sad professor (London Review of Books)
kfj
news:2DvcN+AYnVIwbGJpxiTAbo5Tp=P...@4ax.com...
> New to me at least - an article by John Sutherland (professor of
> Engish at Univerity College, London and Catech) on REM, Roger Scruton
> (an English philosopher) and the possibility that he (Professor
> Sutherland) 'inspired' Sad Professor.
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n04/suth2104.htm
>
worth reading, but there's an error on Sutherland's part and speculation
dressed up as fact. To point out the error: Bill Berry is not happily
married - he's been divorced since 1997. And the speculation? To quote:
" During its heyday in the Eighties, the group was - like most of the
industry - heavily into drugs. They have fought their coke-wars, and are
now survivors. In the late Nineties, Stipe and the other members of the
band have adopted an ostentatiously straight life style."
really? I've read an interview where Bill Berry admitted to using coke,
but nothing I've ever read says the group was *heavily* into drugs. If
he's including alcohol, then I might agree. But this sentence is a
pretty speculative view of REM's history. anyway, i liked the rest of
what he wrote.
-k
--
If everything is just a matter of opinion - - change your opinion about
gravity and take a walk off a roof. - Jane Haddam
karenfj at hotmail dot com is the correct address.
Chris Brown
kfj <kar...@spotmail.commachameleon> wrote in message
news:O8UaO7X$#GA.289@cpmsnbbsa02...
> " During its heyday in the Eighties, the group was - like most of the
> industry - heavily into drugs. They have fought their coke-wars, and are
> now survivors. In the late Nineties, Stipe and the other members of the
> band have adopted an ostentatiously straight life style."
>
> really? I've read an interview where Bill Berry admitted to using coke,
> but nothing I've ever read says the group was *heavily* into drugs. If
> he's including alcohol, then I might agree. But this sentence is a
> pretty speculative view of REM's history. anyway, i liked the rest of
Stipe does claim in the Uncut article to have taken a lot of drugs around
the time of Reckoning. But I don't recall him ever adopting an
ostentatiously straight lifestyle, whatever one of them is.
Chris
kfj
news:37dc4...@newsread3.dircon.co.uk...
but stipe does not equal "the band." and, as you point out, there's no
sign he's given up the vida loca and is now wearing suits to work
everyday. moreover, i just strongly object to what the guy wrote, as it
implies that REM have given lengthy copious interviews about their
druggin' days and now they fly right. aside from stray comments, the
guys have never said anything like what Sutherland writes. And
Sutherland can't point me to an arrest record, or public scandals that
would prove him right.
heck, i'm no pollyanna, and anyone who thinks REM can't hide a very
large portion of their lives from public scrutiny is smoking crack
(ahem!) - but i resent someone writing as if it were fact that they were
major druggies and now are clean and forthright like nancy reagan when
there's no evidence to back it up.
and stuff, or something,
Robert Andrews
Arnold, a traditional modernist who believed in high art's separation from
popular art and in art as a museum piece for the good of a unified humanity
rather than as insivibly transmitted music not able to be placed in a glass
case.
> According to Scruton, these musicians (so to dignify them) are artists (so
to dignify them) of the
> 'strangulated cry': 'trapped in a culture of near-total inarticulateness
the singer can find no words to
> express what most deeply concerns him.'
On the contrary... absolutely on the contrary. In an essay I wrote on R.E.M.
as postmodern artists (http://randrews.netlink.co.uk/rem/essay.html), I
argue that Stipe has found a way to articulate himself on a far higher, and
yet more base and natural, plane than any literary folk have. Particularly
in the early years, his lyrics flow out honestly and are not wrapped up or
encoded in language and signs.
> [Scruton] thinks, as is evident from a later parenthetic diatribe, that
'REM' is the name of the lead
> singer as well as the group.
That instantly disqualifies Scruton from the right to comment. In addition,
R.E.M. does not actually represent the voice of youth. As Sutherland knocks
him down: "As what Scruton calls a 'totem of youth', Stipe is an unlikely
candidate."
To assume, in the first place, that 'youth' is one category of culture able
to be spoken for by one individual or four is arrogant in the extreme and
obviously comes from sombody outside of the 'youth' culture on which he
comments.
> One can read Stipe-the-starveling in different ways. He likes enigma. Is
he bisexual? interviewers ask.
> No, he replies, he is 'sexual'.
I agree that he can be read in different ways, but only because one doesn't
and can't know enough about him to understand the real him. I believe,
however, that I am closer to understanding the real him than many - not that
it's worth commenting on in this context, but Stipe has always rejected the
'enigmatic' label... in fact, as fasr as I'm aware, the point is, he rejects
most labels; he does not wish to be called 'heterosexual,' 'homosexual' or
'bisexual' because to have himself pigeon-holed when, in fact, he subscribes
to each of those labels' pratices would be restrictive and he would be
denying himself the ability to freely express his self. It's the most
admirable attitude to sexuality you could encounter, and one which
challenges completely modernist ideals.
> In his more recent albums, Stipe has given up automatic composition in
which 'the lyric just kind of
> tumbled out of me.' He now applies the term 'writer' to himself and wants
his lyrics to be
> understood. More particularly, he has discovered the dramatic monologue.
I agree almost entirely. I think the writing styles used on Murmur,
Reckoning and Reconstruction Of The Fables is a more admirable and honest
style, almost a cut-up style, but simply getting it from the head to the
page without encoding it in the signs and language of any particular culture
whilst, perhaps, simultaneously being acessible to the mainstream by virtue
of interplay with the music. That's the style I'm interested in. On Up, the
lyrical style tends to be simpler in some parts, with notable exceptions.
> I don't know the identity of the 'lit professor' in Michael Stipe's mind
here. I would like to think it's
> me. He met me shortly before writing the song. I'm a professor of
literature. I used to be a drunk.
> My enemies doubtless think I'm a bore. My friends may think I'm sad. And,
like most academics, I'm
> not entirely happy about where I wound up.
Hahahaaahahah. I think that's funny. Well, perhaps Sutherland isn't *the*
sad professor in question, but I certainly think he goes some way to
embodying the sort of character Stipe has written about... someone ageing,
washed up, intelligent but who nobody wants to listen to or read; somebody
apparently so clever but who is crawling drunkedly on the floor. "A lazy eye
metaphor on the rocks" perfectly describes how undistinguishable the
character's academia has become from his alcoholism." He even addresses 'the
readers' personally in an attempt to convince them to believe what he
writes, something which I don't remember happening in
academic/cultural-criticism texts. Professors' "intent to try to rope in
followers to float their malcontent" seems to humourously describe the ways
in which academics work... they write their own thoughts both to illustrate
their own rating on the clever-dick scale and to vent their cerebral
agitations; then, fellow academics gather around such works and celebrate
themm subsequently try to convince their students to believe the doctrine.
Most other people, however, don't care, and we can, perhaps, observe the sad
professor of the song whithering pathetically. This could even describe
Matthew Anderson.
> What is remarkable is that far from 'lyricising the transgressive conduct
of youth', Michael Stipe is
> serenading me and Roger Scruton.
Yes; excellent stuff... Stipe not as the voice of youth, but as the
chronicler of *agers*.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say there are elements of autobiography in
works such as Sad Professor. Perhaps 'autobiography' is the wrong choice of
word, but I believe there is a certain reflexive nature to the song, as
though Stipe has created this character and described him, yet somewhere
there are echoes of him in that character... Stipe may be the ageing, highly
intelligent, observer, artist and, most importantly, writer, wondering what
will happen toward the latter, or more recent, stages of his career. He
isn't washed up or sad, howver; he's going strong. Similarly, The Apologist
sounds like an emancipatory prayer which needed to be vomitted out in one
go, rather than having him express lingering regrets. Stipe has claimed that
there is no autobiography in his writing and that they are simply pop songs;
I wouldn't underestimate him, however.
> One of Scruton's monotonous complaints is that the young are wilfully deaf
to their 'fathers'. They
> hear but do not listen. But Scruton, too, has stopped his ears. Could any
'intelligent person' who
> listened to 'Daysleeper' seriously maintain that it is 'totally
inarticulate', or that it is 'brutal'? Any
> number of objections could be brought against REM, as they could against
Bob Dylan, that other
> darling of sad professors, but there is certainly more to the band than
meets the jaded ear of Roger
> Scruton.
Hah; lovely! And he's correct, too. Many R.E.M. songs are, simply, clever.
Particularly now, things like Daysleeper, Sad Professor, Falls To Climb,
Parakeet and Diminished are something that transcend 'youth' culture or any
section of culture; in fact, they might even speak to the more mature ear.
Sutherland likens the function of Daysleeper, while it "dramatises the
stock-market-driven, casualised, anomic conditions of the current American
workplace," to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times as a cultural commentary. In
any sense, he is right to slap down Scruton... R.E.M.'s songs are certainly
not'totally inarticulate' and *we* can certainly not be accused of not
listening.
--
Rob Andrews
mean cats eat parakeets
http://athens.home.ml.org