One should not attempt to
clothe empty rhetoric in the guise of wit, as empty rhetoric is still just
that.
I await your clarification on the matter, as I am quite curious as to what
your meaning was... and I am even more curious as to what supporting
arguments you might try to muster to reinforce whatever it is that you
happened to have meant.
Rat Bastard (former student of Maya Angelou)
--
_ /|_|\ _ Rat Bastard: Neither a Rat, nor a Bastard? ______
\X x/ Discuss.
/\o/\ "Being HERE is a lot like being lost.."-The Tick
^^==^^= http://www.obscure.org/~rbast ICQ#39637373
Albatross
Kermode) wrote:
>>We live in an age that has made an idol of ironic detachment.
>
> I have seen that; and yet I can't help but think that its
>worshippers are themselves detached from irony. Something has been lost,
>somewhere. I suppose it's because irony only works while something
>matters.
I think it might be better said an 'ideal of ironic
detachment', rather than an 'idol', which suggests that what is held
up is a physical representation of the ideal, and that exactly what
there isn't. Real life is what is ever was. We fall in love, we have
hopes, strengths, weaknesses, profound disappointments and losses,
etc. The ideal now, at least amongst the educated, is to approach
these experiences with irony. (The ironies sound something like this:
Nothing is real or important in an ultimate sense, so we can view
ourselves as the only important thing, and yet we are also not
important since nothing is, etc.[1]) This irony removes us, detaches
us, and deprives the expereince of its inherent charge. The result is
that we feel less alive.
A
~
[1] The roots lie in several places. I'd note two. The first
challenges the reality of our expereince. Structuralist theory taught
us that language does not refer to realities but only to itself.
Because of this we can't hope to get close to reality through
language. And seeing that everything we do depnds on language, we
can't hope to get close to reality at all. All our attempts are
inherently ironic. The second challenges the importance of our
experience. Marxist political doctrine taught us that the individual
isn't to be considered of primary importance; and that we are to
understand our identities primarily in political and historical terms.
The irony here is that our individual experience, with all its variety
and colour, is actually spawned by and subsumed by historical forces
which should be our primary concern,- that what feels most important
to us, what truly presses on our humanity, is at best a secondary
consideration.
Albatross
<snip>
>My studies brought me in contact with students and faculty from a number of
>conservatories
>(Carnegie-Mellon, Oberlin, Peabody), and the following issues were common:
>
>1. Atonal music is the height of musical expression
>2. It is unacceptable to think otherwise.
<snip>
>To make in simple: Tonalilty is unacceptable.
>
>And this school of thought has now lasted for about 80 years. There has to
>be more.
>I can't imagine we've reached the pinnacle of tonal expression in the 20th
>century.
>
>I composed a 12 tone piece that sounded quite major key out of spite.
This post made me so happy I could just love you for it. I can relate,
roller-skate. Though I never had the guts to go as far as you.
Dropping out of school and listening to Johnny Cash is closer to my
way.
>Winter
This is my daughter's name, btw.
A
~
Nyx
<vggn4tgmlu90t911q...@4ax.com>:
>Though I never had the guts to go as far as you.
>Dropping out of school and listening to Johnny Cash is closer to my
>way.
"I hear that train a coming, it's rollin round the bend...and I ain't see
the sunshine, since I don't know when."
Johnny Cash, OG...Original Goth.
Nyx
--
"They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system
from within. I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them...first we take
Manhatten, then we take Berlin." Leonard Cohen
AIM: nyxxxxx ICQ: 9744630 Yahoo: nyxxxx
Panurge
>Arnold Schoenberg invented twelve-tone music in the eary 20's and
>is one of the fathers of the atonal music movement.
>
>On one hand, I respect all serious music endeavors. The man was passionate
>about his work and was really trying to push boundaries. He DID care.
Right. He's best understood as a Romantic of sorts, even with the 12-tone
business. (So is Alban Berg, BTW, and maybe even Anton Webern, who also
started out writing post-Romantic music.) One thing I do know--I'm very,
well, *passionate* about it. When reviewer Jim Svejda refers to the
"stupefying originality and beauty" of the Five Orchestral Pieces, I have
to agree. (Same with Bartok, BTW.) It's very awe-inspiring--and we have
to remember that awe is an emotion very closely related to *terror*.
>And then it all went downhill.
<HORROR STORY>
The problem isn't "atonality" (a term Schoenberg hated, BTW. preferring
"pantonality" to describe what he was after), but dogmatism.
(Still, I _knew_ I should've majored in music!) :-P
When did this happen, BTW?
>Why has modern classical music reached such a standstill?
It's at a standstill, but I thought the serialist Mafia were overthrown in
favor of reaction and/or minimalism decades ago--it certainly seems to be
the case in the commercial world. Out of the frying pan, into the fire,
say I.
It's like the metastasizing cancer of "neo-traditionalism" in
architecture. It responds to all of our complaints, but it does so by
turning to old solutions--other people's solutions--in a way that's
ultimately as bland as ever--with a certain "fakery" about it, too. And
it's ultimately done in the name of status-quo-driven "safety," too. (Not
that I mind it in small doses, but it's no solution to the present
dilemma, IMNSHO.)
>To make in simple: Tonalilty is unacceptable.
>
>And this school of thought has now lasted for about 80 years.
Well, AIUI, it didn't really work out that way until after WWII.
>There has to be more.
Conservative neo-Romanticism? (Samuel Barber, for example)
Ironic Stravinskian neo-classicism?
Earnest Hindemithian neo-classicism?
Friendly _Les_Six_ neo-classicism? (You can throw Swiss composer Frank
Martin in there, too.)
Nationalist minimalism? (e.g., Aaron Copland, Ralph Vaughan Williams)
Schnittke-like polystylism?
(Of course, the preceding predate WWII, so maybe they're not really
pertinent here.)
Minimalism?
Eastern European mystic minimalism? (Paert, Gorecki, etc.)
Multiculturalism?
Did you not encounter any of these in college?
>I can't imagine we've reached the pinnacle of tonal expression in the 20th
>century.
>
>I composed a 12 tone piece that sounded quite major key out of spite.
Schoenberg ends his setting of Lord Byron's "Ode To Napoleon Buonaparte"
with a major chord. He said the rows just worked out that way. Yeah,
sure. ;-)
(And don't forget, this is the guy who said that "there's plenty of great
music still to be written in the key of C Major!") :-)
--
The old is dying and the new cannot be born. In the interregnum, a
variety of strange and morbid symptoms appears. --Antonio Gramsci
Panurge
>IHCOYC XPICTOC <gust...@shell1.iglou.com> wrote:
>>The twentieth century presided over the end of architecture as an art
>>form, at the hands of the corporate state, void of human values, who found
>>that any design other than the rectangular was inefficient, and any symbol
>>or ornament too costly. Form was stripped to function. The results will
>>not even make an attractive ruin.
>
> Will the results last long enough to fall into ruin?
Ruin? What ruin? Either it gets kept up or it gets torn down--there's
almost no in between any more, hasn't been for hundreds of years.
(I take that back: On Cumberland Island, Georgia, on the Atlantic coast
near Florida, there was a mansion named Dungeness--owned by the Carnegies,
actually--that burned down in 1958, IIRC. It had a concrete or stone
framework, so what was left remained as a ruin--I've seen it myself.
There are a few others, but you could probably count them all and not run
out of fingers and toes--at least not the ones that won't be torn down
eventually. OK--here you go:)
http://www.koransky.com/Trip/History/CumberlandIslandGA/Dungeness.jpg
> I have looked at the landscapes those people have made; the
>blocks of concrete and glass, with their bones of steel - and I have tried
>to learn to love them.
I have to admit, I like some of them. But then, the ones I like tend to
be the more elaborate ones, especially the ones that _aren't_
rectangular.
I'm reminded of a story about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe looking around late
in his life at a "modern" cityscape covered with big glass boxes (this
would've been the '60s, I guess) and saying, "Well, at least they will
know we were here."
>>The twentieth century presided over the destruction of serious music, by a
>>cabal who professed not to care if anyone listened.
Now, now, that was *one person* who just wanted to be provocative.
> The twentieth century has been in many respects a time of
>waiting. I suppose our underlying fear is that Godot won't come, that the
>butterfly will never be born, and that we will simply rot in our
>seeming chrysalis, our self-made sepulchre.
The quote which I use as my .sig was made just before the _First_ World
War. Seems we're always waiting. But what we have to understand is that
_we_ are Godot.
>>The twentieth century was the triumph of abstract painting and sculpture.
I don't see anything wrong with abstraction, though.
>Free verse is poetry made simple so that everyone can be a poet.
That doesn't make it illegitimate in my eyes. It's not as if there can't
be great free verse--it's just easier to mishandle, like Abstract
Expressionist painting.
>Can we defeat that part of ourselves which
>identifies anyone outside the tribe as disposable?
Some can, some can't.
> We are only animals, emotionally ill-equipped to handle the
>tools at our disposal.
"Animals" as opposed to what? With all due respect, that's a word that
gets thrown around an awful lot because it seems to have such emotional
and metaphorical resonance--kinda like "strong" and "weak".
>The age to come _must_ be an intellectual age, or we are doomed.
! I thought we'd just _had_ "an intellectual age"--that's where Le
Corbusier and the Bauhaus were coming from, to come back to architecture.
Really, what I think we're having is an age of the _divorce_ of reason and
emotion & sensitivity.
(Which reminds me: Even some <UHHIP ALERT*UNHIP ALERT> Rush fans dump on
the apparent shallowness of Neil Peart's conceptual framework for the
lyrics for their set-piece "Hemispheres", but now that I think of it, it
actually gains value for being so pertinent to our times. "...the heart
and mind united/In a single perfect sphere" sounds obvious, but if that's
so, why aren't more people living that way?)
> Another part of me despises those weaklings who cannot think
>for themselves. They are outside the tribe, and disposable.
Independent thought isn't the only virtue. Besides, show me a person who
thinks _completely_ independently and I'll show you a *hermit*.
> It seems to me that we must devise our own system, a better
>system, and that this must be achieved in philosophy before it can be
>applied as a concept (though that's not to say we should cease our small
>struggles where they seem to be effective). It's easy to criticise. I want
>to do more than that, but I have only one brain and one lifetime to use it
>in. I can only do a small amount. There must be others. Who will carry
>the flame?
I've mentioned _Hermenaut_ magazine on this ng before; they seem to have
much the same program. Check 'em out at http://www.hermenaut.com/
>>People need somebody to hate.
I don't think so. I just think enough people readily _respond_ to appeals
to _fear_ to make it a handy and easy means for some people in power to
manipulate enough people to get by. OTOH, many people do seem predisposed
to fear anything that's radically unfamiliar. I don't know about you, but
I actually think we've made lots of progress in that area in the last 50
years, even if it's not completely apparent on the surface.
> Do you think it must be somebody? Could it be some_thing_?
It has to be something people fear. It has to be something _everyone_
fears. But we have to make distinctions between the thing and the people,
or else we'll all be at each other's throats.
>>We cannot know the future. But let us now resolve, with every last
>>muscle, nerve, and neuron, that we shall do all within our power to make
>>the next century resemble the twentieth century as little as possible.
>
> I hear you.
> Yet... I will be bound by nothing. I am tired of the burdens
>of the past; of embracing them, and of running from them. I want to carve
>out this new century as if the last had never existed.
> Will you be with me?
I know this isn't addressed to me, but here's my answer:
I wish you well. But I think it's possible to learn from (and even use)
some things from the 20th C. that I'd really rather not lose--especially
the stuff that never got a chance to mature properly. What I liked about
the '60s (he said, pedaling the grindstone ever more furiously) was that I
saw them as the first phase of the attempt to create that new world you
seem to want, which is why it saddens and perplexes me no end to see
people endlessly dump on them for so long. Don't trash it--_fix_ it.
(And that goes for modernist architecture as well!)
IHCOYC XPICTOC
news:3a4bbc0c$1...@news.newsfeeds.com...
> My studies brought me in contact with students and faculty from a number
of
> conservatories
> (Carnegie-Mellon, Oberlin, Peabody), and the following issues were common:
> 1. Atonal music is the height of musical expression
> 2. It is unacceptable to think otherwise.
This is also my [unscientific] impression. I took several music classes in
undergraduate school, wishing to be a composer, wanting a course in
Palestrina's rules; but it became obvious that the faculty's notions and
mine were at cross purposes.
Let's face it: atonality is a -hard- cultural discipline, like celibacy,
humility, or pacifism. It goes against what we innately know we like, and
upholds as an ideal something that the weak mortal nature rebels against.
Schoenberg invented serialism because he -tried- to write atonal music
without it, and found he was constantly being tempted by tonality. He
therefore created an algorithm to make it impossible to yield to that
temptation.
The point being, it takes a fair amount of rigid thinking to impose it
successfully, and with rigid thinking comes heresy-hunting and the rest of
the flaws of the breed. It is not enough to praise Schoenberg, Berg, or
Babbitt; anything less austere, something that might please more listeners,
must be belittled as "pandering." The people who pay to listen are the
enemy.
The tragedy is that the serialists and their ilk have pissed in the well.
"New music" in the symphonic world is box office poison. Some places may
keep orchestras around to play Mozart and Brahms, but eventually, that too
recedes into the past; and thanks to the wasteland that is most of the 20th
century there is less and less new material that anyone wants to hear, to
keep that particular tradition alive.
Somesillypaulinegirly
> same
> > sort of thing in china, right?
>
> To my knowledge, China still has this policy in effect and any
> pregancies after that are aborted or killed after birth.
First it was a single-child policy. We had a discussion about this in
Chinese class, I remember! As usual, boys were in favor, so that left a lot
of girls in dumpsters and dirt-poor orphanages. So they raised it to two. It
didn't help (that) much. You get taxed a lot if you have more. This stuff is
actually fairly recent. One of my aunts had kids that are in their thirties
and she had about four of them.
My purist-Chinese friend (who's actually only _half!_ and SO not a typical
Asian, though she tries to be very hard) friend complained that it was a
stupid move because it would lead to the destruction of the Chinese race,
since all the girls would be adopted by affluent-to-wealthy non-Chinese
people or disdained because they were raised in an orphanage. I said
something to the effect of (condescension and all), "Welp, it's a lose-lose
situation hon, because if you have too much kids you're going to have
famines and diseases and stuff." That shut her up.
No wonder why we exclude her from our plotting and planning and scheming.
..Somesillypaulinegirly
Whose thirteen-year-oldness shows glaringly, and she knows it too.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> "I hear that train a coming, it's rollin round the bend...and I ain't see
> the sunshine, since I don't know when."
> Johnny Cash, OG...Original Goth.
I got my dad the Johnny Cash Love/God/Murder box set, and also the new
record. Been listening to them more or less nonstop since he got them. "I
am a poor wayfaring stranger / Wandering through this world of woe / But
there's no sorrow, toil or danger / In that bright land to which I go"
FWIW, my dad also likes Unto Ashes. . .
Panurge
>IHCOYC XPICTOC <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote:
>>"Jennie Kermode" <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote...
>>> The thing that struck me later about that incident at the art
>>> exhibition was that people there stared at me when I was upset as if they
>>> had never seen such a thing before. They were each a perfect study of
>>> politeness, all the same. Passion seemed alien to them.
They saw what happened to ThemDamnHippies. They don't wanna get knocked
down like that.
> Have I lost something myself, then, though, if I will fight
>for humanity but not for human beings?
Can you do one without the other? You don't have to feel particularly
good about humans to fight for them; you just have to have a certain
conception of the Good.
>I think it will fall, given time.
"Fall"? I don't know. Even the big bosses know that social chaos is bad
for business. Either the screws get turned again (though any attempt to
do that might result in the chaos no one wants) or we try to come in for a
soft (or bumpy) landing, so to speak. The odds, IMO, slightly favor the
latter, but it's by no means certain. It'll probably take decades to sort
out.
>>You can't create a meaningful society except by excluding -somebody-.
What if "society" is understood to contain the whole world?
>>The human heart is wicked above all things, and beyond
>>hope; who can know it?
That depends on the human.
>I don't want to see more of the humming drones so well
>suited to the twentieth century.
It was ever thus. ISTM this is the _least_ conformist time ever, at least
when it comes to the general public. But we've never tried non-conformism
on this scale before; I guess some people react fearfully, and one of
their responses is to try to re-establish conformity.
>I do not reckon the wickedness of the
>heart a worse thing than the absence of heart.
But even those with absent hearts can at least come to a rational
understanding of the Good.
Panurge
> I think it might be better said an 'ideal of ironic
>detachment', rather than an 'idol', which suggests that what is held
>up is a physical representation of the ideal, and that exactly what
>there isn't. Real life is what is ever was. We fall in love, we have
>hopes, strengths, weaknesses, profound disappointments and losses,
>etc. The ideal now, at least amongst the educated, is to approach
>these experiences with irony.
This reminds me of the flap over Jedediah Purdy's _For_Common_Things_
(which, alas, I haven't actually read--so what's new?). :-P Lots of
people took him to task for his treatment of "irony", by which he
apparently meant the cheap, sarky existentialist despair you seem to be
talking about. There seems to be a kind of "ironic detachment" that
doesn't involve any of this, though--what people now call "irony" might
better be called "sarcasm", and what people call "detachment" might better
be called "emotional withdrawal".
Lucid H. Dreaming
>"Winter" <win...@bway.net> wrote in message
>news:3a4bbc0c$1...@news.newsfeeds.com...
>
>> My studies brought me in contact with students and faculty from a number
>of
>> conservatories
>> (Carnegie-Mellon, Oberlin, Peabody), and the following issues were common:
>
>> 1. Atonal music is the height of musical expression
>> 2. It is unacceptable to think otherwise.
>
>This is also my [unscientific] impression. I took several music classes in
>undergraduate school, wishing to be a composer, wanting a course in
>Palestrina's rules; but it became obvious that the faculty's notions and
>mine were at cross purposes.
Music evolves.
Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely atonal. Tonality
is a dead language the masses barely speak any more.
600 years ago you probably would have been whining about passing of
hexachords.
If you realy want to compose tonal music that badly then here are some
handy hints.
Choose a key or a mode to compose in. If you want sad then the Dorian mode
or the minor key is good for happy triumphant sounds use a major key.
Follow Dissonance with Consonance to provide resolution.
Dissonant tones are 1 and 6 semitones apart.
Consonant tones are 2 and 3 semitones apart.
The combinations 4 and 5 semitones apart were traditionaly not used at
all and fall somewhere between consonance and dissonance provoking a
hollow feeling. Although with the prevalance of the power chord
in modern music the 5 is now consonant to the modern ear.
There are only three chords you realy need to know about.
Major Chord : Tonal center, 4 semitones up, 3 semitones up.
Minor Chord : Tonal center, 3 semitones up, 4 semitones up.
For a 7th chord requiring resoltion add a note to one of the above
often composers especialy for keyboard instruments eliminate another
note in the original triad to make it easier to play.
You can transpose notes between octaves as long as they are the same note.
Always make sure all your notes are in the same key/mode.
If any notes are more than 2 octaves apart you can get away with ignoring
most of these rules without the music sounding atonal.
Always finish your songs on the tonal center.
And that is how we play the tonal game.
Now if atonal music upsets you that much go out and write tonal music.
You definetly do not need to be specialy educated to write music.
Of course tonality is bullshit.
I'm sitting here with my guitar the lower 3 strings untouched the higher
3 strings stopped 2 semitones from the end and strumming it I get
a far more consonant sound than from a major chord.
The interesting thing being that I can detune each string and as long as
none of them invade into the next semitone this sound remains very
strongly consonant.
The form of music that so many people are mourning the loss of is
a cultural artifact caused by church music from which tonality
and our concepts of consonance and dissonance come from was based
on the human voice which has very different harmonics to say...
Gongs.
Listening to Gamelan music will show this.
>
>Let's face it: atonality is a -hard- cultural discipline, like celibacy,
>humility, or pacifism. It goes against what we innately know we like, and
>upholds as an ideal something that the weak mortal nature rebels against.
>Schoenberg invented serialism because he -tried- to write atonal music
>without it, and found he was constantly being tempted by tonality. He
>therefore created an algorithm to make it impossible to yield to that
>temptation.
That's at least because traditional forms were where he was coming from.
He even wrote textbooks on the subject. Basicaly for him atonal music
essentialy had to be a victory of his intellect over his heart.
To a modern audience tonal music sounds kind of corny.
To a generation where hearing a bubbling synth slowly rise in pitch
to a feedback ridden climax is a crescendo tonality is fairly alien.
His failure to gain an audience has more to do with his lack of
experience in atonality and thereaby his failure to exploit it's
strengths.
>The point being, it takes a fair amount of rigid thinking to impose it
>successfully, and with rigid thinking comes heresy-hunting and the rest of
>the flaws of the breed. It is not enough to praise Schoenberg, Berg, or
>Babbitt; anything less austere, something that might please more listeners,
>must be belittled as "pandering." The people who pay to listen are the
>enemy.
Formal music is largely an anachronism anyway. When future generations
look at the music of the last 50 years they will be studying Moby, NIN, Brian
Eno and the Beatles.
On a seperate topic how many people knew that the "3 minutes is a song" trend
occured because that was the limits of the 78rpms records in the 30s?
>
>The tragedy is that the serialists and their ilk have pissed in the well.
>"New music" in the symphonic world is box office poison. Some places may
>keep orchestras around to play Mozart and Brahms, but eventually, that too
>recedes into the past; and thanks to the wasteland that is most of the 20th
>century there is less and less new material that anyone wants to hear, to
>keep that particular tradition alive.
Minimalism.
?
--
http://www.kuro5hin.org: Better than slashdot, but not as good as Usenet.
-- Rusty
http://www.osOpinion.com/Opinions/MarkSummerfield/MarkSummerfield3.html
http://danny.oz.au/free-software/advocacy/against_IP.html
http://www.cyberlife-research.com/articles/index.htm
Winter
Albatross: Give your daughter a hug. An extra one, of course, I imagine
you already give her plenty. ;)
Panurge:
> The problem isn't "atonality" (a term Schoenberg hated, BTW. preferring
"pantonality" to describe what he was after), but dogmatism. <
That's exactly what I was trying to get at, you just expressed it perfectly.
:)
I have no problem with atonal, pantonal, minimalist, etc music. Like I
said, I
respect all serious music endeavors. What I didn't like was being told that
I could not compose the music that came naturally...that it wasn't allowed.
> When did this happen, BTW? <
1990 -1995
I don't have a degree because I need to pass a 3 credit intermediate foreign
language course. 7 years trying, and foreign languages just seem to slip
through my frosty little fingers. Very frustrating.
> Well, AIUI, it didn't really work out that way until after WWII. <
I guess you could say it really took off after WWII, aye. But the ball got
rolling in the '20s.
> Did you not encounter any of these in college? <
Nope. In fact, "multiculturalism" was actually frowned on. ("We study
WESTERN
musical traditions here, Mr. Fielder".) There's irony in there.
I wrote a paper on the musical scales and practices of the Scottish
Highlands, and
the paper was rejected because "We don't study FOLK MUSIC here Mr. Fielder")
I found both the colleges to be stifling and a waste of time and money.
IHCOYC: Well put. I've got nothin' to add. Have a bourbon. *pour*
Lucid:
> Music evolves. <
Except in todays classrooms.
Heck, I know I shouldn't even care about
that. But I don't like paying good money to be told that "Hey, you can't
write music like that, you MUST do it like this" when all I wanted was to
have a scholastic
environment to practice and learn and experiment.
I didn't mind learning about the 12-tone movement. It was good for
me, added new wrenches to my toolbox.
But you'd think that they'd be talking about something else by now.
>Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely atonal. Tonality
is a dead language the masses barely speak any more.<
I disagree. More dissonance yes, but I think it's more tonality-pushed-
to-its-limits. I can flip through the cd-player and hear a center to
just about every song.
>600 years ago you probably would have been whining about passing of
hexachords. <
Heh. Nah, I'm not whining about the passing of anything. My beef is with
folks
who try to tell me that my style of composing is wrong. And I have my own
rules for the tonal game. Can't put 'em down into text like you could
though.
It's just what flows from the pen.
> Of course tonality is bullshit. <
Tonality is a structure that you can put to use. It's not bull****.
Neither are
12-tone, microtone programming, Oriental harmonics, or any other musical
technique. Any serious form of musical expression that one really cares
about
can be used as tools.
None of it is 'wrong'. What's wrong is taking a student's natural talents
and
forcing them into a mold.
> You definetly do not need to be specialy educated to write music. <
I wholeheartedly agree. Although I think it's good to at least get a course
in
the actual details of putting notes on a page: formatting, instrument
ranges and
transpositions, symbols, and the like. I still do things the hard way, with
staff
paper and a pen. If I didn't know the basics of writing it down then I'd be
at a disadvantage.
> Formal music is largely an anachronism anyway. When future generations
look at the music of the last 50 years they will be studying Moby, NIN,
Brian
Eno and the Beatles. <
And I think thats a good thing. I wish they'd include such genres now. What
was
pop music a hundred years ago is considered formal now.
>To a modern audience tonal music sounds kind of corny.<
I think you're making way to broad of a statement here.
Of course, if you mean tonal=sappy, then yer absolutely correct.
Saccharine, major key symphonic soundtracks come to mind.
I don't know about you, but Beethoven's 9th is quite tonal and it
exhilarates me. Or Bach's Toccata's, Monteverdi's Madrigals,
hell...John William's original Star Wars soundtrack. And I
certainly don't think I'm alone. Well, I hope not.
*bourbon for Lucid as well, and a clap on the shoulder*
Winter
--- Looks very little like a white rabbit.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> 600 years ago you probably would have been whining about passing of
> hexachords.
I used to think it was all downhill since J. S. Bach died. Then, I
realized, it's been all downhill since Pope Gregory died.
[And what I really wanted to learn is not so much how to compose tonal music
generally --- that is pretty natural, after all --- but rather, how to write
fugal parts and counterpoint the way Palestrina did, something far less easy
to put in a nutshell.]
Albatross
>That's exactly what I was trying to get at, you just expressed it perfectly.
>:)
>
>I have no problem with atonal, pantonal, minimalist, etc music. Like I
>said, I
>respect all serious music endeavors. What I didn't like was being told that
>I could not compose the music that came naturally...that it wasn't allowed.
And what is wrong with tonal music anyway? I can't imagine
being tired of Mozart. If we were to get another handful of Mozart
symphonies, would we really be so much worse off for it? I can't
believe that tonal music is exhausted, or that it can be.
There is a lot of anxiety of influence at work. Anxiety of
Influence is great if you are misreading your forbears, but is lousy
if it causes you to you reject them out-of-hand as outmoded, elitist,
etc. I think that these attitudes Winter has mentioned are downright
Oedipal. I imagine, too, that there is a lot of anxiety amongst the
atonal heros about their relative irrelevance. Of all the composers
whose names have been mentioned on this thread, the only one I own is
Gorecki - and that puts me ahead of the curve, I think. They are
facing a huge uphill fight. A broader audience will need to develop a
completely new musical literacy, and there is no real reason for that
literacy to develop outside it's current sphere. Poetry faces a
similar situation.
>>Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely atonal. Tonality
>is a dead language the masses barely speak any more.<
>
>I disagree. More dissonance yes, but I think it's more tonality-pushed-
>to-its-limits. I can flip through the cd-player and hear a center to
>just about every song.
There is nothing atonal about most pop music. I can listen to
almost any song on the radio and hear the Is, IVs and Vs, and the
occasional IIs and VIs. Pretty much like Elvis. I wouldn't even agree
that it is tonality pushed to it's limits. The modulations, where
there are any, continue to be basic. Unless you guys have a lot more
interesting radio stations than what I've got.
I'm not sure at what point a rejection of more traditional
harmonies would be called atonal, though. Almost all my musical
expereince was with Jazz. It could get pretty outside, but there were
always things that you couldn't do. Take a progression like this:
Aflatmaj7, Adim9, Gmaj 9, Emin9, Eflatmin7, back - all the while the
the melody is coming back strong to the G, dropping to g flat in the
last bar. That is actually going to be pretty consonant. Give me a
piano, and I'll make that smooth. But it is a far cry Vivaldi,
harmoncially. Would you call that atonal? There is a bunch of
chromatic movement, there is no real tonal center (though coming back
to Aflat will give the illusion of one). But it doesn't seem to me to
be revolutionary in the atonal way. So - maybe I'm just confused with
the way people are using these terms.
A
~
Joe Brenner
A brief defense of 20th Century music... You want to talk
about tonality? Try thinking about something like the trio
"A Space Between", composed of Pauline Oliveros on accordion
tuned in "just intonation", Dana Reason on piano, and Philip
Gelb on shakuhachi. Their three instruments don't even have
a tuning system in common, but they can play very well
together (often they do live improvisation), and the music
they produce is typically very moody and atmospheric, it
doesn't have the feel of being a stunt or an experiment or
weirdness for weirdness sake:
http://www.deeplistening.org/DLArtists/space.html
For all it's sins, the 20th Century was capable of producing
artistic phenomena like "A Space Between". More people
have had access to this kind or art than ever before...
this is not something to be dismissed lightly.
Lucid H. Dreaming
>On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 13:56:01 -0500, "Winter" <win...@bway.net> wrote:
>
>
>>That's exactly what I was trying to get at, you just expressed it perfectly.
>>:)
>>
>>I have no problem with atonal, pantonal, minimalist, etc music. Like I
>>said, I
>>respect all serious music endeavors. What I didn't like was being told that
>>I could not compose the music that came naturally...that it wasn't allowed.
Well the thing is going to a conservatory to learn how to write music
is like going
to a feminist studies department to learn about history.
It's not what they are about. If you want a rocksteady understanding
of musical tools of the trade your best bet nowadays is actualy to
pop on IRC and find a fairly active channel on trance music.
You'll have to find a good one where people who actualy compose trance
hang out but generaly people who write trance know how to use melody/
harmony, consonance/dissonance, overall themes/structure etc etc in a very
practical way.
>
>
> And what is wrong with tonal music anyway? I can't imagine
>being tired of Mozart. If we were to get another handful of Mozart
>symphonies, would we really be so much worse off for it? I can't
>believe that tonal music is exhausted, or that it can be.
I got fairly tired of Mozart after a while to be honest. It was too
predictable. I prefer Haydn and Beethoven. Haydn especialy had a habit
of putting cute little "easter eggs".
That's the thing there's 3 conflicting aims in music. Creating Perfection
within the limits like Mozart did. Reaching beyond the limits like Beethoven
did. And being Interesting like Haydn was.
It's still a common thread in music today I'm sure almost all contemporary
music can be pidgeon holed into one of the 3 catagories.
Have you heard about the computer AI that can compose music in the style
of mozart very effectively?
I suspect that kind of music of that kind will be relegated to the same
area as chess. A task for a human prodigy or a computer.
>
> There is a lot of anxiety of influence at work. Anxiety of
>Influence is great if you are misreading your forbears, but is lousy
>if it causes you to you reject them out-of-hand as outmoded, elitist,
>etc. I think that these attitudes Winter has mentioned are downright
>Oedipal. I imagine, too, that there is a lot of anxiety amongst the
>atonal heros about their relative irrelevance. Of all the composers
>whose names have been mentioned on this thread, the only one I own is
>Gorecki - and that puts me ahead of the curve, I think. They are
>facing a huge uphill fight. A broader audience will need to develop a
>completely new musical literacy, and there is no real reason for that
>literacy to develop outside it's current sphere. Poetry faces a
>similar situation.
The problem more is that the audience _has_ developed a new musical
vocabulary. It's just not the vocabulary the schools are promoting.
The entire concept of musical
schools is getting increasingly irrelevant.
Although interestingly Serialism (the atonal compositional style Schoenburg
developed) is _very_ popular in movie soundtracks especialy to create
tension.
>
>
>>>Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely atonal. Tonality
>>is a dead language the masses barely speak any more.<
>>
>>I disagree. More dissonance yes, but I think it's more tonality-pushed-
>>to-its-limits. I can flip through the cd-player and hear a center to
>>just about every song.
I just tried that... Interestingly enough for a couple of Ministry
tracks it changed about 3 times per song. You realy need to reach
to find it though since there's a lot of counter melodies that aren't
even at the same tuning let alone the same key.
When I say pop I do mean more "electronic" and hip hop acts than
guitar oriented things.
If you ignore the vocals it's a lot more evident. What tonality still
exists is mainly based around singing.
>
>
> There is nothing atonal about most pop music. I can listen to
>almost any song on the radio and hear the Is, IVs and Vs, and the
>occasional IIs and VIs. Pretty much like Elvis. I wouldn't even agree
>that it is tonality pushed to it's limits. The modulations, where
>there are any, continue to be basic. Unless you guys have a lot more
>interesting radio stations than what I've got.
What's the top 40 like over there? Over here it's largely dominated by
rap/hip hop and dance. That's what I'm pointing at when I say atonal.
> I'm not sure at what point a rejection of more traditional
>harmonies would be called atonal, though. Almost all my musical
>expereince was with Jazz. It could get pretty outside, but there were
>always things that you couldn't do. Take a progression like this:
>Aflatmaj7, Adim9, Gmaj 9, Emin9, Eflatmin7, back - all the while the
>the melody is coming back strong to the G, dropping to g flat in the
>last bar. That is actually going to be pretty consonant. Give me a
>piano, and I'll make that smooth. But it is a far cry Vivaldi,
>harmoncially. Would you call that atonal? There is a bunch of
>chromatic movement, there is no real tonal center (though coming back
>to Aflat will give the illusion of one). But it doesn't seem to me to
>be revolutionary in the atonal way. So - maybe I'm just confused with
>the way people are using these terms.
Well the way I see it consonance and dissonance don't realy relate to
tonality as such. I'm probably going to be jumped on by a couple of people
for doing this but when I'm looking for a tonal center I cheat and just
try to find a note I can hum for the entire tune without it sounding
"wrong".
If I can't find one or a lot notes sound equaly right then it's atonal.
Consonance and dissonance are only mentioned because they are closely
tied to the development of tonality in baroque/classic/romantic music.
And the original post seemed to be lamenting the loss of all 3.
Well I'm actualy using two definitions and perhaps I should distinguish
the.
The anal definition of atonal is tune that doesn't end on it's tonal
center. Making the tonal center an illusion. This is only realy relevant
if your entire view of music is based around the "classics".
The one that I'm more leaning towards is one where either there is
no tonal center at all or where there's more than one.
Although perhaps better terms for these would be pan-tonal and multi-tonal.
One form of atonal music that didn't occur to Schoenburg as such is
music where sound is purely percussive (in it's use if not in it's creation).
I think that's part of the reason for the emphasis on dissonance in
contemporary composition. It's a lot easier to use dissonant sounds
as substitutes for percussion... The more dissonant the better.
>
>
>A
Lucid H. Dreaming
>
>I don't have a degree because I need to pass a 3 credit intermediate foreign
>language course. 7 years trying, and foreign languages just seem to slip
>through my frosty little fingers. Very frustrating.
Well americans seem to rant on about how easy community colleges are to pass
perhaps you should take an equivalent in one of them and try to get an
exemption.
>
>Nope. In fact, "multiculturalism" was actually frowned on. ("We study
>WESTERN
>musical traditions here, Mr. Fielder".) There's irony in there.
>I wrote a paper on the musical scales and practices of the Scottish
>Highlands, and
>the paper was rejected because "We don't study FOLK MUSIC here Mr. Fielder")
Hrrrrm I haven't formaly studied composition since grade 5 when I had a
rolling synthscape for 5 minutes and then over the top of it played
a doorbell chime for 3 seconds near the end and got told that I was supposed
to have composed something "original".
I mean I didn't know what a soundscape was back in those days or that
"real" composers sampled sounds too. You can guess that I was pretty
discouraged. So my disillusionment with the musical establishment stretches
fairly far.
>
>Except in todays classrooms.
>
>Heck, I know I shouldn't even care about
>that. But I don't like paying good money to be told that "Hey, you can't
>write music like that, you MUST do it like this" when all I wanted was to
>have a scholastic
>environment to practice and learn and experiment.
You want to do a sound engineering course then. You pretty much get taught
_everything_ in those and from a purely practical perspective.
>
>>600 years ago you probably would have been whining about passing of
>hexachords. <
>
>Heh. Nah, I'm not whining about the passing of anything. My beef is with
>folks
>who try to tell me that my style of composing is wrong. And I have my own
>rules for the tonal game. Can't put 'em down into text like you could
>though.
>It's just what flows from the pen.
Mainly those rules are fairly established and are realy good rules of thumb
for writing music quickly. I can hack together a happy/sad or pretty tune
in about an hour with harmony. That's why you weren't getting taught them
because they're too "easy".
>
>> Of course tonality is bullshit. <
>
>Tonality is a structure that you can put to use. It's not bull****.
>Neither are
>12-tone, microtone programming, Oriental harmonics, or any other musical
>technique. Any serious form of musical expression that one really cares
>about
>can be used as tools.
All you realy need is a Frequency analysis of every sound you want to
use and a solid grasp on how to hold it all together.
Everything else is just an abstraction to make things easier to compose ;)
>
>None of it is 'wrong'. What's wrong is taking a student's natural talents
>and
>forcing them into a mold.
Well Yeah but I don't understand why anyone would want to study that sort
of thing formaly... I mean I didn't and I'm pretty sure I have a better
grasp of music in general than most "scholars" in the field.
>
>> You definetly do not need to be specialy educated to write music. <
>
>I wholeheartedly agree. Although I think it's good to at least get a course
>in
>the actual details of putting notes on a page: formatting, instrument
>ranges and
>transpositions, symbols, and the like. I still do things the hard way, with
>staff
>paper and a pen. If I didn't know the basics of writing it down then I'd be
>at a disadvantage.
You can teach yourself most of this.
And who would you be at a disadvantage to anyway? Most people who write
good music nowdays can't do any of that.
>
>> Formal music is largely an anachronism anyway. When future generations
>look at the music of the last 50 years they will be studying Moby, NIN,
>Brian
>Eno and the Beatles. <
>
>And I think thats a good thing. I wish they'd include such genres now. What
>was
>pop music a hundred years ago is considered formal now.
Nah they've dissapeared off into wank-land.... Hopefully in another 50 years
they'll have dissapeared entirely and new musical disciplines will rise
to replace them.
>
>>To a modern audience tonal music sounds kind of corny.<
>
>I think you're making way to broad of a statement here.
>
>Of course, if you mean tonal=sappy, then yer absolutely correct.
>Saccharine, major key symphonic soundtracks come to mind.
>
>I don't know about you, but Beethoven's 9th is quite tonal and it
>exhilarates me. Or Bach's Toccata's, Monteverdi's Madrigals,
>hell...John William's original Star Wars soundtrack. And I
>certainly don't think I'm alone. Well, I hope not.
Well I'll agree with you on the other parts but the 9th is only
tonal because you've never played it at half speed with all the notes
played with the same type of instrument. ;)
Try it one day.
If anything I'd say that all of them succeed despite their tonality not
because of it.
>
>*bourbon for Lucid as well, and a clap on the shoulder*
Thankye
>
>Winter
Lucid H. Dreaming
>"Lucid H. Dreaming" <dth2...@zen.art.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> 600 years ago you probably would have been whining about passing of
>> hexachords.
>
>I used to think it was all downhill since J. S. Bach died. Then, I
>realized, it's been all downhill since Pope Gregory died.
>
>[And what I really wanted to learn is not so much how to compose tonal music
>generally --- that is pretty natural, after all --- but rather, how to write
>fugal parts and counterpoint the way Palestrina did, something far less easy
>to put in a nutshell.]
Righteo... Your wish is granted.
Write in one of the "modes"
Ionian mode is the easiest (It's commonly known as C Major)
Each successive note only moves one note up or down.
Each group of singers tenor soprano etc
have the lower pitches always make their notes the same length
or longer than the ones above them.
Each group can come in in succession or together at the beggining.
Move between homophony and polyphony and back again.
Occasinaly have each group of singers repeat a motif in succession. This
is to build tension. Release tension by having all singers sing together
again.
There.
? - Who had to go digging through the dredges of his memory for that.
Lucid H. Dreaming
, Lucid H. Dreaming wrote:
>Each group can come in in succession or together at the beggining.
>
>Move between homophony and polyphony and back again.
Ooops I forgot.
At each "movement" always start the singers on the same note.
?
John Everett
>
> Music evolves.
>
> Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely
> atonal. Tonality is a dead language the masses
> barely speak any more.
Actually, you mean *devolves*. The masses have degenerated to comprehending
only *primitive* horizonal musicial structures, instead of *civilized*
vertical ones.
> Of course tonality is bullshit....
>
> The form of music that so many people are mourning
> the loss of is a cultural artifact caused by church music
> from which tonality and our concepts of consonance
> and dissonance come from was based on the human
> voice....
... and other strings. Not quite 'caused' by the church, however, although
it was applicable there as well. Vertical musical seniorities and hierchies
predate the church by *at least* Pythagoras.
You are quite correct, though, to recognized the *cultural* aspect. This is
a struggle between a cultural force of vertical hierarchy and a cultural
force of horizontal levelelling. Just another front of the culture war.
Of course, even Wagner thought he was Saving the World(tm) having the
leitmotif rise out of the common equality of the equal tempered scale -- of
course, when translated to real life, this type of leadership wasn't quite
so successful.
Nevertheless, today's music academic believe he or she is also Saving the
World(tm) by banishing those Uptight(tm) Western hiearchies. The road to
Hell is paved with these kind of efforts.
> which has very different harmonics to say...
> Gongs.
> Listening to Gamelan music will show this.
True. Different harmonic symbolisms. Different cultural essenses.
The relevant question however is, "How far across the globe did Gamelan
empire march?" Were they king and queens, or mere pawns?
> To a modern audience tonal music sounds
> kind of corny.
>
> To a generation where hearing a bubbling synth
> slowly rise in pitch to a feedback ridden climax
> is a crescendo tonality is fairly alien.
True, we have kept down a generation by habituating them to the horizontal.
It's easy to make a world of pawns -- just keep their hips moving, dancing
exotically.
Are we Free(tm) yet?
> Formal music is largely an anachronism anyway.
> When future generations look at the music of the
> last 50 years they will be studying Moby, NIN,
> Brian Eno and the Beatles.
ObGoth counter-point:
"You can't just hire a conga player and pretend the rock tradition is going
to go away."
-- Andrew Eldritch
"They're making the last film.
They say it's the best.
And we will help make it.
It's called the death of the West.
And all the monkeys in the zoo,
They're in it too."
-- Death in June
John
John Everett
> I guess you could say it really took off after WWII, aye.
> But the ball got rolling in the '20s.
Heavens! Getting involved in a military action by allowing a "Surprise"
attack seemed such a sensible way to spend a country out of a depression --
who knew the population -- particularly the Baby Boomer kids -- would get so
caught up in the propaganda used to disguise the material interests.
> ("We study WESTERN musical traditions here, Mr. Fielder"....
> .... "We don't study FOLK MUSIC here Mr. Fielder")
I remember my music professor talking about Phillip Glass. He said that
although his minimalism challenges the symphonic tradition, "it uses tonal
resouces, which makes it *circumspect*."
Circumspect! As if Glass was going on the list for questioning in the next
Cultural Revolution.
John
Winter
> of thing formaly... I mean I didn't and I'm pretty sure I have a better
> grasp of music in general than most "scholars" in the field.
I'll be honest. I regret having wasted my time at college and I very well
SHOULD
have studied it at my own pace and time. Would've saved me money and
kept the aspirin intake low.
> You can teach yourself most of this.
There were times that I was glad to have an experienced mentor guiding me.
I can learn a great deal from books and observation, but sometimes the voice
of someone who's been there can make it all fall into place.
> And who would you be at a disadvantage to anyway? Most people who write
> good music nowdays can't do any of that.
I find the physical act of taking a pen to staff paper to be very relaxing
and
meditative. And the fact that I don't have to think about the symbols
allows
me to concentrate on the drawing. Seeing the freshly inked notes on the
page
gives me as much of a thrill as hearing them.
Jennie Kermode
>On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 00:13:26 GMT, jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk (Jennie
>Kermode) wrote:
>>[1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
>>because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
>>least not mentally or emotionally.
> Almost every woman I've been close to - including my wife -
>says this exact thing. And everyone of them have been every whit a
>woman.
I'm sure you know, Albatross, that you are one of the few
people in the world whom I respect enough not to be offended by in that
regard. :) I have observed that you sometimes perceive things more
clearly than I can. I am curious, though. What exactly _is_ a woman, in
your understanding? In what way do people like me qualify as 'every whit a
woman'? It seems alien to me. A bit random, like horoscopes or personality
tests. Does it really mean anything at all?
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"For all these failures I had a tenacious faith in myself,
a messiah as yet without a message who would one day assemble
a unique identity out of this defective jigsaw." - JG Ballard
Jennie Kermode
>jen...@innocent.com wrote:
>>IHCOYC XPICTOC <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote:
>They saw what happened to ThemDamnHippies. They don't wanna get knocked
>down like that.
Heh. I never identified with hippies; I grew up as a punk and
hippies were the ones we used to avoid at all costs, the smelly ones, the
ones too passive to really feel anything. It was only when I got older
that I realised what I had despised, whilst popular amongst those who
_called_ themselves hippies, was actually a distortion of original hippie
ideas. Hojheg refers to himself as a hippie because he's trying to reclaim
the word for people who are active and assertive and difficult and only
occasionally fluffy.
>Can you do one without the other? You don't have to feel particularly
>good about humans to fight for them; you just have to have a certain
>conception of the Good.
This is what I have always had, what has always guided me
through life. I read a lot of philosophy as a small child and did a lot of
thinking, and I've always had a strong sense of ethics... strong
principles, if you like. Latterly, though I am not necessarily about to
abandon my principles, I am starting to question where they really come
from. Why is it good to wish to preserve people? Why is it bad to wish to
destroy them? The answers don't come as easily any more.
>>I think it will fall, given time.
>"Fall"? I don't know. Even the big bosses know that social chaos is bad
>for business. Either the screws get turned again (though any attempt to
>do that might result in the chaos no one wants) or we try to come in for a
>soft (or bumpy) landing, so to speak. The odds, IMO, slightly favor the
Perhaps I'm thinking in more sweeping terms. The more work I do
in historical linguistics, the more time I spend in the company of
archaeologists, the more aware I become of just how many great
civilisations have flourished before us; civilisations now little more
than ashes. We may have achieved things which they didn't -
industrialisation, getting into space, etc. - but I'm not sure that
that'll be enough to preserve us from whatever happened to them, whether
their fate came from without or from within. Increasingly I am inclined to
identify civilisations as ephemeral things, developing, flourishing and
inevitably subsiding. I know it doesn't have to be that way now just
because it's always been that way in the past, but it does seem likely.
Makes me think of Aldiss' 'Heliconia' trilogy, with each new
civilisation grasping at the relics of the last and striving to leave
something useful for the one to come, in the hope that, eventually,
sufficient knowledge might survive to make an escape from the system
possible; when all along that system is the only thing keeping humanity
alive at all.
>>>You can't create a meaningful society except by excluding -somebody-.
>What if "society" is understood to contain the whole world?
_Can_ we understand society on such a grand scale,
instinctively? Won't we inevitably form into different tribes within it?
A few years ago, at a dinosaur-burning ceremony on a remote
Scottish beach, I met a man who theorised that the average person't
address book / telephone book / list of friends never contains more han
about two hundred and fifty entries, that being the average size of a
stone age tribe. He argued that people found it hard to identify with
larger groupings with the same level of commitment; that people outside
that group inevitably had some spect of One of Them about them, even if
they were nominally, for reasons such as nationality, One of Us.
>>I don't want to see more of the humming drones so well
>>suited to the twentieth century.
>It was ever thus. ISTM this is the _least_ conformist time ever, at least
>when it comes to the general public. But we've never tried non-conformism
Perhaps. I was referring to an earlier statement I made in that
post about the twentieth century being the perfect environment for
conformists. There may be less overt pressure to conform, but choosing to
conform has become easier and more beneficial than ever; non-conformists
just quietly exclude themselves.
>But even those with absent hearts can at least come to a rational
>understanding of the Good.
I suppose they can be shepherded by rationalism. It seems a
sorry fate.
Jennie Kermode
>Was the 20th REALLY that bad?
>Can it truly be said that NOTHING good came of it?
>-JK Rowling
Well _there's_ a good reason to spit, if I could find no other.
JK Rowling is the Enid Blyton of late twentieth century
literature. Sure, she encourages kids to read. Their parents are similarly
encouraged by The Sun.
<snip rest of list>
You forgot one other crucial thing...
alt.gothic :)
waif
"Jennie Kermode" <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrn94rvhc...@triffid.demon.co.uk...
>
> JK Rowling is the Enid Blyton of late twentieth century
> literature. Sure, she encourages kids to read. Their parents are similarly
> encouraged by The Sun.
Dearheart, are you familiar with R.L.Stine, "The Babysitter's Club," or
"Ani-morphics"?
--
waif
waif "at" treebyleaf "dot" com
http://treebyleaf.com
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Perhaps I'm thinking in more sweeping terms. The more work I do
> in historical linguistics, the more time I spend in the company of
> archaeologists, the more aware I become of just how many great
> civilisations have flourished before us; civilisations now little more
> than ashes. We may have achieved things which they didn't -
> industrialisation, getting into space, etc. - but I'm not sure that
> that'll be enough to preserve us from whatever happened to them, whether
> their fate came from without or from within. Increasingly I am inclined to
> identify civilisations as ephemeral things, developing, flourishing and
> inevitably subsiding. I know it doesn't have to be that way now just
> because it's always been that way in the past, but it does seem likely.
The Archaeological Fallacy: we judge the worth of ancient civilisations by
their willingness to undertake monumental works of stone-masonry. It seems
that the Mayas kept literacy and some of the more valuable products of their
classical culture after they gave up building large pyramids and sacrificial
temples; but there was much less to excavate; they therefore move off the
screen of archaeological visibility. The Egyptians, too, are supposed to
have entered into some kind of cultural decline manifested by their
unwillingness to build bigger and bigger pyramids.
No one seems to have asked whether the Mayas or Egyptians were happier
without the kind of leaders who organised those projects. They quit
building big stone buildings to dig up, so it must have been cultural
decline: end of analysis.
When the western Roman empire fell, it was because people resented the Roman
taxes more than they minded the new barbarian overlords. What we can't get
through our heads is that the fall of the empire seemed like an improvement
at the time. Given the perennial note of weariness with government itself,
that every election in the States seems to bring, I can't help but wonder
whether the American government is likewise fragmenting from within.
rufus
<clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
> "Jennie Kermode" <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:slrn94rvhc...@triffid.demon.co.uk...
> >
> > JK Rowling is the Enid Blyton of late twentieth century
> > literature. Sure, she encourages kids to read. Their parents are similarly
> > encouraged by The Sun.
>
> Dearheart, are you familiar with R.L.Stine, "The Babysitter's Club," or
> "Ani-morphics"?
I'm not sure that those varieties of tripe have made it across the ocean.
(Bear in mind, I *like* Harry Potter, and have read the Babysitters Club.)
rufus
--
rufus AT bway DOT net | www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/8106
"I've *heard* of cleanliness. Sometimes I wish that I
got the neat freak gene. Then I toss another soda bottle
in the corner." -- benton
Jennie Kermode
>people took him to task for his treatment of "irony", by which he
>apparently meant the cheap, sarky existentialist despair you seem to be
It's certainly popular at the moment. It pollutes the air.
>talking about. There seems to be a kind of "ironic detachment" that
>doesn't involve any of this, though--what people now call "irony" might
>better be called "sarcasm",
Knowing that my semantics lecturers would scream if they ever
heard you put it like that, I can only conclude that we don't have enough
words. ;) 'Irony' has come to have two meanings, quite disparate, which
the great mass of the populace makes no effort to distinguish.
>and what people call "detachment" might better be called "emotional
>withdrawal".
It's ugly, whatever it is.
I hate all of this with a passion; hate it and want to burn it
and then jump up and down on what remains. It seems to have become worst -
or most popular - in the 'nineties, and whilst I have argued here for some
better aspects of the twentieth century I would have a great deal more
difficulty in justifying the existence of this last decade. I will admit
that it is essentially a personal grudge. Early in the accused period of
time, I foolishly allowed myself to fall in love with a young man who was
the perfect idol of that age. Oscar Wilde made more objective choices when
it came to romance than I managed then. I was overwhelmed by physical
beauty and, for beauty's sake, I struggled to understand the things which
mattered to him, the issues of his time. Those two years grew colder and
colder; I'm surprised we didn't both freeze to death. His sense of irony
belittled every treasure which I sought out in the wide world and laid at
his feet, every jewel I thought might call to his heart, every bauble I
thought might amuse him. His detachment was such that he preferred - quite
literally - to stare at a wall than to talk or practise love; he professed
that isolation offered something deeper, that all real meaning was to be
found in nothingness, as if his superior intellect perceived things which
I, with my sensually corrupted nature, could never hope to see. And I
believed him. I believed him so intensely that it was very nearly the
death of me.
These days, I hear he's still keeping his distance from life,
and (a new habit) doing a lot of speed. A fine personification of a
poisonous age. I still feel concern for him, like my concern for all those
achingly conformist, spirit-fearing humans who call the twentieth century
home, but I am furious at myself for feeling that, for being so weak. When
I look back at the 'nineties and their glorified 'ironic detachment' I see
my own death, so narrowly avoided, staring jealously back at me.
Mark Greene
"Rat Bastard" <rb...@obscure.org> wrote:
> Mark Greene <gree...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> > > -Maya Angelou
> > > -Robert Frost
> >
> > This is an example of taking the bad with the good, yes?
> It would appear (to me) that you wished to blast one of these poets
while
> praising the other. However, you appear to have omitted the most
important
> part: who exactly you were blasting/praising.
Please do not play the role of the dumb blonde, as it seriously does
not become you.
Considering the standard English language syntactical convention
inherant in word order and as evidences by other such uses such
as "former and latter", it ought to be pretty damn obvious as to who I
meant was what.
--
gothae subnoto baritus
Burning our skins to be renewed, but never hiding the charred look as
we forever age ourselves without reason.
-- Hardrock Llewynyth in a.g.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Panurge
>I never identified with hippies; I grew up as a punk and
>hippies were the ones we used to avoid at all costs, the smelly ones, the
>ones too passive to really feel anything. It was only when I got older
>that I realised what I had despised, whilst popular amongst those who
>_called_ themselves hippies, was actually a distortion of original hippie
>ideas. Hojheg refers to himself as a hippie because he's trying to reclaim
>the word for people who are active and assertive and difficult and only
>occasionally fluffy.
Well... I _like_ "fluffiness"--or, should I say, *gentleness*, and I
think that the hippie movement was, after all, largely about creating a
gentler (even, explicitly, more _feminine_, in the conventionally
understood fashion, though I actually think that's rather limiting)
world. Remember, this was the Age Of Vince Lombardi, after all. (Do you
folks in the UK know Lombardi?) It had its failings, but they tended to
be failures of inconsistency (the feminist movement was apparently
inspired largely by the hypocrisy of some men in the radical wing of the
hippie movement) or of not thinking things through (no one seemed to know
the best way of getting to where they wanted to go, so to speak).
Really, I share your misgivings much of the time--it's as if they'd tried
to hit a target and didn't realize they'd missed. But I think it's a
target worth hitting.
Here's a depressing little essay by a fellow named Carlo Rovelli, one of a
series in response to www.edge.org founder John Brockman's question, "What
is the world's most important unreported story?"
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/story/contributions.html#rovelli
I find things much the way he finds them (though I've got more hope than
he does that things can be turned around). Take his concluding passage:
"A [politically] strong ideology believes [itself] to be realist, and
calls its reported stories 'reality'. The old dreams are transformed
[into] irrational monsters, then they get unreported, then [it is as if]
they have never existed." I see something which strikes me as a result
of this all the time in my life (or at least my experience with the
media)--the word "reality" is consistently and predominantly used to
invoke some sort of Fall-with-a-capital-F, generally preceded with the
words "harsh" or "cold" or "hard" or "sad" or "unfortunate". It's as if
people think that abandoning their hopes and dreams somehow makes them
*more mature people*, for goodness' sake--as if people thought that
compromise wasn't about taking half a loaf, but rather about taking a
completely different loaf that's half as enjoyable, but really better than
what you say you want, and what, that's not good enough for you, you lousy
hippie ingrate?, etc., etc. It's only in the last year that I've come to
accept the idea that many people really were disenchanted with it, though
that might just be a result of its failure to produce Utopia.
>Why is it good to wish to preserve people? Why is it bad to wish to
>destroy them?
What better conception of the Good is there than "that which enhances
people's well-being"?
>We may have achieved things which they didn't -
>industrialisation, getting into space, etc. - but I'm not sure that
>that'll be enough to preserve us from whatever happened to them....
It probably won't. But I think there are other things in place which will
be enough, in particular this civilization's literally worldwide spread.
You could probably break this civilization apart, but you couldn't shut it
down--that would require shutting down the whole world. And besides, I
think there are enough people who'd realize that there's just too much to
lose now to prevent any sort of mass worldwide meltdown.
> _Can_ we understand society on such a grand scale,
>instinctively? Won't we inevitably form into different tribes within it?
Yes, and yes, IMHO. More accurately, we can understand both a society and
an economy as a sort of meta-society--a network connecting various
sub-societies and sub-cultures.
> A few years ago, at a dinosaur-burning ceremony on a remote
>Scottish beach, I met a man who theorised that the average person't
>address book / telephone book / list of friends never contains more han
>about two hundred and fifty entries, that being the average size of a
>stone age tribe. He argued that people found it hard to identify with
>larger groupings with the same level of commitment; that people outside
>that group inevitably had some spect of One of Them about them, even if
>they were nominally, for reasons such as nationality, One of Us.
I can see that. ISTR someone else having done a study where the figure
was more like 150. The thought came to me that that might be a good way
to organize the low end of a representative democracy; you'd have a
"neighborhood" of 150 people, each one of which could organize some of its
own affairs and which could choose a representative to a municipal or
county-wide legislative house of the same size.
>There may be less overt pressure to conform, but choosing to
>conform has become easier and more beneficial than ever;
>non-conformists just quietly exclude themselves.
But at least it's easier for non-conformists to get a job now.
It's kind of odd--people in the past seemed to accept cultural change more
on those relatively rare occasions when it came along, but they all went
along eventually--a sort of conformism in itself. Maybe the new-idea
people were better integrated into the cultural structure back then.
BTW, who's Hojheg?
Panurge
>On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 00:28:19 -0500, Panurge <jbl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>[P]eople took [Jedediah Purdy] to task for his treatment of "irony", by which
>>he apparently meant the cheap, sarky existentialist despair you seem to be
>>talking about.
> It's certainly popular at the moment. It pollutes the air.
Well, you see, I hear it in most of what's been considered "hip" since
punk came along, _including_ much of the music that's popular on this ng
(though that might just be me). I hear it in Devo, I hear it in the
Smiths, I hear it in the Cure, I hear it in Bauhaus, I hear it in Talking
Heads--and my reaction is just like yours. Sometimes it's not so bad as
that, but it seems to be a step on the way there. In any event, the seeds
for it were sown a _long_ time ago--you could even describe it as a
reaction, like punk, to the way the hippie movement turned out (or failed
to turn out--I see it as a partial success that was turned into a failure
through an unhealthy change in perspective).
>'Irony' has come to have two meanings, quite disparate, which
>the great mass of the populace makes no effort to distinguish.
One definition I like is (to paraphrase) "a sophisticated recognition of
the contradictions in a situation." I like that--it defines a useful
quality that, far from having to be sarky, can still be benevolent, even
gentle.
Rat Bastard
> Considering the standard English language syntactical convention
> inherant in word order and as evidences by other such uses such
> as "former and latter", it ought to be pretty damn obvious as to who I
> meant was what.
Reasonably so. But I chose not to assume that your meaning was what it
'seemed' to mean, and open myself to any accusations of misinterpretation on
my part. After all, miscommunication of oneself is a fairly common usenet
phenomenon, so I simply asked for further clarity before proceeding.
Regardless, you still have not addressed the point of my inquiry: what is it
that causes you to consider Maya Angelou as 'bad'?
Rat Bastard
--
_ /|_|\ _ Rat Bastard: Neither a Rat, nor a Bastard? ______
\X x/ Discuss.
/\o/\ "Being HERE is a lot like being lost.."-The Tick
^^==^^= http://www.obscure.org/~rbast ICQ#39637373
Jennie Kermode
>The Archaeological Fallacy: we judge the worth of ancient civilisations by
>their willingness to undertake monumental works of stone-masonry. It seems
>that the Mayas kept literacy and some of the more valuable products of their
>classical culture after they gave up building large pyramids and sacrificial
>temples; but there was much less to excavate; they therefore move off the
>screen of archaeological visibility.
I wasn't really thinking in terms of monuments, and don't
worry, I'm not falling for the notion that all of the people of these
various cultures somewhow just disappeared. ;) I'm sure that most of the
ancient cultures simply merged with others, evolved and changed, altering
their priorities... but I come up against things like dead languages, and
gaps in the linguistic record where there must have been _somebody_; and I
look at some of the sunken cities which everybody in ahc keeps talking
about, and see a necessary mathematical tradition which seems to have been
cut off in the same way; and something was lost, there. That's what I mean
by the death of civilisations. Major amounts of knowledge did just
disappear. I am not confident that that won't happen to us.
>When the western Roman empire fell, it was because people resented the Roman
>taxes more than they minded the new barbarian overlords. What we can't get
>through our heads is that the fall of the empire seemed like an improvement
I expect these things _have_ to feel like an improvement to a
significant portion of the population, or they just wouldn't happen.
>at the time. Given the perennial note of weariness with government itself,
>that every election in the States seems to bring, I can't help but wonder
>whether the American government is likewise fragmenting from within.
I've heard a lot of people refer to the USA as 'the current
Roman Empire' with that in mind. It's interesting to observe from a
distance, like watching some bizarre historical re-enactment.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> What better conception of the Good is there than "that which enhances
> people's well-being"?
Indeed, isn't that what it's all about, really? The congenital and
perpetual rejection of the spirit of unearned benevolence, the sort that
asks for no recompense or reward? This is what would be needed to transform
the world with kindness. And as always, as -predestined-, and as the
history of the past two thousand years has shown, human beings cannot deal
with it.
The progress in my case has been from :"we can change the world," to the
realisation that the world just isn't going to change. The death of the
notion that people are basically good inside. The awakening to the
reality of the utter corruption of the human species, and how -that- is what
stands in the way of all the dreams of peace and justice, dreams we grew up
with, dreams we now know are lies. The dawning certainty that the absolute
worst thing that anything could possibly be is a human being.
This is the way the world looks, at least to a disillusioned ex-leftist in
the United States. "Man is a weed in those regions." And it still looks
like "no future" from here. It seems that the best course is to turn our
backs to the world as it goes its merry way to Hell.
Nyx
<t4urpbk...@corp.supernews.com>:
>The progress in my case has been from :"we can change the world," to the
>realisation that the world just isn't going to change.
But, that doesn't mean you should stop trying. If you ever stop trying to
change things for the better then something inside you dies. I'll fight til
I die, and then I'll fight death.
"I'm not trying to change the world, only this small part of it, and only
for a little while." John Varley.
You may not be able to make the big changes in the world, but you can
change your life and the lifes of those around you for the better.
Sometimes that's enough.
And sometimes it's beating your head against a wall till it's bloody, but
it's still a noble pursuit. And sometimes you actually break the wall.
I won't spit on this century. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was better
than a lot of the preceding centuries. I'll just try to make the next one
better, and not worry about who should be blamed for the problems of the
past. Blame is futile.
Nyx
--
ICQ: 9744630 AIM: nyxxxxx (5x's) Yahoo: nyxxxx (4x's)
Jennie Kermode
>In article <1mo36.206090$U46.6...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>, "waif"
><clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
>> Dearheart, are you familiar with R.L.Stine, "The Babysitter's Club," or
>> "Ani-morphics"?
>I'm not sure that those varieties of tripe have made it across the ocean.
Probably not. I haven't come across them; nor have I seen them
reviewed. Should I take it that they're worth avoiding? ;)
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"I wish I was invisible, so I could climb through the telephone"
Email now working and swinging both ways!
Jennie Kermode
>Panurge" <jbl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> What better conception of the Good is there than "that which enhances
>> people's well-being"?
>Indeed, isn't that what it's all about, really? The congenital and
>perpetual rejection of the spirit of unearned benevolence, the sort that
>asks for no recompense or reward? This is what would be needed to transform
>the world with kindness.
It's something which I find inside my heart; which is basic
enough for me to have made my priority, and got myself hurt over, more
times than I care to count; yet you have said it is the heart which is
wicked, and I can see sense in that, too. I wonder if it is in fact the
combination of the heart and head - hate, greed and fear combined with an
intellect which can resist the nobler impulses because it does not
consider them rational - which is our downfall.
>And as always, as -predestined-, and as the history of the past two
>thousand years has shown, human beings cannot deal with it.
So should we try for an inclusive world which still prioritises
all humans, whatever their failings; or should those people more capable
of love crush for a while that part of themselves and wipe out those who
will never be capable of it; and simply hope to be able to get back,
themselves, so that something better might rise from the ashes? Of course
neither is pretty. I just feel that doing nothing does not relieve those
who can recognise the problem of the burden of responsibility, and neither
does it improve the life even of a single individual.
>The progress in my case has been from :"we can change the world," to the
>realisation that the world just isn't going to change.
If I was wiser, and could figure this out by myself, I would
change it at most any cost just to dismiss the sadness which I sense in
you when you write like this. It seems wrong that you should be so sad,
and it also makes me angry that anyone can lack hope like that. I may not
be able to change the world, or the hearts of humanity, any more than I
could wake gods from their sleep and persuade them to come back and fix
the mess they made; but that doesn't mean that I will ever cease to shout
at the gods, and hurl small stones at them; at least I might have the
satisfaction of troubling their dreams. If there is no hope in this world
I will make my own. I have enough love in me to despise those who have no
anger left; and I have enough spite in me to love those who have no love
left. I will not turn my back on it.
>The death of the notion that people are basically good inside.
All people?
We must make our own destinies. If we can't change others, we
can at least strive to change ourselves.
>The awakening to the reality of the utter corruption of the human
>species, and how -that- is what stands in the way of all the dreams of
>peace and justice, dreams we grew up with, dreams we now know are
>lies.
The dreams are not lies, even if they can never be
realised. The dreams have value in themselves. They also have power, if we
can be brave enough to keep on taking chances.
>The dawning certainty that the absolute worst thing that anything could
>possibly be is a human being.
Vanity is something I reckon I can be pretty good at, but I
don't think I could ever take it that far. I don't rate human beings
highly enough to accord us such a dubious honour.
>This is the way the world looks, at least to a disillusioned ex-leftist in
>the United States. "Man is a weed in those regions." And it still looks
>like "no future" from here. It seems that the best course is to turn our
>backs to the world as it goes its merry way to Hell.
The world, so scorned, would drag us with it all the same.
I have to thank you for something, IHCOYC. During the course
of this thread I have had a lot of questions to ask, and I have wondered
at the truth or necessity of a lot of the things I always believed
in. Your despair has reminded me why I believed. I can walk away from Hell
now. I may be only one person, but I'll still do what I can, in my own
way, to drag the world with me.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Jennie Kermode
responded to my post with:
>Well... I _like_ "fluffiness"--or, should I say, *gentleness*, and I
>think that the hippie movement was, after all, largely about creating a
>gentler (even, explicitly, more _feminine_, in the conventionally
>understood fashion, though I actually think that's rather limiting)
>world.
It's a fine objective. <shrug> Maybe I'm still too young,
with too much youthful anger, to take easily to that kind of
arrangement. There is something willfull and vicious in me which rebels
against it - which is even _frightened_ of it - and if that is in me then
it will be in others, and many will be worse at controlling it; and so I'm
not convinced that gentleness is always practical. I guess I have been
disturbed by the aspect of that movement which seeks to educate people
into gentleness; I don't want my mind to be changed for the world's
convenience; I want to be myself. I want to be amongst individuals, even
if I must accept their capacity for violence as a result.
>hippie movement) or of not thinking things through (no one seemed to know
>the best way of getting to where they wanted to go, so to speak).
I guess that's another thing that disturbs me; as war is called
the mother of invention, so I have often found that distress and adversity
are necessary elements in the process whhich enables me to think
imaginatively and creatively. I don't want to be so peaceful, so gentle,
that I cannot think sharply anymore. I think that's part of the reason
that the hippie movement lost its way.
>media)--the word "reality" is consistently and predominantly used to
>invoke some sort of Fall-with-a-capital-F, generally preceded with the
>words "harsh" or "cold" or "hard" or "sad" or "unfortunate". It's as if
Aye... and there's an assumption that the only things in life
which are real are also negative. That's not something I can share. I only
have to look out of my window to find joy in the beauty of the world. I
only have to look inside my heart to find joy in my love for certain other
people. I have beautiful music which is real, and which is still
inspiring. And there are always the stars.
>people think that abandoning their hopes and dreams somehow makes them
>*more mature people*, for goodness' sake--as if people thought that
I think people are often under the impression that their lack
of hope is something arrived at naturally through the process of aging,
something which cannot be changed; a product of the loss of youthful
naivete. This gets confused with maturity being seen as desirable, and
therefore hopelessness being seen as desirable. I have plenty of sympathy
for it, but it's not useful, so I shall discard it and look for something
which is. And I shall keep on leading the hopeless out beneath the great
arc of the night sky, in the hope that, eventually, their eyes will pick
out the stars, and they will comprehend the enormity of the universe, and
thus the enormity of possibility, and thus that we are still alive _and_
kicking.
>compromise wasn't about taking half a loaf, but rather about taking a
>completely different loaf that's half as enjoyable, but really better than
>what you say you want, and what, that's not good enough for you, you lousy
>hippie ingrate?, etc., etc. It's only in the last year that I've come to
Malcolm McLaren used to say: "Be reasonable. Demand the
impossible." Now, by and large, Malcolm McLaren was a bit of a twat, but I
happen to agree with him on that one.
>>Why is it good to wish to preserve people? Why is it bad to wish to
>>destroy them?
>What better conception of the Good is there than "that which enhances
>people's well-being"?
It's a good enough answer. I asked my question badly. I
suppose what I am really seeking is some context whereby to understand the
relevance of the good. I've read a lot of philosophers' takes on this one,
but I have yet to find an answer which satisfies me, which enables me to
bring my head into line with my heart.
>Yes, and yes, IMHO. More accurately, we can understand both a society and
>an economy as a sort of meta-society--a network connecting various
>sub-societies and sub-cultures.
Yes... I think this is the way to go (the best option
until we can think of a better one). It's the only level at which I can
realistically imagine any kind of democracy functioning.
>BTW, who's Hojheg?
Oh - sorry - he's my flatmate; and I _will_ get him to delurk
sometime soon. He'd have a great deal to contribute to threads like this.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
waif
> >In article <1mo36.206090$U46.6...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>, "waif"
> ><clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
> >> Dearheart, are you familiar with R.L.Stine, "The Babysitter's Club," or
> >> "Ani-morphics"?
>
> Probably not. I haven't come across them; nor have I seen them
> reviewed. Should I take it that they're worth avoiding? ;)
>
These are "children's serials," they're a written equivalent of formula
cartoon episodes. They've been real money-makers for the publishing houses;
they're shorter and flashier than novels and cheaper, too, so they make a
better impulse buy. They've been getting more space year by year. By two
years ago, half the children's section in many bookstore was given to
serials, all the promotional budget and display space, and other vendors
such as grocers and drug stores simply weren't carrying children's novels.
This has changed in the past year, year and a half, because the kids who've
read Harry Potter are not interested in the serials. They are interested in
more novels. I'm consistently seeing Madelaine L'Engel, Susan Cooper and
Lloyd Alexander and _The Phantom Tollbooth_ back on display for the first
time in a decade; and I'm seeing Diana Wynne Jones's work featured on
American soil for the first time ever.
Grocer displays are a fascinating study right now, because the Harry Potter
books came over at the same time that publishers made the first big push
since "Sweet Valley High" to create a market of teen serials. So, right
now, you've got the teen row full of these skinny, large print glorified
magazine stories written under publisher-owned pseudonym on contracts that
often specify the plot outline-- and the younger reader's row beside it full
of 300-500+ page novels that are works of love.
It's my personal opinion that Rowling's work is more archtypal than
cliched-- but irrelevant of the quality of her works, their *commericial
success* have made children's novels accessible again on shelves and in the
media eye, and for that I am most grateful.
Joe Brenner
>On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 00:06:07 -0500, Panurge <jbl...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>jen...@innocent.com wrote:
>>>IHCOYC XPICTOC <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote:
><snip>
>>>>You can't create a meaningful society except by excluding -somebody-.
>>What if "society" is understood to contain the whole world?
> _Can_ we understand society on such a grand scale,
>instinctively? Won't we inevitably form into different tribes within it?
> A few years ago, at a dinosaur-burning ceremony on a remote
>Scottish beach, I met a man who theorised that the average person't
>address book / telephone book / list of friends never contains more han
>about two hundred and fifty entries, that being the average size of a
>stone age tribe. He argued that people found it hard to identify with
>larger groupings with the same level of commitment; that people outside
>that group inevitably had some spect of One of Them about them, even if
>they were nominally, for reasons such as nationality, One of Us.
Well excuse the tangent, but this reminds me of something
I've been thinking about lately. It strikes me that the
really compulsive cell phone people seem to be just
nervously checking each other's movements. E.g. "I'm on the
train, no it isn't late, I'll be there in 20 minutes." (I
paraphrase... actually it seems to take them about 5 minutes
of repetitious back-and-forth to get out a simple message
like that.)
I predict that within five years, you will see people
voluntarily wearing location transponders, so that people
can take out their palm computers, and quickly identify the
locations of all members of their virtual tribe. "Oh,
look, Jason, Chelsea and Talbot are all over at the Roaring
Sushi Dome. Let's go join them there."
Then you get into the evolution of customs for things like
initiation into the tribe, rules of etiquette for when
you're allowed to have your transponder on or off,
quasi-legal proceedings for ejection and shunning, and so
on.
And I guess this is somewhat reminscent of some stuff from
the middle novels of Benford's "Galaxy" series
(e.g. "Flushed down the Toilet of the Gods", or whatever
it was called).
Jennie Kermode
responded to my response to IHCOYC XPICTOC with:
>Ruin? What ruin? Either it gets kept up or it gets torn down--there's
>almost no in between any more, hasn't been for hundreds of years.
I guess that depnds on where you are.
There are ruins of many different ages all over
Scotland. Glasgow is, sadly, full of crumbling churches and fantastic
gothic follies which no-one has been able to raise the money to
restore. Last year I was trying to get funding together to buy an early
nineteenth century church which was going for just twenty grand (ukp); it
didn't work out (Donald getting ill again meant abandoning all such
business plans anyway, since I just didn't have time); but I would have
been happy to work on that with my own two hands, day after day, and I had
a big team of volunteers prepared to help. It was perfect, and included
plenty of potential living space. It even had its own graveyard.
Further out, among the hills and mountains, there are older
ruins; the stone free houses built between the fifteenth and nineteenth
centuries to shelter travellers; various crumbling castles; the ancient
brochs, and the still more ancient standing stones with their various
attached tunnels and temples.
Underneath this city is a ruinous maze of tunnels, with some
created by the university for storage, some dug when the underground train
network was built, some carved out by genuine secret societies, some
attached old mine workings and other place hollowed out of the earth by
the homeless, some of whom still shelter there. There was an entrance to
one of them in the back of my old garden, though one had to get down using
a rope. These tunnels were begun at least as early as the fifteenth
century, and continue to be expanded (as a result of which, naturally,
surface dwellings collapse through the ground every now and again).
>I have to admit, I like some of them. But then, the ones I like tend to
>be the more elaborate ones, especially the ones that _aren't_
>rectangular.
There are three concrete and glass tower blocks which stand
about a half mile from my flat, and which can be seen directly,
unobscured, from the living room and study windows. About twenty storeys
high, with four flats per floor, they make small miserable prisons for
some two hundred and forty families. Sometimes, however, in the late
afternoons, when the sun streams along the western highway, they are
painted a vivid gold, and look like pillars of fire against the pale
sky. On other occasions they shine pure white, a Classical architect's
dream. They're no longer real, then; they are ideal archetypes,
expressions of all the best hopes of those who commisioned them.
>I'm reminded of a story about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe looking around late
>in his life at a "modern" cityscape covered with big glass boxes (this
>would've been the '60s, I guess) and saying, "Well, at least they will
>know we were here."
I'm sure we could make a more impressive mark with a large
degree of nuclear fallout. ;)
Sometimes I figure that Godzilla has the best attitude to
them.
>>>The twentieth century was the triumph of abstract painting and sculpture.
>I don't see anything wrong with abstraction, though.
I think the problem lies more with the predominance of such
forms, and with the suffocation of alternatives, than with the simple fact
of their existence.
>>Can we defeat that part of ourselves which
>>identifies anyone outside the tribe as disposable?
>Some can, some can't.
If only some can, is that worth anything, whilst others
continue to fuck it all up?
I guess my own reaction to this is that change has to start
somewhere, and it's just useless and lazy to wait for somebody else to
take the lead. I've seen the struggles of a few individuals gather steam
and change majority public opinion. Rather than waiting for a man on a
white horse to instruct _us_, why not start breeding horses and teaching
people to ride?
>> We are only animals, emotionally ill-equipped to handle the
>>tools at our disposal.
>"Animals" as opposed to what? With all due respect, that's a word that
>gets thrown around an awful lot because it seems to have such emotional
>and metaphorical resonance--kinda like "strong" and "weak".
I don't intend to use it that way. If you want, what I'm
talking about is the interaction of endocrinal thinking with neurological
thinking, and of the hindbrain with the forebrain. Biology influencing
those who might find it more useful to be machines.
>>The age to come _must_ be an intellectual age, or we are doomed.
>! I thought we'd just _had_ "an intellectual age"--that's where Le
>Corbusier and the Bauhaus were coming from, to come back to architecture.
We have had an age which liked to think of itself that way,
but didn't like to think.
>Really, what I think we're having is an age of the _divorce_ of reason and
>emotion & sensitivity.
That may well be correct... see my comments in another of
these posts.
>actually gains value for being so pertinent to our times. "...the heart
>and mind united/In a single perfect sphere" sounds obvious, but if that's
>so, why aren't more people living that way?)
Because imperfection - variety - chaos, even - is itself one
of our crucial survival mechanisms. It's what got us this far.
>> Another part of me despises those weaklings who cannot think
>>for themselves. They are outside the tribe, and disposable.
>Independent thought isn't the only virtue. Besides, show me a person who
>thinks _completely_ independently and I'll show you a *hermit*.
Thought of any kind would be an improvement. Some people never
seem prepared to initiate chains of thought for themselves.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"Is that all there is? Is that all there is to life? 'Cause
if that's all there is, let's keep on dancing. Bring out the
champagne. Let's have a ball! If that is all there is."
Lucid H. Dreaming
>"Lucid H. Dreaming" wrote...
>>
>> Music evolves.
>>
>> Face it. Listened to much "pop" Lately it's largely
>> atonal. Tonality is a dead language the masses
>> barely speak any more.
>
>Actually, you mean *devolves*. The masses have degenerated to comprehending
>only *primitive* horizonal musicial structures, instead of *civilized*
>vertical ones.
Evolve vs Devolve. Evolving meaning to change to something new while
devolving means to revert to an older (less "advance") form.
You know I've never thought of it that way before...
So you're claiming that music is reverting to a more "primitive" form?
I'm not sure I can agree with that.
By horizontal vs vertical music structures I'm assuming you're
claiming a connection between the social stratification of the
cultures producing the music and it's structure.
For example tribal drumming being produced by at best clan cultures
with 2 levels of heirachy or less.
vs. Hexachords, Modes, Scales etc etc produced by State "cultures"
such as Western cultures, china, even Gamelan music which was considered
court music.
I'm not sure where japanese music such as the background music to
Noh fits within this though.
(States being cultural entities with at least 3 levels of stratification.)
I guess you can make a case for that. Although most tribal etc cultures
are also quite happy to use the pentatonic scale. And martial themes
always tend to harken towards "primitive" tribalism even in "advanced"
cultures.
However the rhythimic complexity of "modern" music as far as I can
tell never developed in western culture in the first place so
I'm not sure "devolved" would be the right term for it.
Perhaps "evolved" in the same sense of change as "gravity" for things falling
or "fate".
An inevitable relentless heartless progression with no "right" or "wrong"
attached to it.
>> Of course tonality is bullshit....
>>
>> The form of music that so many people are mourning
>> the loss of is a cultural artifact caused by church music
>> from which tonality and our concepts of consonance
>> and dissonance come from was based on the human
>> voice....
>
>... and other strings. Not quite 'caused' by the church, however, although
>it was applicable there as well. Vertical musical seniorities and hierchies
>predate the church by *at least* Pythagoras.
Well to some extent... The more basic harmonics such as what is harshly
dissonant is constant along all freely vibrating sounds. But western cultures
more complicated understanding of harmonics is heavily based around the
overtones of the human voice.
And for constrained vibrating objects especialy percussive instruments
it is a whole nother ball game. As is synthesized sound.
>
>You are quite correct, though, to recognized the *cultural* aspect. This is
>a struggle between a cultural force of vertical hierarchy and a cultural
>force of horizontal levelelling. Just another front of the culture war.
>
>Of course, even Wagner thought he was Saving the World(tm) having the
>leitmotif rise out of the common equality of the equal tempered scale -- of
>course, when translated to real life, this type of leadership wasn't quite
>so successful.
>
>Nevertheless, today's music academic believe he or she is also Saving the
>World(tm) by banishing those Uptight(tm) Western hiearchies. The road to
>Hell is paved with these kind of efforts.
Interestingly enough by doing so they are setting themselves up as
heirs to that Western hierachal tradition.
The biggest commonality between "primitive" tribal music is a fairly
informal set of rules for music. While hierachal societies have
ridgedly defined rules formalising the symbolisms inherant in the
music requiring years of study to understand and compose in that
style.
Serialism is more hierachal in this respect than traditional
consonant music. In essence they are making it impossible
for the "common man" on the street to understand their work.
It has it's dogmatic traditions it's own meanings and has no real
relation to what people actualy understand.
Perhaps the path to salvation is not in one of the extremes
of hierachy or freedom of expression but rather a happy median
between the two.
After all why study a tradition when we can actualy study the
sounds and their effects on people in detail?
Modern technology has created the possibility of purely
functional music.
It's a Brave New World.
>
>> which has very different harmonics to say...
>> Gongs.
>> Listening to Gamelan music will show this.
>
>True. Different harmonic symbolisms. Different cultural essenses.
>
>The relevant question however is, "How far across the globe did Gamelan
>empire march?" Were they king and queens, or mere pawns?
Is it relevant? They were a heavily stratified hierachal society that
created stratified and hierachal music.
Otherwise if we want to base music on successful cultures we should all
study mongolian whistling in depth. Actualy we should anyway because
it's bloody interesting music but
hierachal "states" aren't neccesarily more succesful than "tribes".
>
>> To a modern audience tonal music sounds
>> kind of corny.
>>
>> To a generation where hearing a bubbling synth
>> slowly rise in pitch to a feedback ridden climax
>> is a crescendo tonality is fairly alien.
>
>True, we have kept down a generation by habituating them to the horizontal.
>
>It's easy to make a world of pawns -- just keep their hips moving, dancing
>exotically.
>
>Are we Free(tm) yet?
Actualy hrrrrm.
What do you think of Rage Against the Machine?
And Marylin Manson?
They've both got at least one foot _very_ firmly in the Rock and Roll
tradition.
>
>> Formal music is largely an anachronism anyway.
>> When future generations look at the music of the
>> last 50 years they will be studying Moby, NIN,
>> Brian Eno and the Beatles.
>
>ObGoth counter-point:
>"You can't just hire a conga player and pretend the rock tradition is going
>to go away."
>-- Andrew Eldritch
But that's for people brought up with it.
I'm sure that rome had deep complex traditions surrounding it's music
but no-one even knows what it sounded like now....
Traditions can die.
I predict in the next 50 years we will see music purely engineered
for an effect.
It's not just rock and roll that's going to be dead.
>
>"They're making the last film.
>They say it's the best.
>And we will help make it.
>It's called the death of the West.
>And all the monkeys in the zoo,
>They're in it too."
>-- Death in June
Muahahahahahaha...
How true.
>John
Albatross
Kermode) wrote:
>On Wed, 27 Dec 2000 16:34:37 -0800, Albatross <tpa...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 00:13:26 GMT, jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk (Jennie
>>Kermode) wrote:
>>>[1] I don't usually feel comfortable identifying as 'female' at all,
>>>because I don't seem to fit the majority definition of the concept, at
>>>least not mentally or emotionally.
>
>> Almost every woman I've been close to - including my wife -
>>says this exact thing. And everyone of them have been every whit a
>>woman.
>
> I'm sure you know, Albatross, that you are one of the few
>people in the world whom I respect enough not to be offended by in that
>regard. :)
I meant to needle you. ;)
> I have observed that you sometimes perceive things more
>clearly than I can. I am curious, though. What exactly _is_ a woman, in
>your understanding? In what way do people like me qualify as 'every whit a
>woman'? It seems alien to me. A bit random, like horoscopes or personality
>tests. Does it really mean anything at all?
None of my answers will satisfy you; they don't satisfy me.
What does 'woman' signify to you that you don't feel you
qualify? Or that you want to distance yourself from it?
A
~
Panurge
>On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 21:33:40 -0500, Panurge <jbl...@mindspring.com>
>responded to my post with:
>>Well... I _like_ "fluffiness"--or, should I say, *gentleness*, and I
>>think that the hippie movement was, after all, largely about creating a
>>gentler...world.
>
> It's a fine objective. <shrug> Maybe I'm still too young,
>with too much youthful anger, to take easily to that kind of
>arrangement. There is something willfull and vicious in me which rebels
>against it - which is even _frightened_ of it - and if that is in me then
>it will be in others, and many will be worse at controlling it; and so I'm
>not convinced that gentleness is always practical. I guess I have been
>disturbed by the aspect of that movement which seeks to educate people
>into gentleness; I don't want my mind to be changed for the world's
>convenience; I want to be myself.
Is there no gentle version of yourself? (Now that I think about it, how
about "humane"--would that be better?)
>I want to be amongst individuals, even
>if I must accept their capacity for violence as a result.
Is this where I demand the impossible? ;-)
I'm not sure gentleness has to involve laxity or apathy or slack--I'm not
talking about those things (though slack has it uses). Besides, one
problem with violence is that it gets in the way of the flourishing of
others, so to my mind, a less violent world would better allow for the
flourishing of all.
>...I have often found that distress and adversity
>are necessary elements in the process which enables me to think
>imaginatively and creatively. I don't want to be so peaceful, so gentle,
>that I cannot think sharply anymore. I think that's part of the reason
>that the hippie movement lost its way.
Maybe. (Don't forget the radicals, who were simply overwhelmed by the
fact that serious opposition to them developed--the same seems to have
happened to the hippies.) OTOH, I think there's more than enough
adversity in the world that you won't have to worry about a shortage of it
anytime soon. :-P I don't know if adversity spurs my imagination--I
suspect that it does sometimes, but I don't _need_ it. (Unless, of
course, you think of some better state than the one we have now and call
the effort to achieve that better state "adversity".)
IHCOYC XPICTOC
news:slrn94v5iq....@zen.art.rmit.edu.au...
> >Actually, you mean *devolves*. The masses have degenerated to
comprehending
> >only *primitive* horizonal musicial structures, instead of *civilized*
> >vertical ones.
> Evolve vs Devolve. Evolving meaning to change to something new while
> devolving means to revert to an older (less "advance") form.
> You know I've never thought of it that way before...
> So you're claiming that music is reverting to a more "primitive" form?
> I'm not sure I can agree with that.
When I think of horizontal vs. vertical structures in music, I think of
polyphony vs. harmonised monophony. The earliest multi-voiced Western music
consisted of -discants- played against a -tenor-, which was originally just
the word for the starting point of the melody; the word means "what is held,
or sustained." You could add several new lines, but the building was by
adding new and independent voices, rather than a conscious attempt to make
chords.
Building a system around the chords rather than around discants and tenors
was the change from horizontal to vertical structure I think he may have had
in mind. Generally and broadly speaking, the Renaissance was a mixed period
of transition from vertical to horizontal. The Baroque saw the introduction
of the first completely vertical harmony feature: the basso continuo, which
basically made chords beneath the melody. Instead of having a continuous
original melody, you had a continuous chord structure playing underneath.
Personally, I think the change to chord structure from discant structure was
itself a step backwards, in that it tended, over time, to emphasize -one-
melody again, and the rest of the instruments who were not playing the tune
were oom-pahing in the background. They were stuck in this rut during the
latter 18th and most of the 19th century; and all that happened at the end
of the 19th century was that non-traditional chords were added to the
repertoire. Schoenberg originally hoped just to weird out these chords even
more.
I have no notion how to relate this to any sort of modern pop music, though.
Most pop music is basically Vivaldi: a single melody, vocal or soloist, at
most two lines, over repeated chord structures. The ones that have gone
farthest in complexity tend to create -rhythmic- complexities, songs with
alternating bars in 5/4 and 9/8 time, that sort of thing. I tend to find
that kind of experiment momentarily interesting, but nothing I'd want to
listen to on an extended basis; it may be "interesting," but it's
unsatisfying; it's not what I turned on pop music for, y'know?
Narnia
<somesilly.p...@verizon.net> sang with gusto in alt.gothic:
>My purist-Chinese friend (who's actually only _half!_ and SO not a typical
>Asian, though she tries to be very hard) friend complained that it was a
>stupid move because it would lead to the destruction of the Chinese race,
To some degree, she's already right. I've read a number of reports which
state that the ratio of women to men is so low there are starting to be
problems; there just aren't enough women, and if the desirability of male
children over female children continues in combination with restricted
birth laws, there will be *major* problems in population.
--
=Narnia= "Give me life, give me pain,
http://www.velvet.net/ give me myself again" - Tori Amos
Please do not send me spam, msword/non-text files, or chain letters
unless I ask for them or have given prior permission.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 04:56:47 GMT, Somesillypaulinegirly
> <somesilly.p...@verizon.net> sang with gusto in alt.gothic:
>
> >My purist-Chinese friend (who's actually only _half!_ and SO not a typical
> >Asian, though she tries to be very hard) friend complained that it was a
> >stupid move because it would lead to the destruction of the Chinese race,
>
> To some degree, she's already right. I've read a number of reports which
> state that the ratio of women to men is so low there are starting to be
> problems; there just aren't enough women, and if the desirability of male
> children over female children continues in combination with restricted
> birth laws, there will be *major* problems in population.
I forget the exact particulars, but I do remember that the unavailability of
marriagable females in China has been used by the ruling parties to start
wars at least once or twice in fairly recent Chinese history.
Some have suggested that this is a periodic thing among the Chinese and that
it's their culture's way of reducing the population before impending
collapses of civilization; on the one hand there are less people to fight
over resources, and only exceptional personal successes (or exceptionally
powerful heirs of exceptionally powerful rulers) are rewarded with an
opportunity to reproduce.
>
> --
> =Narnia= "Give me life, give me pain,
--
Be kind to your neighbors, even | "Global domination, of course!"
though they be transgenic chimerae. | -- The Brain
"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive
positions and have a tremendous impact on history." -- Dan Quayle
Tiny Human Ferret
What's that line? Ah yes... from
http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap2.htm
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover
in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This
long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a
slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men
were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was
extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of
Europe were brave and robust, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum
supplied the legions with excellent soldiers, and constituted the real
strength of the monarchy. Their personal valour remained, but they no longer
possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
independence, the sense of national honour, the presence of danger, and
the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of
their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a mercenary army. The
posterity of their boldest leaders was contented with the rank of citizens
and subjects. The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard
of the emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political
strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference of
private life.
The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and refinement, was
fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the Antonines, who were
themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diffused over the whole
extent of their empire; the most northern tribes of Britons had acquired a
taste for rhetoric; Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on
the banks of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought
out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. (110) The sciences of
physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks; the
observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied by those
who have improved their discoveries and corrected their errors; but if
we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence passed away
without having produced a single writer of original genius, or who
excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and
Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and
their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of
disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the
powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of the
poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired
only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to deviate from those
models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety
<damaged file> on the revival of letters, the youthful vigour of the
imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion,
new languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of Europe. But
the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign
education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold
ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue,
had already occupied every place of honour. The name of Poet was almost
forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics,
of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the
decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.
The sublime Longinus, who in somewhat a later period, and in the court of a
Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and
laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their
sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed their talents. "In
the same manner," says he, "as some children always remain pigmies, whose
infant limbs have been too closely confined; thus our tender minds,
fettered by the prejudices and habits of a just servitude, are unable
to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness
which we admire in the ancients; who living under a popular government,
wrote with the same freedom as they acted." (111) This diminutive stature
of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old
standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pygmies;
when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended the puny
breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and after the revolution of
ten centuries, freedom became the happy parent of taste and science.
>
> --
> IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
--
Tiny Human Ferret
It's that sort of conversation that tends to convince me that the US is in
the middle of some very quiet revolution or invasion, and that much of the
native population has been replaced by spies.
It is in fact exactly as if there were people all bent on some sort of
diffused movement of elements of a brigade or cadre, and only the need to
simulate civil conversation's flourishes -- so as to not alarm the sheep --
prevents those conversations from being simply of the form "unit fourteen
reporting position some five minutes travel-time subnominal, will be on
position at H-hour". This would be a lot more efficient but everyone would
think that everyone else was a cop. Or worse. And they might be quite right
in thinking either the former or the latter.
>
> I predict that within five years, you will see people
> voluntarily wearing location transponders, so that people
> can take out their palm computers, and quickly identify the
> locations of all members of their virtual tribe.
http://www.terminodes.org/ and look at the necessaries for the MANET (mobile
ad-hoc networks) to efficiently route packets unit to unit where there are
no landlined access points handy. See also Cybiko.
> "Oh,
> look, Jason, Chelsea and Talbot are all over at the Roaring
> Sushi Dome. Let's go join them there."
Definitely see Cybiko. If it was on 2.4GHz or 5.72GHz (SUPERNET or HIPERLAN
II, 802.11 variants) Cybiko would already be MANET terminode, for $99.00
each.
>
> Then you get into the evolution of customs for things like
> initiation into the tribe, rules of etiquette for when
> you're allowed to have your transponder on or off,
> quasi-legal proceedings for ejection and shunning, and so
> on.
Already happening. I catch hell at work for not having my pager on when I'm
on _vacation_.
>
> And I guess this is somewhat reminscent of some stuff from
> the middle novels of Benford's "Galaxy" series
> (e.g. "Flushed down the Toilet of the Gods", or whatever
> it was called).
You know, this close to the Singularity, you should be writing that stuff,
not reading it. Otherwise you can't possibly pretend to hope to avoid Future
Shock.
Jennie Kermode
responded to my post with:
>about "humane"--would that be better?)
I'm not sure. I thought about this all night, and I asked
Donald, but he wasn't sure either. I've never had much opportunity to
learn to be gentle, whereas it's been essential that I learn how to fight,
on various levels. I guess that looking after Donald and wee Danae and
various other people would indicate a humane streak somewhere; I'm just
not sure if I can apply that to the world at large.
I can be humane towards my tribe, my preferred hundred and
fifty people, whatever you want to call it. Beyond that, well, I think
it's a nice idea, and I can fake it, but I don't _feel_ it, and so I
expect that it would be overridden very quickly if the need arose. If
that's true of everyone then I'm not sure that a gentle large-scale
society is possible.
A good number of the people of a.g. would be included in my
sense of my tribe, btw, including you, so no-one here needs to go getting
paranoid and thinking my friendship insincere. With others, however, I can
promise the world one day, and, if they piss me off, easily be comfortable
with the thought of killing them on the next. That's just how it is.
>>I want to be amongst individuals, even
>>if I must accept their capacity for violence as a result.
>Is this where I demand the impossible? ;-)
We must; or where would we be? :)
>I'm not sure gentleness has to involve laxity or apathy or slack--I'm not
This is where my flatmate Hojheg impresses me. He's the most
assertive, opinionated pacifist I've ever met. :) He's been known to go
to inordinate lengths to preserve the lives of the fleas from his cats
(even while removing them), but if one of those fleas were to assert the
value of Capitalism (or, even worse, diss Captain Beefheart) he would
corner the poor bastard and rant at it for weeks. ;)
I guess the problem is that, in most areas of life, people in
the position of that flea would take out guns and continue the argument
that way, which would render it rather one-sided.
>problem with violence is that it gets in the way of the flourishing of
>others, so to my mind, a less violent world would better allow for the
>flourishing of all.
Oh, certainly. I can see that it's a desirable thing; it's the
means to get there which I can't satisfactorily identify.
>anytime soon. :-P I don't know if adversity spurs my imagination--I
>suspect that it does sometimes, but I don't _need_ it.
That's because you're much better adjusted than me. :)
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"When you told your secret name I burst in flames and burned."
Jennie Kermode
>On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:42:49 GMT, jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk (Jennie
>Kermode) wrote:
>>On Wed, 27 Dec 2000 16:34:37 -0800, Albatross <tpa...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>> Almost every woman I've been close to - including my wife -
>>>says this exact thing. And everyone of them have been every whit a
>>>woman.
>> I'm sure you know, Albatross, that you are one of the few
>>people in the world whom I respect enough not to be offended by in that
>>regard. :)
> I meant to needle you. ;)
Tough luck. I have too much respect for you to be impressed by
you on this occasion. :p
>>clearly than I can. I am curious, though. What exactly _is_ a woman, in
>>your understanding? In what way do people like me qualify as 'every whit a
>>woman'? It seems alien to me. A bit random, like horoscopes or personality
>>tests. Does it really mean anything at all?
> None of my answers will satisfy you; they don't satisfy me.
I guess I was kind of hoping you could solve a mystery of the
universe for me, there.
> What does 'woman' signify to you that you don't feel you
>qualify? Or that you want to distance yourself from it?
You always turn these things round... <sigh> ;)
Hmm... I guess the biggest obstacle I encounter in any attempt
to embrace the term is that it would seem to create an artificial division
between the other people to whom I relate to different degrees. There are
certain aspects of 'masculinity' (drinking to the point of being sick on a
frequent basis; provoking fights with non-aggressive strangers; sexually
objectifying women in such a way as to dismiss their
individuality; desiring to be large and muscular; prioritising physical
ability over perceptiveness or intellectual ability) to which I cannot
relate, but it remains the case that most of the _people_ I identify with
are male. I feel more similar, emotionally and in terms of intellectual
habits, to most of the men rather than most of the women whom I
meet. Often I feel that I have to be wary of certain mysogynist traits
within myself. I get angry and frustrated with much standard female
behaviour: I have no patience with those who are neurotic about body
image; I can't stand being whined at about suffering at the hands of shite
but easily disposable boyfriends; I hate girlyness in all its forms
(excepting when punks occasionally imbue it with genuine irony) - all that
giggling and pretending to be fragile - the desire to appear weak and
helpless - drinking dreadful sweet fruity things in tiny glasses instead
or proper beer; talking in artificially high, aurally painful
voices; getting all touchy-feely; feigning innocence and ignorance. It's
just ugly in my eyes. And I hate the sexism which a lot of women come out
with; and perhaps one reason why I find it difficult to identify with such
creatures [1] is that they _expect_ me to, which somehow repulses me.
There are artificial, constructed aspects to both femininity
and masculinity, but I guess I find more of it with the former, and I'm
really not interested in being artificial. It's so much bullshit. I'm an
impatient person. I feel my life ticking away. I just want to get real and
get on with things.
A very sweet girl who lives with my flatmate's boyfriend would
visit and try to take care of me while Donald was in hospital. I know that
she had the noblest of intentions, but when she simpered and told me I
should cheer myself up by doing girly things I had to grip the arms of my
chair so as not to hit her. I often long for a big sign which says 'Leave
Me Alone, I Am Not One Of You'. I guess a lot of men who feel similarly
uncomfortable with masculinity achieve that by being camp. The whole butch
thing doesn't really interest me, though; it seems far too limited in
itself. So I guess I'll just have to continue to put up with it.
Sorry; this has been quite a rant, and certainly a bitter
one. But you did ask. ;)
Jennie
[1] Acknowledging, certainly, that not all women are like this - there
are plenty of fine exceptions right here in a.g.
Jennie Kermode
>Well excuse the tangent, but this reminds me of something
No problem. There are a lot of interesting tangents in this
thread.
>I've been thinking about lately. It strikes me that the
>really compulsive cell phone people seem to be just
>nervously checking each other's movements. E.g. "I'm on the
I know a lot of parents who buy cellphones for their children,
especially when those children leave home (my flatmate Kirsty is in this
position), precisely so that they can check them like that. I can
understand the impulse. Donald is through in the bedroom sleeping just
now, and I keep wanting to go through just to check that he's breathing
properly and doesn't have a temperature; I do check regularly, as his
doctors have advised, but I know that if I get paranoid it'll just screw
me up and piss him off; I must stamp on that impulse and recognise it for
the irrational little fragment of panic which it is. Trying to possess
people to that extent is always a bad idea.
OTOH, there was a train crash near London just over a year
ago, and people said that one of the most harrowing things about it was
that for three days afterwards the burned out, shattered wreck was full of
the sound of cellphones going off, each corpse being called by people
desperately hoping sie was still alive. And I remember the bomb which took
out a gay pub in Soho, and my own panic about friends who were due to be
there (fortunately none were; I'm not a part of the mobile phone culture
myself, so I didn't think of trying to call); other friends said
afterwards that they'd spent hours desperately trying to call each other's
mobiles, freaking out if no-one answered. I can understand the desire to
be able to find and speak to people instantaneously in circumstances like
that.
>train, no it isn't late, I'll be there in 20 minutes." (I
>paraphrase... actually it seems to take them about 5 minutes
>of repetitious back-and-forth to get out a simple message
>like that.)
Kirsty's mother visited Kadath for the first time this
afternoon. It's one of the easiest places in all of Glasgow to
find. Kirsty spent fifteen minutes watching her mother from the window,
talking to her via cellphones and trying to direct her to where we
were. I swear now that I shall never roleplay nor play bridge with that
woman as long as I live. Eventually she had to be collected in person.
Right above her head were the giant albino penguins she'd been
told to look out for. How hard can it be?
>I predict that within five years, you will see people
>voluntarily wearing location transponders, so that people
Oh, probably. There are people out there who'll try any stupid
idea. I guess it makes life easier for those operating the Orbital Mind
Control Lasers. Fnord.
>can take out their palm computers, and quickly identify the
>locations of all members of their virtual tribe. "Oh,
Those chips which people wear to tell them when they have a
flirting opportunity are a step in that direction, I think. I'll admit
that I'd be tempted if I could get one which would broadcast clearly what
I'm _not_ interested in. ;)
>look, Jason, Chelsea and Talbot are all over at the Roaring
>Sushi Dome. Let's go join them there."
I have seen newsgroups used in this way.
Perhaps there's a certain security in it. 'Charlie
says: always tell your mummy where you are going and what time you will be
back'. People will be a lot harder to pick off discreetly when, at any
given time, thousands of people might know where they are.
>Then you get into the evolution of customs for things like
>initiation into the tribe, rules of etiquette for when
May I see your goth card please? O:)
>you're allowed to have your transponder on or off,
>quasi-legal proceedings for ejection and shunning, and so
Shunning can be a superbly effective punishment; I could see
that coming in handy.
It is a disturbing scenario, but OTOH I'm confident that, in
its early stages at least, it will be breakable. It should be easy enough
to pretend one's transponder is broken, to get it to broadcast static,
etc. If this starts to arouse suspicion, it'll simply be necessary to
ensure that random other people's transponders also break on a regular
basis. I'm sure Mr. Gates will help us out there. ;)
Jennie
Albatross
Kermode) wrote:
>> None of my answers will satisfy you; they don't satisfy me.
>
> I guess I was kind of hoping you could solve a mystery of the
>universe for me, there.
Yeah. Thing is - it is a mystery to me. I don't know what it
is. Masculnity and femininity, it seems to me, can't be described in
any other terms than masculinity and femininity. Mathematical,
constructive, logical, aggresive - those things might run close to the
masculine, but masculinity isn't defined by such things, nor is a
person who doesn't have them neccesarily less masculine. I consider
myself very masculine, yet I'm not particularly any of those things.
While nurturing, willingness to sacrifice, shopping might run close to
the feminine, they do not define femininity, nor is a woman lacking
them less womanly. I just find this duality there, fundamental and
essential. I've sensed womanhood in every woman I know. Olivia has
rants almost word for word identical to yours. Christabel often said
very similar things - she was a Valkyrie - but when I met here, you
know, she was very much a woman. I don't know how else to say it -
undoubtedly someone will say I was just looking at her breasts - but I
really think it goes beyond that.
> Sorry; this has been quite a rant, and certainly a bitter
>one. But you did ask. ;)
yup. I didn't find anything offensive about it.
A
~
Panurge
>On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 23:46:54 -0500, Panurge <jbl...@mindspring.com>
>responded to my response to IHCOYC XPICTOC with:
>>Ruin? What ruin? Either it gets kept up or it gets torn down--there's
>>almost no in between any more, hasn't been for hundreds of years.
>
> I guess that depnds on where you are.
At which point I have to make a belated self-correction. I _am_ from the
American South, after all, and I should've remembered that there are some
ruins still standing of the plantation homes that were burned down during
the Civil War. There aren't many (any?) stone-home ruins, though--most of
the old small houses down here were made of wood, and we just speak of
"abandoned houses", not "ruins". Same with "abandoned factories"--no one
thinks of leaving them up as ruins; either they're torn down or they're
renovated.
rufus
<tpa...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>
<snip>
> essential. I've sensed womanhood in every woman I know. Olivia has
> rants almost word for word identical to yours. Christabel often said
> very similar things - she was a Valkyrie - but when I met here, you
> know, she was very much a woman. I don't know how else to say it -
> undoubtedly someone will say I was just looking at her breasts - but I
> really think it goes beyond that.
It is, I think, the crucial difference between women and girls. Witness a
discussion from last February -- it started about beauiful goth boys, and
ended up discussing femininity -- and this was my response to Jennie:
-- begin quoted section --
> Maybe I don't count as a girl, but...
*twitch*
Ok.
*that* hit one of my big red buttons.
That whole fucking phrase *right* there.
And although you mean it differently (I think), when applying it to
yourself and your personal tastes/desires/inclinations/etc, then the
person who told *me* that *I* didn't count as a girl, when I was 14.
But still it touches a leading edge of rage.
So what does it mean, exactly, to count as a girl? Does it mean being
appropriately submissive and playing-dumb n' domestic, having no opinions,
no drive, only a hollow giggle and a fascination for nailie and lippie and
other words indelibly, offensively, pukingly cutsified, pinkified and
fucking dumbed down, reduced, compressed, made delicate for girlie senses?
Does it mean tiny tea-cups and li'l dinky this that and the fucking other?
Submitting to the curse of cute, of bows in the hair?
Does it mean waiting and hoping and dreaming for a man to come along and
rescue you, so you can become his accessory?
Barbies and dishes and toy fucking microwaves. Pink computers. Pink
fucking everything. Matching bedspreads in college. A kind of aggressive,
learned helplessness, crippled diction, limited horizons. Femininity as a
weapon, a cure-all, an unbreachable defense. Breasts, not thoughts? PMS
(it all is reduced to biology) not genuine rage? Fury ignored, shunted
aside ("aw, you're so *cute* when you're angry!")
I couldn't possibly . .. I'm just a girl . . .
grrrr.
And if *that* is being a girl, than you are right, you don't count as a
girl, and neither do I, and we never did.
--end quoted section
I reproduce the whole rant to highlight it's focus: girls. Not femininty a
whole, but a particular *style* of femininity.
And that, Albatross, is I think what you're trying to articulate. The
women you meet are not *unfeminine*, and they're not (necessarily) butch,
either. They are viragos, (cf. Florence King, _Confessions of a Failed
Southern Lady_). They are not feminine in "traditional" ways.
Some females grow up to be ladies, others to women, and still others are
girls all their lives. Males, incidentally, have a similar continuum --
some gentlemen, some men, others, eternally boys.
And even those three catagories are insufficient -- they only scratch the
surface. There are whole other nuances -- the differences between a chick
and a broad, a hussy and a tart, or between a "regular guy" and a dude,
and so on.
Whether this is nature or nurture, I really don't know. Probably a
mixture of both. I can say, however, that I have noted that among my
friends, those who are women have a strong, competent, take-no-shit kind
of maternal parent, and a paternal parent who doesn't regard a women with
a mind of her own as some kind of alien freak.
For every woman with a rant like Jennie's (and mine, and Christabel's, and
Olivia's) there is probably a man out there with a similar bitter
solilouqy about masculinity.
I have met a great many boys, a significantly smaller group of men, and a
smattering of gentlemen.
rufus
--
rufus AT bway DOT net | www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/8106
"I've *heard* of cleanliness. Sometimes I wish that I
got the neat freak gene. Then I toss another soda bottle
in the corner." -- benton
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http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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IHCOYC XPICTOC
> At which point I have to make a belated self-correction. I _am_ from the
> American South, after all, and I should've remembered that there are some
> ruins still standing of the plantation homes that were burned down during
> the Civil War. There aren't many (any?) stone-home ruins, though--most of
> the old small houses down here were made of wood, and we just speak of
> "abandoned houses", not "ruins". Same with "abandoned factories"--no one
> thinks of leaving them up as ruins; either they're torn down or they're
> renovated.
Where I grew up in Canada, there were a fair number of abandoned barns that
might qualify as "ruins." There was a large concrete and cinderblock
structure that once had a wooden roof; it was apparently a stable of some
sort, from probably the early 20th century. The wood had long been carried
away, leaving the concrete and cinderblocks open to the sky. There were a
number of similar half-buried foundations, probably barns of some sort, and
a large flat expanse of concrete that had once been covered by a WWII era
quonset hut. There were also barns with their wooden structures still
relatively intact, but in a tumbledown state.
In the Seventies, "weathered wood" became a fad, and these barns were
stripped down as well. And I still remember the taste of apples and pears
from the neglected orchard that stood right behind our house, between us and
the railroad tracks.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
H Duffy
anything I could snip; Apologies...}
Jennie Kermode <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrn9599eo...@triffid.demon.co.uk...
Here's a funny thing; I agree with you, absolutely, on most of the above.
I dislike most of the same neuroses, the artificial behaviours, the girly
shit; Women who do the "I'm so helpless, come and rescue me" thing make me
angry, women who accept abuse as a sign of love confuse me, women who
pretend to be stupid exasperate me.
Thing is, I don't see that as having any reflection on _my_ "woman-ness",
or femininity, or whatever you want to call it.
I am a woman; A strong, intelligent, capable woman. I change my own car
battery when it needs changing, I take shit from no-one, I express my
views, I drink guinness (Well, when I'm not drinking port, but never with
lemonade ;-), I do my own thing, and I do it as a woman. The fact that
_they_ choose to teeter around helplessly in fuck-me shoes that cripple
them ("Look at me, I'm helpless, I can't run away from you, rescue me and
collect your reward"), that _they_ don't even know how to open the bonnet
of their car, let alone what to do once they've got it open, the fact that
_they_ drink nasty pink cocktails because it's the done thing, that they
giggle and flutter their eyelashes and have no opinions doesn't touch me,
any more than football hooligans and terrorists touch my nationality or my
patriotism.
Which is not to say that you are wrong to feel as you do; You are an
individual,and if you prefer to reject the "feminine", or not to identify
as "woman", or whatever, fine; your choice.
H
Panurge
> I can be humane towards my tribe, my preferred hundred and
>fifty people, whatever you want to call it. Beyond that, well, I think
>it's a nice idea, and I can fake it,
Till ya _make_ it! ;-)
>but I don't _feel_ it, and so I
>expect that it would be overridden very quickly if the need arose. If
>that's true of everyone then I'm not sure that a gentle large-scale
>society is possible.
Well, if you can't work it from the empathy angle, how about working it
from the self-respect angle? I just prefer being nice to being mean
partly because I figure it'll make *me* a better person. I want to be The
Good Guy as a matter of "self-actualization", and this is how The Good Guy
acts. I see people being nasty to others and think to myself, "I don't
want to be like that." (I know it's not fashionable to say this,
especially since I'm not a parent, but I feel it that much more whenever I
see a child treated this way by an adult.)
>A good number of the people of a.g. would be included in my
>sense of my tribe, btw, including you,
The honor's all mine! :-)
>so no-one here needs to go getting
>paranoid and thinking my friendship insincere. With others, however, I can
>promise the world one day, and, if they piss me off, easily be comfortable
>with the thought of killing them on the next. That's just how it is.
Well, no one's asking you to deny your emotions. (I have my
maniacal-killer fantasies, too. It's just a matter of putting those
fantasies in their place.) Maybe self-respect can tide you over until
your sense of empathy is strong enough.
>I can see that it's a desirable thing; it's the
>means to get there which I can't satisfactorily identify.
>
>>I don't know if adversity spurs my imagination--I
>>suspect that it does sometimes, but I don't _need_ it.
>
> That's because you're much better adjusted than me. :)
Hah! :-P Now _that's_ something I've never been called before!
Jennie Kermode
>Thing is, I don't see that as having any reflection on _my_ "woman-ness",
>or femininity, or whatever you want to call it.
If you don't mind me asking, then, what is it that defines your
'woman-ness'? What is it that distinguishes you from a man? I'm interested
in social or psychological factors here, not just physiology.
>views, I drink guinness (Well, when I'm not drinking port, but never with
>lemonade ;-), I do my own thing, and I do it as a woman. The fact that
The notion of _guinness_ and lemonade is just scary.
>_they_ choose to teeter around helplessly in fuck-me shoes that cripple
>them ("Look at me, I'm helpless, I can't run away from you, rescue me and
Heh. I often wear boots which are impractical for running in
(as rufus knows, having carried me down a flight of steps in Whitby), but
I wouldn't advise anyone to get on the other end of a kick from them.
>collect your reward"), that _they_ don't even know how to open the bonnet
>of their car, let alone what to do once they've got it open, the fact that
Actually, I wouldn't know either, but then, I've never had a
car. I _do_ know how to break into one, and how to hotwire one. Just
couldn't necessarily drive it very well afterwards. ;)
>any more than football hooligans and terrorists touch my nationality or my
>patriotism.
That's a good analogy. It pisses me off that the media always
refer to violent people at football games as 'football supporters'. They
have nothing to do with the majority of supporters; I'm sure most of them
don't really give a shit about the game; and they've done more to damage
its reputation as a sport than anything else in the last thirty years -
hardly the actions of supporters.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"Sometimes people would ask him 'Are you the prophet whom we await?'
"He would shake his head and say, 'Find Jesus. Find Jesus.'"
Michael Moorcock, 'Behold The Man'.
Jennie Kermode
>Some females grow up to be ladies, others to women, and still others are
>girls all their lives. Males, incidentally, have a similar continuum --
>some gentlemen, some men, others, eternally boys.
I guess what I was originally trying to articulat, if I may
borrow your model to do so, is that I see less of a distinction between
women and men than I do between women and girls. This is why dividing
things on biological sex lines seems odd to me. It's an appropriate enough
distinction to make when discussing reproduction, or, for some people,
with regard to sexual preference, but for a social model it seems a bit
silly.
Which is always my principal problem with society. That it's
silly.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Jennie Kermode
>At which point I have to make a belated self-correction. I _am_ from the
>American South, after all, and I should've remembered that there are some
>ruins still standing of the plantation homes that were burned down during
That kind of thing fascinates me because it's such an
unfamiliar architectural style. I see photographs and I read about such
structures in occasional Lovecraft stories, but apart from that they're
wholly unfamiliar. In some areas, a lot of them are built on bogland,
aren't they? Do you suppose that'll help to preserve sunken timbers for
posterity?
>the Civil War. There aren't many (any?) stone-home ruins, though--most of
>the old small houses down here were made of wood, and we just speak of
The idea of wooden houses - at least when they're not built of
stout logs - seems really silly to me. I know there were good reasons for
it, but still; tornado bait or what? As a small child I was thoroughly
confused by the idea of houses being blown away or burnt (completely, as
opposed to just being burnt out). Everything here is made of stone. My
building is sandstone, solid and reliable and insulating.
>"abandoned houses", not "ruins". Same with "abandoned factories"--no one
>thinks of leaving them up as ruins; either they're torn down or they're
>renovated.
That's a shame. They make such magnificent (albeit
dangerous) playgrounds.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Jennie Kermode
>Where I grew up in Canada, there were a fair number of abandoned barns that
>might qualify as "ruins." There was a large concrete and cinderblock
My gran's old wooden barns were about two hundred years
old. One of them was filled by an ancient MG car which various people had
been planning to fix for thirty years. The others were just used for
storing junk. I used to play in them so much that the cats started leaving
presents of dead mice and birds for me there. They were dangerous to climb
about in, but no-one made much fuss, and I took most cuts and bruises in
my stride. I used to dig for buried nuggest of charcoal at one end of the
larger barn and go to bake them on the fires of pruned willow branches. I
always loved those fires. Only a decade later, when I discovered I'm
allergic to aspirin, did I realise they were probably getting me stoned.
The people who bought the house from my Gran when she was too
fragile to live there any more tore the barns down, along with the stately
yew hedge which had been planted in the seventeenth century.
>structure that once had a wooden roof; it was apparently a stable of some
>sort, from probably the early 20th century. The wood had long been carried
>away, leaving the concrete and cinderblocks open to the sky. There were a
>number of similar half-buried foundations, probably barns of some sort, and
Sites like that are fascinating. Wondering what was there, and
imagining what could have been there. I love exploring ruined places.
>In the Seventies, "weathered wood" became a fad, and these barns were
I don't remember that happening here. Perhaps it was more
exciting to people in a younger country. Here, a lot of interesting old
things are dismissed and neglected because people take them for granted.
>stripped down as well. And I still remember the taste of apples and pears
>from the neglected orchard that stood right behind our house, between us and
>the railroad tracks.
Did they have that strong, wild, richer taste lost in the
modern hybrids? I remember the fruits of my Gran's orchard tasting like
that. I've never found an apple as good in all the years since.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Joe Brenner
>On 1 Jan 2001 20:33:11 GMT, Joe Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>I've been thinking about lately. It strikes me that the
>>really compulsive cell phone people seem to be just
>>nervously checking each other's movements.
> I know a lot of parents who buy cellphones for their children,
>especially when those children leave home (my flatmate Kirsty is in this
>position), precisely so that they can check them like that. I can
>understand the impulse. Donald is through in the bedroom sleeping just
>now, and I keep wanting to go through just to check that he's breathing
>properly and doesn't have a temperature; I do check regularly, as his
>doctors have advised, but I know that if I get paranoid it'll just screw
>me up and piss him off; I must stamp on that impulse and recognise it for
>the irrational little fragment of panic which it is. Trying to possess
>people to that extent is always a bad idea.
You do know about "baby monitors", right? You can now buy a
cheap, consumer-oriented microphone/transmitter/receiver set
so that you can bug the baby's crib. So every time the kid
cries you can rush in there and lavish attention and
reinforce that behavior. And every time the kid is silent,
you can worry about sudden infant death syndrome and rush in
there and wake it up.
Joe Brenner
> The idea of wooden houses - at least when they're not built of
>stout logs - seems really silly to me. I know there were good reasons for
>it, but still; tornado bait or what? As a small child I was thoroughly
>confused by the idea of houses being blown away or burnt (completely, as
>opposed to just being burnt out). Everything here is made of stone. My
>building is sandstone, solid and reliable and insulating.
Around these parts, people would think you were insane if
you built a brick/stone house: in an earthquake you'd be
flatter than Wile E. Coyote.
Wooden construction is both flexible enough that it doesn't
usually get taken out by an earthquake, and if it does it's
light enough that you've still got a chance at getting out
of the, uh, ruin.
rufus
jen...@innocent.com wrote in response to H Duffy:
>
> >_they_ choose to teeter around helplessly in fuck-me shoes that cripple
> >them ("Look at me, I'm helpless, I can't run away from you, rescue me and
side note: This is one of my major pet peeves as well. Their bloody
ridiculous shoes.
>
> Heh. I often wear boots which are impractical for running in
> (as rufus knows, having carried me down a flight of steps in Whitby), but
> I wouldn't advise anyone to get on the other end of a kick from them.
It was dark, wet and windy and we were in a hurry. It seemed the most
efficient path at the time to just tuck you under my arm and utilize the
treads on my army boots . . . *grin*
And, I can agree, the boots were *very* pointy.
>
> >collect your reward"), that _they_ don't even know how to open the bonnet
> >of their car, let alone what to do once they've got it open, the fact that
>
> Actually, I wouldn't know either, but then, I've never had a
> car. I _do_ know how to break into one, and how to hotwire one. Just
> couldn't necessarily drive it very well afterwards. ;)
As long as you can distinguish between gas and brake, road and pedestrians
you're halfway there.
rufus
jen...@innocent.com wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 21:40:59 -0500, rufus <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote:
> >Some females grow up to be ladies, others to women, and still others are
> >girls all their lives. Males, incidentally, have a similar continuum --
> >some gentlemen, some men, others, eternally boys.
>
> I guess what I was originally trying to articulat, if I may
> borrow your model to do so, is that I see less of a distinction between
> women and men than I do between women and girls. This is why dividing
Yes. I would wholeheartedly agree there.
Jennie Kermode
>In article <slrn95engl...@triffid.demon.co.uk>,
>jen...@innocent.com wrote in response to H Duffy:
>> couldn't necessarily drive it very well afterwards. ;)
>As long as you can distinguish between gas and brake, road and pedestrians
>you're halfway there.
It's distinguishing (and being able to manouver) between the
road and any large concrete or stone objects at the sides of it which
concerns me most. ;)
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"Se Sunu waes sigorfaest, on tham sithfate, mihtig and spedig, tha he mid
manigeo com, gaste weorode, on Godes rice, Anwealda aelmihtig, englum to
blisse, and eallum tham halgum, tham the in heofunum aer, wunedon on
wuldre, tha heora Wealdend cwom, aelmihtig God, thaer his ethel waes."
Jennie Kermode
>Around these parts, people would think you were insane if
>you built a brick/stone house: in an earthquake you'd be
>flatter than Wile E. Coyote.
True. I've seen some very impressive Japanese designs - the
tradition of houses made from struts of wood and paper panels, which are
not only light and comparatively safe if one gets hit by them during an
earthquake, but are easy to reassemble again afterwards.
Does the whole of the 'States get earthquakes, though? I
thought it was mostly just the west coast and some areas around the
mountain ranges. <shrug>
Maybe wooden earthquake-safe houses with stone tornado-proof
cellars are the best idea. Stone houses are, of course, more ned-proof,
too. Round here that is usually my first concern. There is constant
bickering between the Environmental Health people, who want low windows
kept clear for easy escape in the event of fire, and the police, who want
them barred to stop junkies from breaking in and stealing and/or stabbing
people.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Jennie Kermode
>You do know about "baby monitors", right? You can now buy a
Oh yes. We had one of those for Danae. Not my idea. I did miss
it later, though, because I think I'd find it much more useful for
monitoring an adult - so that I wouldn't have to check on Donald every
half hour and he could just call to me if he felt ill or needed anything.
>cheap, consumer-oriented microphone/transmitter/receiver set
>so that you can bug the baby's crib.
And, of course, so you can bug random other spots in the house
from time to time... never mind the fact that the baby's room was next to
one of the bathrooms, so, when sitting in the living room with it, we
could hear people singing in the shower. ;)
>So every time the kid cries you can rush in there and lavish attention
>and reinforce that behavior.
Or you can just ignore it /turn it off / turn music up louder
than it, which is (sometimes understandably, sometimes unpleasantly) how
most people seem to end up reacting.
Danae figured out how hers worked pretty fast. She would often
wake up and play quite happily by herself for an hour or two. When she got
bored or hungry, she wouldn't just aimlessly cry; she'd stand up (holding
onto the bars), face directly into the monitor, and give a single yell, as
loud as she could make it. ;) And she just loved the occasions when she
got to spy on other people through it.
>And every time the kid is silent, you can worry about sudden infant death
>syndrome and rush in there and wake it up.
I think most parents do that to an extent anyway. The notion
that a child really can be alright alone for a while takes some getting
used to. It's rather of a case of, oh shit, I haven't seen the baby for
nearly _ten_ minutes, I have to go and look at it, quickly, because it
might be dead! Negating the fact that if it's been dead for ten minutes
then there's little one can do about that anyway...
Kids have voices for a reason. They know how to yell when
they're distressed. Thing is, if things are _really_ wrong, they'll go
silent, just like any small animal not wanting to signal to predators in a
moment of weakness. A parent cannot be there 24/7, always awake and alert
and ready for trouble. If they tried, they'd only raise kid who was
physically safe but psychologically screwed. Faith and good fortune are
still all one can really depend on.
Afaik there is absolutely no evidence for the presence of a
baby monitor having saved a child's life, but I do suspect they've saved a
lot of parents from the physical damage which stress causes.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
rufus
wrote:
> On 7 Jan 2001 02:31:04 GMT, Joe Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >Around these parts, people would think you were insane if
> >you built a brick/stone house: in an earthquake you'd be
> >flatter than Wile E. Coyote.
>
> True. I've seen some very impressive Japanese designs - the
> tradition of houses made from struts of wood and paper panels, which are
> not only light and comparatively safe if one gets hit by them during an
> earthquake, but are easy to reassemble again afterwards.
> Does the whole of the 'States get earthquakes, though? I
> thought it was mostly just the west coast and some areas around the
> mountain ranges. <shrug>
Any geological fault can shift; some are more stable than others. But
East Coast faults have, recently (in terms of geologic time) been more
stable than the West Coast.
So instead, we get hurricanes!
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> You do know about "baby monitors", right? You can now buy a
> cheap, consumer-oriented microphone/transmitter/receiver set
> so that you can bug the baby's crib. So every time the kid
> cries you can rush in there and lavish attention and
> reinforce that behavior. And every time the kid is silent,
> you can worry about sudden infant death syndrome and rush in
> there and wake it up.
A good scanner with a high outside antenna can pick up baby monitors from a
mile away, at least. This can be amusing. So for that matter are the
cordless phones --- really, much more interesting than cellular.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Nemo misellae Laurae unquam succurrit, rabiosae in furore.
Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Does the whole of the 'States get earthquakes, though? I
> thought it was mostly just the west coast and some areas around the
> mountain ranges. <shrug>
We get them here in Southern Indiana, although they are not by any means as
frequent as they are in California. We are due for a whopper, though: an
earthquake that is likely to swallow St. Louis when it happens.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> I used to dig for buried nuggest of charcoal at one end of the
> larger barn and go to bake them on the fires of pruned willow branches. I
> always loved those fires. Only a decade later, when I discovered I'm
> allergic to aspirin, did I realise they were probably getting me stoned.
I'm intrigued by these "buried nuggets of charcoal." Was the place at one
time used as a smithy? Smithies are very useful for archaeologists in North
America; they guarantee you that you are dealing with an European site.
It's how they were able to prove it was Vikings who settled at L'Anse aux
Meadows in Newfoundland.
> The people who bought the house from my Gran when she was too
> fragile to live there any more tore the barns down, along with the stately
> yew hedge which had been planted in the seventeenth century.
Vandals. Didn't they realise they'd have to wait four hundred years for
another one?
> > apples and pears. ..
> Did they have that strong, wild, richer taste lost in the
> modern hybrids? I remember the fruits of my Gran's orchard tasting like
> that. I've never found an apple as good in all the years since.
Very likely. They were also far likelier to have worms, and to go soft a
day or two after being picked. But since I ate them mostly off the tree,
often green, this was not a major problem.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Nemo misellae Laurae unquam succurrit, rabiosae in furore.
waif
"rufus" <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote in message
news:rufus-07010...@port062.rose.dialup.bway.net...
> In article <slrn95en1o...@triffid.demon.co.uk>,
> jen...@innocent.com wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 21:40:59 -0500, rufus <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote:
> > >Some females grow up to be ladies, others to women, and still others
are
> > >girls all their lives. Males, incidentally, have a similar continuum --
> > >some gentlemen, some men, others, eternally boys.
> >
> > I guess what I was originally trying to articulat, if I may
> > borrow your model to do so, is that I see less of a distinction between
> > women and men than I do between women and girls. This is why dividing
Sometimes I seem like one of the women who didn't grow up.
I know that if my parents could have found a gender identity disorder
"treatment program," they would have enrolled me if they'd had to
institutionalize me to do so.
I was a completely unconvincing failure as a girl. I couldn't even manage
to be a tomboy, either. I was just nowhere.
Now, I'm everywhere. I'm a woman, a girl, a animal; these are all facts and
applications of different definitions with different associations and I
can't stop playing with the whole bag.
*Play* is the key difference to me. I can play now.
Girls are not supposed to play; everything girls are supposed to do comes
down to *practice.* All the obsessions and affectations, everything I think
of when I think of a "normal girl"-- they aren't about being a girl.
They're about trying to be a particular type of woman.
For me, actually growing up into a different type of woman was a step into
freedom.
I feel like the situation is exactly opposite for Riff and Six. Sometimes
it hits me, and I look at them and realize, they don't move like "men,"
don't talk like "men," sure as hell don't dress like "men." They grew up to
be something different. But, the easiest thing to call them, is boys.
I don't know if it's the culture or just in my head, but for me a female/ts
powerful enough to play with identity is a woman, and a male/ts free enough
to play with identity is a boy.
--
waif
waif "at" treebyleaf "dot" com
http://treebyleaf.com
Jennie Kermode
responded to my post with:
>from the self-respect angle? I just prefer being nice to being mean
>partly because I figure it'll make *me* a better person.
Sure. That is largely how I go about my own life. However, if
I have to do this for rational reasons, when my emotions are frequently
demanding that I do something else, can we really expect it to work for
the vast majority of people, many of whom are noticeably less inclined to
be rational (or even to think)?
When I was a kid on long car journeys, getting tired of the
usual travel games, my Mum and I would look out of the windows and spot
unusual bits of foliage and insist that there were triffids after us. My
Dad said we were being ridiculous, because if there were triffids, what
did they eat? If they ate people, even a little bit, why didn't anyone
notice? Then my Mum pointed out that people disappear _all_ _the_ _time_,
in really quite high numbers, without ever being found.
Being older and cynical in different ways now, I'm less
inclined to believe in accidentally connected parallel universes where the
works of John Wyndham are true, but still inclined to wonder where all
those people go. We forget too easily, sometimes, that the predator most
likely to kill a human these days is another human. I'm sure people get
away with murder on a regular basis. Society doesn't even work as smoothly
as it appears to, and that's pushing things to begin with.
>acts. I see people being nasty to others and think to myself, "I don't
>want to be like that." (I know it's not fashionable to say this,
>especially since I'm not a parent, but I feel it that much more whenever I
>see a child treated this way by an adult.)
Aye, sure, I understand. Fuck fashion.
I feel better when I'm being nice to strangers. Part of that,
though, comes from feeling more powerful at those times. If I can react to
adversity with humour rather than the desire for violence, I know I'm
having a good day. It's when my nerves are fried and I'm feeling half dead
already that I want to strike out the most (and that's also when I seem to
attract the most hassle, largely from men who think vulnerable looking
women can easily be picked up off the street). Since I don't like feeling
vulnerable, it's good to be able to nice.
I also like to see people looking happier; and I hope that
they'll go on to be nicer to the other people whom they encounter, as a
result.
Why does niceness appeal to you?
>fantasies in their place.) Maybe self-respect can tide you over until
>your sense of empathy is strong enough.
I don't think my emotions will change in that respect. At any
rate, I wouldn't count on it.
I'll survive. I always do. It's the world I worry about.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"How your eyes can be so cruel. Just like I can be so cruel."
Jennie Kermode
>"Jennie Kermode" <jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I used to dig for buried nuggest of charcoal at one end of the
>> larger barn and go to bake them on the fires of pruned willow branches. I
>I'm intrigued by these "buried nuggets of charcoal." Was the place at one
>time used as a smithy? Smithies are very useful for archaeologists in North
I don't know... I guess it might have been. My Gran's cottage
was a conversion made from three terraced Tudor farm cottages, built in
the fifteen hundreds, and there were other similar cottages nearby. I
guess they would've represented a big enough colony to need workshops of
various sorts. The charcoal nuggests in question were about two inches
long and ovoid in shape - perhaps just over an inch in diameter - with a
sort of ridge around the length of them. If that's any help. The old barn
was soot-stained, but no-one had lit a fire in it in living memory (I was
pointedly banned from doing so).
>America; they guarantee you that you are dealing with an European site.
This was in the south of England, in South Hampshire, so it
would have encountered Britons, Saxons, Angles and Normans in its more
remote past. It was in the wrong place for Vikings or Gaels.
>It's how they were able to prove it was Vikings who settled at L'Anse aux
>Meadows in Newfoundland.
I never knew that. Most of my historical knowledge centres
around literature and linguistics rather than archeaology. The Vikings'
accounts of Newfoundland are convincingly written, and I'm fairly sure
they're real; I just don't one hundred percent trust a people with a
reputation for inventing and exaggerating strange lands (and the
inhabitants thereof) to make money off their travel writing fad. ;)
>> The people who bought the house from my Gran when she was too
>> fragile to live there any more tore the barns down, along with the stately
>> yew hedge which had been planted in the seventeenth century.
>Vandals. Didn't they realise they'd have to wait four hundred years for
>another one?
I couldn't stop crying when I saw what they'd done. Of
course, before the sale, they had promised to maintain the character of
the place. They hid it away behind a huge wooden fence, pulled down as
much of the barns as the law would allow, cut down the orchard and
destroyed the rest of the gardens, all so they could convert it into guest
accommodation for visitors who wanted that authentic Tudor experience. :(
>
>> Did they have that strong, wild, richer taste lost in the
>> modern hybrids?
>Very likely. They were also far likelier to have worms, and to go soft a
>day or two after being picked. But since I ate them mostly off the tree,
>often green, this was not a major problem.
Aye, ours were like that. I was young enough to take spitting
out pieces of worm in my stride. ;) It was always worth it.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
rufus
<clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
> "rufus" <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote in message
> news:rufus-07010...@port062.rose.dialup.bway.net...
> > In article <slrn95en1o...@triffid.demon.co.uk>,
> > jen...@innocent.com wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 21:40:59 -0500, rufus <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote:
> > > >Some females grow up to be ladies, others to women, and still others
> are
> > > >girls all their lives. Males, incidentally, have a similar continuum --
> > > >some gentlemen, some men, others, eternally boys.
> > >
> > > I guess what I was originally trying to articulat, if I may
> > > borrow your model to do so, is that I see less of a distinction between
> > > women and men than I do between women and girls. This is why dividing
>
> Sometimes I seem like one of the women who didn't grow up.
Which is interesting, because I cannot see you in the girlie continuum
(i.e. the one ranted about by myself, Jennie and H Duffy).
You seem made of sterner, more independent stuff.
>
> *Play* is the key difference to me. I can play now.
>
> Girls are not supposed to play; everything girls are supposed to do comes
> down to *practice.* All the obsessions and affectations, everything I think
> of when I think of a "normal girl"-- they aren't about being a girl.
> They're about trying to be a particular type of woman.
Hrmm. Ok. I can see that, in a way.
> I feel like the situation is exactly opposite for Riff and Six. Sometimes
> it hits me, and I look at them and realize, they don't move like "men,"
> don't talk like "men," sure as hell don't dress like "men." They grew up to
> be something different. But, the easiest thing to call them, is boys.
>
> I don't know if it's the culture or just in my head, but for me a female/ts
> powerful enough to play with identity is a woman, and a male/ts free enough
> to play with identity is a boy.
Again, that's interesting. Because, while I don't think that boys are
*bad*, I do tend, at times, to associate negative characteristics with
them. Such as immaturity.
But playing with identity is not a sign of immaturity -- or at least
usually isn't, depending on how it's done.
And I tend to agree with you about the female side of the argument.
Perhaps it all comes down to one's personal concept of what a "man" is.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> *Play* is the key difference to me. I can play now.
> Girls are not supposed to play; everything girls are supposed to do comes
> down to *practice.* All the obsessions and affectations, everything I
think
> of when I think of a "normal girl"-- they aren't about being a girl.
> They're about trying to be a particular type of woman.
Now that has to be one of the creepiest things I have read in a while, here
or anywhere. Bless you. I will remember it.
Perhaps it might have been the same, had I been more successfully coerced
into team sports and that sort of thing. My teachers in grade school
eventually gave up, to the relief of those who were actually interested in
playing, I must say. I never found much "play" in that sort of thing; it
was the least welcome part of schooling, worse even than arithmetic drills.
Perhaps that too was all meant as practise for a sort of life I never felt
part of.
waif
"rufus" <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote in message
> In article <2O166.240503$U46.7...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>, "waif"
> <clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
>
> > Sometimes I seem like one of the women who didn't grow up.
>
> Which is interesting, because I cannot see you in the girlie continuum
> (i.e. the one ranted about by myself, Jennie and H Duffy).
>
> You seem made of sterner, more independent stuff.
<sigh> What can I say? I'm wearing sensible shoes, but they're Mary Janes
with white anklets.
The most noticeable difference is the amount of energy many of the girlish
put into... how did Jennie put it? "pretending to be fragile" "artificially
high... voices" "feigning innocence"
Energy invested in deception, self-denial, and ultimately self-abrogation.
Bother. I'm just me. I like fruity drinks almost as much as I like hitting
things.
> Again, that's interesting. Because, while I don't think that boys are
> *bad*, I do tend, at times, to associate negative characteristics with
> them. Such as immaturity.
>
> But playing with identity is not a sign of immaturity -- or at least
> usually isn't, depending on how it's done.
>
> And I tend to agree with you about the female side of the argument.
>
> Perhaps it all comes down to one's personal concept of what a "man" is.
I'm not sure I know, anymore.
Sometimes it seems I have two definitions; applied (cultural) and pure
(personal), and sometimes they seem mutually exclusive.
Joe Brenner
>In article <slrn95givn...@triffid.demon.co.uk>, jen...@innocent.com
>wrote:
>> On 7 Jan 2001 02:31:04 GMT, Joe Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> >Around these parts, people would think you were insane if
>> >you built a brick/stone house: in an earthquake you'd be
>> >flatter than Wile E. Coyote.
>>
>> True. I've seen some very impressive Japanese designs - the
>> tradition of houses made from struts of wood and paper panels, which are
>> not only light and comparatively safe if one gets hit by them during an
>> earthquake, but are easy to reassemble again afterwards.
>> Does the whole of the 'States get earthquakes, though? I
>> thought it was mostly just the west coast and some areas around the
>> mountain ranges. <shrug>
>Any geological fault can shift; some are more stable than others. But
>East Coast faults have, recently (in terms of geologic time) been more
>stable than the West Coast.
>So instead, we get hurricanes!
Yup, that's pretty much it. I've been on the west coast for
over a decade now: weather's pretty mild, but you might get
a nasty earthquake some time. Most other places in the
country the earthquake risk is pretty minimal, but the
weather is more serious (hurricanes on the east coast/gulf
of mexico, tornadoes in the middle).
(I was working in the basement of the Center for Materials
Research at Stanford when the Loma Prieta quake hit in '89.
This is a building that among other things was quite capable
of producing leaks of arsine gas, or hydrofluoric acid
vapor. It took me about 0.01 seconds to decide to ignore
the usual "Stay indoors" advice they give you concerning
earthquakes. I did remember to look up before rushing out
the door, though.)
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Yup, that's pretty much it. I've been on the west coast for
> over a decade now: weather's pretty mild, but you might get
> a nasty earthquake some time. Most other places in the
> country the earthquake risk is pretty minimal, but the
> weather is more serious (hurricanes on the east coast/gulf
> of mexico, tornadoes in the middle).
If I had my druthers, we'd get a volcano.
rufus
<clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
> "rufus" <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote in message
> news:rufus-07010...@port036.daisy.dialup.bway.net...
> > In article <2O166.240503$U46.7...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>, "waif"
> > <clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Sometimes I seem like one of the women who didn't grow up.
> >
> > Which is interesting, because I cannot see you in the girlie continuum
> > (i.e. the one ranted about by myself, Jennie and H Duffy).
> >
> > You seem made of sterner, more independent stuff.
>
> <sigh> What can I say? I'm wearing sensible shoes, but they're Mary Janes
> with white anklets.
ooo!
that's so *cute*!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with girlishness in general. Girls are
as necessary for the proper functioning of the universe as viragos,
ladies, and everyone else on the continuum.
What I object to is what you detail in the paragraph below:
>
> The most noticeable difference is the amount of energy many of the girlish
> put into... how did Jennie put it? "pretending to be fragile" "artificially
> high... voices" "feigning innocence"
> Energy invested in deception, self-denial, and ultimately self-abrogation.
*yes* And I object to them trying to foist their self-denial off on me as
"normal". Actually I object to anyone, male or female, foisting their
neuroses off on me and insisting I have them, too. I have plenty as is and
don't need any more.
>
> Bother. I'm just me. I like fruity drinks almost as much as I like hitting
> things.
And that is a fine way to be. I enjoy girlie drinks and fighter practice
too, I like quilting *and* hardware stores, and I don't consider my
fondness for any of these things to add to or detract from my personal or
public image of myself as a grown woman.
What would cause me to be far to annoyed with myself to bear my own
company is if I ever but down the bastard sword (which is my favorite) to
take up needlework (which I also happen to enjoy) solely because "girls
shouldn't fight heavy weapons" or "wearing armor is unladylike."
> > Perhaps it all comes down to one's personal concept of what a "man" is.
>
> I'm not sure I know, anymore.
> Sometimes it seems I have two definitions; applied (cultural) and pure
> (personal), and sometimes they seem mutually exclusive.
Yes. I'm surprised that with the wellspring of female rage this argument
taps, I've only seen one rant from a guy about the other side of the
equation.
rufus, aka Evil in Ankle Socks :>
(want to take you home and put you on my *mantle*!)
Jennie Kermode
>In article <2O166.240503$U46.7...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>, "waif"
><clea...@treebyleaf.com> wrote:
>> I don't know if it's the culture or just in my head, but for me a female/ts
>> powerful enough to play with identity is a woman, and a male/ts free enough
>> to play with identity is a boy.
>Again, that's interesting. Because, while I don't think that boys are
>*bad*, I do tend, at times, to associate negative characteristics with
>them. Such as immaturity.
Traits which are considered immature (vulnerability, coy
flirtatiousness, a tendency to daydream, etc.) also tend to be considered
feminine. Traits which are considered mature (self-sufficiency,
confidence, rationalism, etc.) tend to be considered masculine. Therefore
a feminised male is seen a less mature, ie: a boy; and a masculinised
female is seen as more mature, ie: a woman. In this regard, I think waif's
ideas about identity make perfect sense.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"I'd never collect anything but butterflies. Pictures don't mean
anything to me." - John Fowles, 'The Collector'.
Jennie Kermode
>Sometimes I seem like one of the women who didn't grow up.
Perhaps just a _person_ who didn't grow up? I don't think
that's necessarily a bad thing. Children have many fine traits which
adults are quick to smother in themselves, mostly due to adults being more
self-conscious and children being more curious about the world.
>I know that if my parents could have found a gender identity disorder
>"treatment program," they would have enrolled me if they'd had to
>institutionalize me to do so.
Did they worry about you and/or get angry at you because of
it? That's really horrible. :( I figure I was lucky in most ways, in
that the pressure put on me was less heavy-handed. My Gran wanted to raise
me as a Lady fit to mingle with the English aristocracy, but she never had
a hope there; I didn't see her often enough for the propaganda to get a
proper hold. When I was at her house I was usually running off somewhere
to play, not sitting around to be lectured by adults. I absorbed
information but not beliefs.
My mother wanted very much for me to be female in the way
that she and her mother are - she envisaged a long line of superior
feminine wisdom, or something like that. She and her friends were eager to
have me appreciate their very 'seventies feminist rants. I always
appreciated the need for equality, but a lot of the rest of it disturbed
me, often because I felt like an outsider, an accidental spy. I was told
how my life would be shaped by the shape of my genetalia and I totally
didn't get that. No. My life will be shaped by me. I don't want any part
of that world with its silly sub-divisions and all its consequent
inefficiency. I won't play.
>I was a completely unconvincing failure as a girl. I couldn't even manage
>to be a tomboy, either. I was just nowhere.
People would often call me a tomboy, but I didn't really feel
that way myself. I wanted to be in between. I wanted to have no sex and
both sexes. I just wanted to be a person, anonymous except for where I
chose to assert my own personality. I had several toys whom I proclaimed
to be hermaphrodites, and I was always dressing my dolls up in drag.
I don't see why you _should_ be anywhere on the gender spectrum
as a child. You were a _child_, first and foremost. The experience of
being a child is adventure enough in itself.
>Now, I'm everywhere. I'm a woman, a girl, a animal; these are all facts and
>applications of different definitions with different associations and I
>can't stop playing with the whole bag.
>*Play* is the key difference to me. I can play now.
That sounds like a good thing. :) I'm glad that you found a
way to be comfortable.
As a teenager, I went through phases of being much more
physically androgynous. I had short hair, wore trousers all the time, and
worked really hard at my swimming to give myself more defined
muscles. Growing older, though, it came to seem beside the point. It
didn't really impress anyone and it wasn't socially useful. At some point
I hit upon the revelation that if I were to relax and accept looking
female (most of the time, anyway) I could get on with life much more
easily, and take advantage of people's attraction to my femaleness, and
assert myself only when it actually mattered, with people I cared about or
who would actually listen, rather than burning all my energy with that
constant teenage shouting thing. I realised that it doesn't matter if I
look 'feminine', because that doesn't define whom I _am_.
>Girls are not supposed to play; everything girls are supposed to do comes
>down to *practice.* All the obsessions and affectations, everything I think
That's true. Fashion rituals to be learned from relatives and
magazines, intensely studied. Boys and pop stars to be drooled over
according to what everyone else has decided to drool over. Hours spent
practicing speaking and singing in a 'sweet voice'; being threatened with
social exclusion for things like swearing or using low-toned
sarcasm. Practising dance routines in pink bedrooms. Comparing dolls at
school and learning what's approved of, what's not, which later extends
itself to learning drinks in slimey wine bars. Other girls stressing the
influence of holding back during sexual encounters (even when it was only
at the stage of holding hands and kissing) because you must never give him
what he wants or he'll think you're cheap and, what's more, he might not
want to flatter you anymore. Oh, and probably the worst one, being
encouraged to starve oneself by peers, television and even teachers.
I _hated_ that shit. I wonder if it is ever real and natural
to anybody. I played along sometimes, but only so that they would be
slower to call me a dyke and hit me. The hitting didn't bother me too much
(they weren't very good at it, I guess because it wasn't very
feminine) but sometimes they would try to take away books I was reading,
and that could not be tolerated.
>of when I think of a "normal girl"-- they aren't about being a girl.
>They're about trying to be a particular type of woman.
And trying to be that from a frighteningly early age; aye. It
is a theft of childhood. I think boys get it too, though, in different
ways, when they are told that they must not cry, that it's bad to ask for
help from other people, that they must be assertive (especially with
girls), etc. :(
>For me, actually growing up into a different type of woman was a step into
>freedom.
It sounds as if you grew up to define your own space for
yourself. I can't think of any better way to do things. :)
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Albatross
Kermode) wrote:
<snip>
Just some thoughts.
> No. My life will be shaped by me.
Do you really have some much say in who you are, or have been?
Do they? Perhaps they haven't been conned into their society. Perhaps
to a greater degree, it _is_ what comes naturally to them.
> I don't want any part
>of that world with its silly sub-divisions and all its consequent
>inefficiency. I won't play.
I'm all for subdivisions. I'm all for variety. I realize that
the anger of the majority is tyranical while the anger of the minority
is righteous.
> I don't see why you _should_ be anywhere on the gender spectrum
>as a child. You were a _child_, first and foremost. The experience of
>being a child is adventure enough in itself.
I think you're projecting. I think you have felt the pressure
to conform to established gender roles as so dominant because your
nature ran contrary to them. If your nature was in line with them,
they wouldn't have seemed so obtuse and powerful. I think most girl
children and boy children do what comes naturally to them. I played
army, and dug tunnels in the sand box - because I wanted to. My
sisters played out social sitautions with their dolls and fisher-price
toys - because they wanted to. When they did, they wouldn't include me
because if I was included I wanted to play war or storm. I think it is
unfortunate that most parents aren't capable of handling thier
children as individuals - and so are at a loss when their child
doesn't fit into whatever is preconceived. My parents expected a
little scientist - they were ill-prepared when they got a little
dreamer; and that caused a lot of confusion and grief, for them and
me. However, most children expereince themselves as male and female,
and expereince little enough internal resistance to that. Your story
is prefectly valid, and it's a great story (the story of the exception
is always more interesting, especially to those of us who were also,
in our own ways, exceptions); but it is, and I think always will be,
the minority story. In most cases, socities are built around
channeling nature, and not thwarting it outright.
A
~