substitute
03.15.05 @ 12:57 p.m.
Sincerity is the new irony.
Caring about stuff is the new not giving a shit.
Can we believe this? I don't know. I think I've always been fond of sincerity in things you truly love, though I don't doubt there's going to be at least some hypocrisy in any criticism of irony I do. I do love Jeph's work, though, and am happy to link that comic, because it made me laugh.
This is going to be hard, because Andrew just distracted me with a sudden IM conversation... I had a good, coherent litany spurred by the Blatant Music Snobbery issue of the Portland Mercury, which enraged me slowly as I read each article. Most of these articles are hilarious from a paper that has no trouble at all hating everything for the sake of hating things. Because, you know, liking things is for suckers. It's actually painful to read their movie reviews, unless something is likely to have some kind of indefinable hipster cred. Ninety percent of the Mercury is pretty much without value, and if it weren't free, I wouldn't read any of it.
I suppose I was bothered by the article that suggested just reading popular music press articles and just being contrarian to them. As much as it was tongue in cheek and mocking their own style of criticism (NOTHING IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR US, SNARK SNARK SNARK), it's close enough to reality that I get angry, because assertions about how music is not actually personal but a projection of your personality that you want others to see kind of hurts me. I love music. It's a real and vital thing to me, and I am not trying to win anyone's approbation by liking what I like. I find sincere joy in some things, and when I do, I embrace them. Those who knew me in high school had to know that I was by no means trying to be cool by happily loving the Monkees. I still do, though perhaps to a less obsessive degree. The main blaze is out, but the coals still burn, and I still listen to those albums. What started as an exercise in nostalgia turned into genuine love and progressed to Nesmith's solo works, which I have to admit a deeper, less tee-hee girly love for. Well, most of it. I realize that most of ...tropical campfires... really isn't any good. Tantamount to Treason though, and the three First National Band albums, are genuinely good. There are flaws, yes, but show me a flawless band. The point is that I don't try to claim credit by obscurity or much in the way of genre solidarity. I just like what I like, and fuck you if you're going to despise me for it. Because if you are, you aren't worth my time.
You see, I have this strong belief in the concept of the aesthetic emotion or aesthetic rapture, something akin to what religious rapture must feel like, and it comes from a long ago course in the Philosophy of Art taught by the head of the Philosophy department here. One of the multitude of theories we learned was about form and how the achievement of 'significant form' results in this aesthetic emotion that isn't really defined except with "If you're an artist or if you have the least little bit of sensibility in you, you fucking well know what aesthetic emotion is when you feel it." Or something similar, with less swearing. Music and art can take my breath away, and I cherish that, because it's one of the best feelings in the entire world. The tragedy of it is that familiarity can wear it down. This may be related to the intense infatuations I go through with songs. (Right now it's "Wicked Annabella" off The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.) Just now it seems to me that I'm addicted enough to that aesthetic rapture that I run through songs and burn out on them, until I find something else that pleases me more. I'm in love with loving songs and albums.
I think I've lost my point. I kind of knew it was going to happen from the moment I stepped off the bus and started mentally composing. Ahh, such is life and such is my general inability to come to a conclusion, which I can't stop thinking about since I started reading my old Phil of Art papers, because I always think I wrote something more definitive on aesthetic emotion than I did. The paper started off so well, I was impressed, and then I just abruptly ended it. I suck! I already knew that, though, considering how much anxiety I put into my last three essays and today's Early Tudor England final. (NO MORE THOMAS MORE! I am so sick of Wolsey and Chapuys and Cromwell and Cranmer and Bilney and Tyndale etc etc etc etc etc!)
The point is, it's time for a day-long vacation from reality before I start throwing myself into avoiding studying for my Intro final and whatever the hell the timeline project is.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
