The 'hot nu shit', 'canons', 'movememnts' etc..

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Been noticing in the last few months, esp since guys like Reynolds have stopped posting, that there's been a fair bit of angst relating to the hot new thing, relevance of music, what's 'important', radical, political, Marxist enough, capitalist enough etc..etc..

I read an interesting article in FILM COMMENT magazine written by esteemed film-maker and critic Paul Schrader talking about 'cinematic canons'...Schrader was approached to write a book on Film canons, he started and subsequently gave up as he felt the task was too enourmous to take on. Still he put a case forward discussing canons and the like and related it to the history of art in general...

But one of the main points he made was about the importance of things like film (and perhaps music) and important artworks in this era. He basically stated that cinema was the premier art-form of the 20th Century, but that in this new millenium it isn't..He argued various ideological flaws of critics, be stated that the changes in technology and whatnot is part of what's shifting the way things are interpreped, absorbed, critiqued and the like...

He was basically saying that things are 'finished' that culture is at it's end, but that it's shifting into a different format, what exactly that is, is still to be defined...

Another interesting and probably disturbing things for alot of the one-eyed post-modernists that frequent this board, is that he feels that canons or whatever must rely on strict guidelines. He goes to say that if Shakespear is the canon for literature, then Renoir is for cinema, if I had a punt, I wager Howling Wolf, Bob Dylan, Phil Spector, the Beatles, the Velvets and maybe Kraftwerk - call me racist, boring, dull etc or whatever - as justifable canons for pop music (we can argue above and beyond) but they still hold true and solid despite the post-modern theorists attempts at otherwise.

I guess it all goers back to that old adage 'you must know (or stick to the rules) the rules to know how to break them'...
 
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nomadologist

Guest
creative lines of flight...blalh blah blah DELEUZE...capitalism...BLAHLblahlbhalbha...schizophrenia.


haha just kidding. I don't believe anything ends if everything is hauntological, do i? oh yes, just that the absence of everything is "presencing" in Heideggerian terms. i can't remember anymore. Need. more. rules. simplify things so they can be soundbites. yes.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
Is there anything Derrida hated more than journalism, or that journalists hate more than Derrida?
 

swears

preppy-kei
I had a punt, I wager Howling Wolf, Bob Dylan, Phil Spector, the Beatles, the Velvets and maybe Kraftwerk - call me racist, boring, dull etc or whatever - as justifable canons for pop music (we can argue above and beyond) but they still hold true and solid despite the post-modern theorists attempts at otherwise.

I guess it all goers back to that old adage 'you must know (or stick to the rules) the rules to know how to break them'...

That's the first thing that needs to go though, isn't it? The canon. Or people need to find their own canon. An interesting case is the Canadian band Chromeo, they just thought: "Fuck the Beatles, Stones, Velvets, etc...our canon's gonna be Chaka Khan, The Gap Band, Cameo, Prince, Robert Palmer..."
My "canon" is Nintendo soundtracks and glossy cyber-pop and R'n'B, maybe a bit of late-90s electonica thrown in, but I don't take that too seriously.
 

blunt

shot by both sides
He was basically saying that things are 'finished' that culture is at it's end [...]

Just what the world needs: someone else who thinks, effectively, that history ends with their birth and/or death. Yawn.

[...] but that it's shifting into a different format, what exactly that is, is still to be defined...

Still, at least he wants to have his cake and eat it. The King is dead! Long live the King!

Maybe this as-yet-undefined format is something like this:

"[T]ransmedia storytelling […] is a system where each medium makes a distinct contribution to the media franchise, each is left to do what it does best, and the reader is able to expand on their experience of a favorite story by pulling together bits and pieces of information from various sources." Henry Jenkins

The future is transmedial, people :)
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
An interesting case is the Canadian band Chromeo, they just thought: "Fuck the Beatles, Stones, Velvets, etc...our canon's gonna be Chaka Khan, The Gap Band, Cameo, Prince, Robert Palmer..."

thats kind of a canon as well though, its just not the rock one, its the 70s/early 80s soul/funk (and a bit of cheesy 'ironic' pop) canon.
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
Another interesting and probably disturbing things for alot of the one-eyed post-modernists that frequent this board, is that he feels that canons or whatever must rely on strict guidelines. He goes to say that if Shakespear is the canon for literature, then Renoir is for cinema, if I had a punt, I wager Howling Wolf, Bob Dylan, Phil Spector, the Beatles, the Velvets and maybe Kraftwerk - call me racist, boring, dull etc or whatever - as justifable canons for pop music (we can argue above and beyond) but they still hold true and solid despite the post-modern theorists attempts at otherwise.
Wikipedia defines the Western canon this way:

The Western canon is a canon of books, music and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that is thought by many to have been highly influential in shaping Western culture. It is a list of the greatest works with significant literary and artistic merit. The selection of a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the development of high culture.
But there's also another, in my view more common, definition which I think goes a little something like this: A canon is a body of works of shifting quality which next to all individuals within a certain group know the gist of. By this definition the quality of the comprising works doesn't matter, only their presence in the minds of the group's individuals do. I think Velvet Underground and Kraftwerk are good examples of bands that would be included in a "Pop Cannon According to Wikipedia" (because of their historical importance, their vast influence on other bands etc. etc.), but NOT if one built a canon that sought to represent the referential body for the average Westerner (that one would admittedly be quite barren...).
 

swears

preppy-kei
thats kind of a canon as well though, its just not the rock one, its the 70s/early 80s soul/funk (and a bit of cheesy 'ironic' pop) canon.

You're always going to have a set of influences, and it's better that you arrive at them by your own initiative, rather than receiving them fully formed.
I saw some teenager a few months ago with a T-shirt that read "STOOGES STONES VELVETS" I thought "Poor fucking sheep". You can only really feel sorry for someone like that, although he probably gets laid more than me, so actually, fuck him.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
Disdain for everyone whose influences diverge from your cannon can only get you so far in life, it seems. *oh snap*

Swears stop feeling sorry for yourself and like take a bunch of drugs and dance. You will feel a little better, and you'll be surrounded by other people, from whom you may be able to cull a willing sexual partner.

P.S. This has been a public service announcement.
 
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swears

preppy-kei
Disdain for everyone whose influences diverge from your cannon can only get you so far in life, it seems. *oh snap*

Swears stop feeling sorry for yourself and like take a bunch of drugs and dance. You will feel a little better, and you'll be surrounded by other people, from whom you may be able to cull a willing sexual partner.

P.S. This has been a public service announcement.

I have done this many, many, times (not so much the pulling bit, though.)
 
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nomadologist

Guest
You can't conduct psychotherapy in front of an audience, and I don't hand out my therapies for free, anyway, so you're up shit creek without a paddle. Just keep telling yourself that. ;)
 
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nomadologist

Guest
but there's no embodiment here, just fantasm. cannons are stupid: discuss.
 
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