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MODERNISM AND NOVELTY

To follow-up last night’s jumbled thoughts on modernism:

I’m of two minds about modernist ideology. Like the ‘50s American poet Frank O’Hara, I believe that life trumps art and that art is in the service of life. That said, part of my life is a curiosity about further boundaries of aesthetic endeavor and continually experiencing sounds and sights I haven’t before.

I’m all in favor of novelty, for I love trivial and frivolous things. In order for the New in an artform to be worth experiencing more than once, it has to have a resonance or connection with my life, actual or imagined. That resonance can fall into any of many abstract categories -- beauty, emotion, wisdom, insight, observation, politics.

But a career of chasing novelty for novelty’s sake -- well, I hope you’re having fun, fellas.


MUSIC AS DRUG

My friend Nick Griffin’s theory that music is a drug, which I quoted in Friday night’s post, inspired this response from Jay Sherman-Godfrey:

“What about the music playing in my head (my own and others)? As far as I can remember, it has not been interrupted much since I understood what music was. It has certainly allowed me to avoid things I face, but it also colors everything I face. More often than not, in a postive way.

“It heals me.”

JOHN REPLIES: Drugs can heal people. This drug is one the body-brain generates for itself.


GANGSTAS

I'm sure all the pundits and politicos who called on Clinton to resign after lying about sex will now demand that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Rice resign, for lying about life and death, the American economy, American security, chances for world peace.

Don't worry if I pass out from holding my breath.  The body will start breathing on its own.

Saw part of Clinton's show on 60 Minutes last night.  Most of the way through, I was thinking, this guy out-Reagans Reagan!  So affable, so charming, so easy and fluent in conversation, so personable.  Then the talk rolled around to his impeachment, and he said, with some heat and anger, how he was proud of fighting back that illegitimate abuse of prosecutorial power.  Anger in his eyes, but a smile on his face.  And I remembered why people think he’s a phony.  That smile was . . . conflicted.

Clinton was right to fight back of course, and I couldn't help but think of the chagrin of his persecutors.  "We trapped him!  We trapped him fair and square!  We spent tens of millions of public money and how many millions more of private money setting the trap, and he fell into it!  We trapped him!  And he escaped! He got away with it! We trapped him!"

The hatred and hypocrisy make me sick, and America and the world suffer the consequences.  OK, Supreme Court 5, how you feel about your appointee now?

Gangsta pols, the lot of 'em.