Post-Riot Act Moneygrab

[stip]

I want to talk about muppets. when do we get to talk about muppets?

[BurtReynolds]

Elmo has ruined Sesame Street.

[Lament]

Elmo has ruined Sesame Street.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

I'm glad I grew up in an era where Grover was the king of Sesame Street.

[bodysnatcher]

No kidding. Elmo wouldn't have a chance on the streets of Sesame back in the day.

[Lament]

I'm glad I grew up in an era where Grover was the king of Sesame Street.

[Lament]

[96583UP]

[Lament]

[bodysnatcher]

You came deep as any ocean...

[Sgt. Crackpot]

You came deep as any ocean...

[Lament]

You came deep as any ocean...

[---]

Also, I never said "You can't judge music." I would never say that. When I said that it is a subjective experience, I meant that when I say a piece of music sucks, and when you say a piece of music sucks, we are doing so through different lenses and sets of criteria that reflect who we are, our experiences, our upbringing, even our unique DNA. I would never rely on Metacritic to tell me what to listen to. Even if I composed a group of 10 people whose musical taste I trusted above all others, they would still get conflicting opinions with me on some material.

I too am a writer. I have been for many years. I am always working to get better at my craft. And yet, at any given time, a 7 year-old could write something that resonates with a given audience more than my own work. I can't write for objective acclaim. Nothing is permanent, tastes change, etcetera etcetera blah blah blah. What I can do is get better and better at expressing what I need to express. This process helps me understand the world, and get past problems that obssess my mind.

Suck a dick. If you bothered reading, you'd realize that nowhere in here did I say that music is objective. It is not subjective appreciation that I take issue with; it's the naive idea that all music is good music if it expresses emotion (and variations on that idea). There's no denying that there's a huge area of subjective appreciation in music, as in any form of art. But in any form of art, there are also objective standards, and if a song doesn't operate within these objective standards (creative use of line, creative use of metaphor, creative use of language, multiplicity of meaning, authenticity of voice), it's usually drivel.

[bodysnatcher]

You came deep as any ocean...

[---]

I find it hilarious that you have directed this at me. I have been writing poetry since around 1995, and am in a poetry circle in my town that regularly circulates new material to comment on and critique. Of course there are objective levels for improving your writing! And of course you can't take that to the bank, because poetic license allows you to do whatever the fuck you want! If it resonates deeply with you, then there is a good chance it will resonate deeply with someone else too, but maybe that doesn't even matter. If you are really interested in that authentic and fresh voice, then you should probably worry less about what other people think. Art is about expression, no matter the spelling, the syntax, the tube amp sound, the multi-syllabic howling, etc.

In all seriousness, I recommend you research dadaism, because it really gets at the absurdity/profundity paradox that is art.

One final note: many of the poems I've written have encompassed my attempt to wrap my brain around a paradox. Paradoxes can't be expressed easily in ways people can understand, so I work on these little images and thingamabobs to see if I can change that, when I have some kind of insight that seems to hold two realities at the same time. I feel successful if I can read the work back to myself and it pulls off that little mental trick. It's a super awesome bonus if someone else gets the same rush out of reading it. It's even better when they get a bigger rush than I did when I wrote it. But it doesn't matter to me a whole lot that there are legions of people out there that couldn't give a hoot about it, because that's not the point.

Regardless of how much Pearl Jam may suck in one way or another, they have continuously produced material that resonates with me. For that reason, I judge their music to be among my favorite. For that, I am right, and I am wrong. Don't it make you ?

Don't be so fucking dense, of course you can judge poetry. Like any art form, there are certain technical areas in which poems can excel or fail. Freshness of language, complexity of emotion, use of line and meter or lack thereof, authentic voice, auditory elements, visual elements. It's like saying there's no way to judge a Michelangelo painting from a fingerpainting. You're just being a prick if you make that claim, in addition to the fact that you're trying to discredit an artistic form and an artist's talent.

Here's an example. Read these two poems:

Al

I always liked to get a rise out of people, especially
my people, oh those little existentialists,
those little sweatered coffee boys who loved my freedom,
my nausea but who would still squirm the first time
they realized hell is other people. I pictured this
while writing and it always gave me a good laugh.
Rejecting the Nobel, that took some balls too, huh?
I thought that was a riot. Albert didn’t think so,
but he took it for the money later anyway.
He never quite got it, life, not the money.
He got all the money.
I’ll just never forget the time in his apartment in Paris,
when we sat in his living room
and he told me about being thankful for life
even if it’s meaningless
and I told him, now look here Al
it’s only meaningless if you can’t take the joke
and then I poured my coffee on his pants.
Whoops, wasn’t me. I’d better go see the doctor,
I think I have a horrible case of bad faith.
Well, Al didn’t find that funny one bit,
didn’t even want to be an existentialist after that.
Sometimes he took things so terribly seriously,
and it really was a shame, because he could have been
terribly funny, especially with that arab,
but he could never keep a straight face when he lied
and really, that was my biggest secret.

The Poet at Seventeen

My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleying
Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where
I spent it all, extravagantly, believing
My delicate touch on a cue would last for years.

Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,
And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breath
When the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sang
Their lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;

Jalisco, No Te Rajes—the corny tunes
Their sons would just as soon forget, at recess,
Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own.
Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish.

I hated high school then, & on weekends drove
A tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boring
I memorized poems above the engine’s monotone.
Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing,

And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then.
I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings,
The slightest change in plumage, or the inflection
Of a call. And why not admit it? I was happy

Then. I believed in no one. I had the kind
Of solitude the world usually allows
Only to kings & criminals who are extinct,
Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow

As fields I disced: I turned up the same gray
Earth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisin
Each autumn, & made that little hell of days—
The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans

Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapes
They picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spiders
Strummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs.
The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared.

And the girls I tried to talk to after class
Sailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,
With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment.
Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road.

A life like that? It seemed to go on forever—
Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractor
Warm afternoons, then billiards on blue October
Nights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember

The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullenness
Like party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend.
And then the first ice hung like spider lattices
Or the embroideries of Great Aunt No One,

And then the first dark entering the trees—
And inside, the adults with their cocktails before dinner,
The way they always seemed afraid of something,
And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.

Both poems have something to do with memory and something to do with the difference between the self and others. The difference is that the first is one of my early attempts at poetry, and the second is "The Poet at Seventeen" by the incomparable Larry Levis. You can't look at these two poems and not judge between the two. While mine is amateur in voice and inauthentic, filled with cliches, terribly bland emotions, and really childish allusions, Levis's poem makes good use of the line, feels real and gritty, uses a collection of images that play off each other, and all in all is one fucking incredible poem. There is an objective element there. You'd be a moron to say otherwise.

The universalist, democratic view of poetry is absolute shit, and anyone who has read poetry extensively knows that. Anyone who hasn't read poetry should probably stop talking about poetry. Oh it's just about your feelings. Oh, it's supposed to show you another dimension. Blow a dick.

[BurtReynolds]

this thread just took a turn...
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Spoiler: show

for the best.

[Kaius]

I'm turned on

[William Bloke]

I too am firmly Team Grover. Who the fuck is Elmo?

[Farmer John]

So what did we conclude here....music is objective?

[Jorge]

I'm turned on

Stop it!