uTopianTurtleTop

MODERNISM IS DANDY

Only a dandy whose chief concern is maintaining a sense of originality in style disdains the obvious for-the-sake-of-disdaining-the-obvious. This gets at my problem with modernism in the arts.

A friend who had played all sorts of music, from rock and roll to Medieval lute music to 12-tone, reported this conversation to me 1991 or ‘92, with much laughter:

Enthusiastic Austin resident: “Austin is great. You can go to 21 different bars on 21 different nights and hear 21 different kinds of music.”

Graduate student in musical composition, sincerely looking down his nose: “Ah, but what would you do on the 22nd night?”